=*=Maddie’s E-Learning Experiences=*=

The assessment is due today and im having problems trying to get my stupid bloody storyboard onto the stupid webpage. After spending two and a half hours agonising on how and why doesnt Inspiration and Edublogs let me transfer my storyboard across i finally gave up and decided that its probably time i went to work

Came back from work at 11.30 and called up my boyfriend who told me i could probably get my storyboard up on my webpage by using an image site such as tinypic or imageshack to host my storyboard. Will work on this tomorrow.

arghhhh i am becoming overrun with assessments and exam preparation. Why do universities like to give out assessments and have them all due at the same time????? I dont think I will ever be able to comprehend the reason to that question if there actually is one… Ohwell i  guess i will be losing quite a lot of sleep in the following week

Today in class we undertook Assessment Part 2. :):):):):?

The assessment comprised of around 6 questions that required us to look at 3 different e-learning multimedia websites. The three multimedia websites were all very different and had unique visual features. I think that my answers were ok and i am hoping to get a credit grade for that assessment

Hmm been thinking a lot about the next upcoming assessments. I think that they should be quite easy and fun to complete hopefully… lol I wonder for the integration of technologies I should include podcasting from the first assessment. I think  I will choose virtual worlds for the other technology they seem like quite fun.

After just briefly looking at Assessment2: Recommendations for Design, i think that i will start to incorporate Behaviourism and Cognitive learning theories for question 2 (Explain the learning theory or theories and how they are to be applied to the context). However i am slighting confused on how to answer some of the other questions that rely on thing question. For example How do i reflect behaviourist and cognitivist theories into the storyboard? Is there a set layout? Or can i create my own storyboard that reflects these theories? And most importantly will it be obvious to see these theories in my storyboard?

• Course Evaluation
• Course Title: Learn French Free Online
• Course Provider:Loquella.com
• Stated Course Objectives or Outcomes:To reach a level of proficiency that enables myself to participate in formal and informal French conversations. *Be able to write and translate basic French words and sentences.
• Achievement of Outcomes:1/2 achieved. I wasnt able to reach a level of proficiency to enable myself to participate in formal and informal French conversations. I however can write and translate basic French words and sentences.
• Stated Course Duration:4 hours
• Actual Course Duration:30 hours

• Administration:
• Were you provided with any support contact details? Yes/No
• Did you need to contact admin support? Yes/No

• Materials:
• Were you supplied with any support materials Yes/No If Yes what materials?

Were you issued with a certificate? Yes/No?

• Technology:
• Do you have any issues with any of the technology used by this course Yes. The main problem I had with technology is that the audio would take awhile to load and then would lag in certain places. This became very annoying as I often had to repeat the same sentence a number of times.
•  Virtual classroom:
• Which components of the virtual classroom did the course offer? Audio
• Did you use any of them? Yes/No

 Interactivity:

• Rate the degree of interactivity

None, Low, Some, High, Very High

• Feedback:
• Was there any feedback during the course? Yes/No
• Was it personal? Yes/No
• Or computer generated Yes/No
• Rate the quality of feedback

Poor, Fair, Good, Very Good

Content:

• Did the content cater to differing learning styles? Yes/No How? I felt that it only catered to one learning style. As it required you to take in chunks of information. I think that this particular learning style is similar to that of an Assimilator.
• Was the content logically sequenced and organized? Yes/No
• Were there options for different levels of expertise? Yes/No
• Were there any exercises that allowed you to practice skills? Yes/No
• Was the content in plain English or Jargon? Plain english
• Was there a “real” facilitator? Yes/No
• How could you make contact with the facilitator if you chose to?

I would have to send an email to info@loquella.com and I wouldn’t be speaking to a facilitator anyway

• Navigation:
• Was the navigation of the course content logical? Yes/No
• Were there “breadcrumbs”? Yes/No
• Was it simple to navigate to the last point where you had left the course? Yes/No
• Did the site have FAQ’s? Yes/No
• Did you use them? Yes/No
• Did they help? Yes/No

Additional CommentsOverall I was quite disappointed with this course as I expected much more out of it. I had many problems and when I tried to look for some support I was referred to an email address. Which was inadequate for the level of support that I needed.

Lesson #4 (Hour number 4)

This is the final installment of my French online learning course at loquella. Today I worked on how to get tickets for a train ride. This was a bit more challenging for me and I must admit that my motivation was a lot stronger unlike the other lessons.  Maybe this is because it is my last lesson and that I’m trying to get as much out of this course as possible.

 Firstly I listened to the dialogue then I was required to repeat it and then I played the role of one of the characters.  And as I went further into this course I played all the parts of the characters in the dialogue. Which is good in theory but confusing as a learner as it doesnt show and state the character changes effectively. After this it got very confusing as I had to figure out that the dialogue on the screen changed completely and that they were combining the sentences together although they were said by different characters. This is definately one pitfall of this course, as it doesnt exactly describe what each lesson is about and how they change. The dialogue also got a lot faster than before which totally messed up my own self pace that I was repeating the French words.  I have just looked for some support for this course and I managed to find what  I was looking for.  Further down the page it had a link that said course information. Which helped me understand quite a lot about the words and dialogue I was learning.

 So far I have completed:

 Learn French Lesson 1

• Classroom expressions
• Dialogue : Dans la rue
• Useful words
• Vocabulary awareness
• Lexical drills
• Questions on the dialogue
• Grammar 1:Noun-Marker – Definite article: le, la, etc.. – Sentence 703
• Grammar 2: Subject pronouns – Sentence 925
• Grammar 3: Inversion questions – Sentence 1071
• Grammar 4: Verb: être – Sentence 1271
• Question drill
• Response drill
• Review drills

Learn French Lesson 2

• Dialogue : Dans un petit hotel
• Useful words
• Vocabulary awareness
• Lexical drills
• Questions on the dialogue
• Grammar 1: Noun-Marker – Indefinite article: un, une, etc.. – Sentence 683
• Grammar 2: Noun-Marker – Cardinal numbers – Sentence 897
• Grammar 3: Negative adverb: ne.. .pas – Sentence 1090 – 1092
• Grammar 4: Verb: avoir – Sentence 1361
• Situations
• Question drill
• Response drill
• Review drills

Learn French Lesson 3

• Dialogue : A la gare
• Dialogue notes
• Useful words
• Vocabulary awareness
• Lexical drills
• Questions on the dialogue *I AM CURRENTLY UP TO HERE*
• Grammar 1: Noun-Marker – Demonstrative adjectives: ce, cet, etc. – Sentence 618
• Grammar 2: à la, au, etc. – Sentence 809 – 810
• Grammar 3: Yes/No questions – Sentence 980 – 981
• Grammar 4: Verbs with infinitive ending in –er – Sentence 1242 – 1243
• Situations
• Question drill
• Response drill
• Review drills

 Had I remembered to look here before, I feel that this would have helped my learning quite a lot. I remembered looking at this page when I was looking for a course to do and whether it would meet the assessment criteria. If only I had remembered earlier….. how annoying….. grrrrrrrrr. This now makes it a hell of a lot easier to understand the content  I have been learning and even though this has been quite a pit fall to me, I now know and understand a bit better what I have previously been learning.

The design and layout of the online course is completely and absolutely boring. And I think that this is affecting my motivation quite a lot. It would probably improve if the course was more interactive and interesting.

Unfortunately, I am at the end of my 4 hours and I have had quite an experience with learning French online at Loquella.com. My reflection on this course will be on a different page, which will be accessible on my blog.

Lesson number 3 (Hour number 3) 

Despite having quite negative comments about the 2nd part of my French online course, I have decided to start today fresh and hopefully have a more positive mind set.

I  have noticed that I am starting to pick up the French words and pronounciation a bit more faster than last time. Thus proving that practice does indeed help the learning process. One good thing about this course is that it  reinforces the content you have learnt and makes it stick in your head. I am also learning a lot about the French culture and the kind of Frenchy accent I have to adopt to my pronounciation and speaking. The fast talking is still quite a challenge for me even though I am getting better. I think that I am mixing up the French words with the pronounciation. For example Votre is pronounced Vot and I pronounce it Votrey.

 Looking at the same background is becoming very tedious for me and I feel that my motivation and concentration are rapidly decreasing with every new sentence I am learning. However the content and revision of the words and sentences is making it a lot more easier to say and pick up. I feel that I am slowing down my progress due to lack of interaction and repetitive tasks, and that I am slowly achieving my outcomes.

Lesson Number 2 (Hour number 2)

I started my online course again and picked up where I left off at. Today I would have to say that my motivation was a bit lower than yesterday, maybe because I knew what I would be doing and the element of suprise had gone? I think that I am also a bit closer to achieving my outcomes as I can now say words in French without having to read it or have someone say the word for me.  For example I have learnt that just off the top of my head :

• Traduisez means Translate and is pronounced “Tradveesed”
• Dites-moi votre nom means Tell me your name and is pronounced “Dite moi vot nom”
•  S’il vous plait means please and is pronounced “Siv vou play”
• Tous ensemble means all together and is pronounced “Tous onsomble”
• apre moi means after me and is pronounced “aprey mwa”
• en anglais means in english and is pronounced “an onglay” As you can see I am learning quite quickly. However I have noticed a few weaknesses of the course. Although the course is very structured (it has lessons and sentences), it has around 2000 sentences you can learn before moving on to the next lesson. I think that this is quite unrealistic as the learner spends most of their time clicking the next button over and over. And as this gets quite repetitive I can feel my motivation decreasing when I go to click the next button. The course is also presented in a way that is easy to use(you can use the keyboard arrows to move to the next sentence) but is still very boring to look at and requires a lot of concentration. I feel that it would benefit more from the implementation of pictures and varying of learner interaction. The content of the course is based on real life scenarios. For example it has class room expressions and a lot of tourist scenarios such as what to say to catch a cab. This is good for me as the sole reason I was interested in this course is because I want to travel to France next year for a holiday.
  

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Before Starting The Online Course 

 I am quite motivated and interested in learning the French language and I feel that this online course will help my pronounciation and writing skills. I hope that this course will be enjoyable and fun for me to do.

I will be starting my online course today and will do it in blocks of 4. So I will have 4 lessons for the 4 hours I am needed to complete my online course.
Lesson Number One: (Hour number one)

I started off the French Learning course by looking and reading the first sentence in English first, then it would be displayed in French and then said in French. I would then repeat the sentence with the online voice.  I found that this was a very good way to learn and pick up French quite quickly. One challenge that I experienced whilst starting this course is that the Dialogue is quite fast and that some of the words  are said very quickly so I feel like im saying a tongue twister and I often get the words mixed up.  However it is getting easier, I just need to practice some more.So far the course has been enjoyable and I’m even laughing at myself trying to pronounce and say French words and that my motivation level has gone from really high to a stable state. I have learnt to read and say French words that I couldnt before and am really close to writing and having a proper French conversation.