Comments on Esther's HP project

Hi Esther

I have had such problems with my blog not loading. I wanted to give you some feedback even though I guess you have finished your reflections by now.
Some of my comments might seem a bit picky but I didn’t want to give you general comments that didn’t really say anything. Please take everything with a grain of salt.

This project would fit well into an activities program GE. We have culture club for two hours on Wed afternoons which introduces the students to key aspects of Australia. The blue on blue is not an ideal combination, as research shows, especially for students with vision problems and at QUT, for example, we have to consider equity on that matters.

I see you created a whole new webquest.

The You Tube is slow to load. I had the same issue so accessibility could be problem if students have a slow operating system.

Because the project is designed like a webquest, I think you would then have to include all the usual components in order to articulate the pedagogy behind the project ie. Standards, learners’ level, evaluation.

I feel unsure about the age or the stage of the learners. I think you need a few more instructions for navigating the site ie. “when you go to an external site, you should click the back arrow to return to the home page”.

I found when I chose websites that I had to be careful that the language was at a level my students could understand. I think the Easter one is not at the same level at the others. It is really complex and has a lot of stuff in it that is not necessary to do the task. Perhaps consider writing an abridged version of your own if the text is complex.

Maybe consider putting a reminder note in about Wikipedia and the fact that you cannot always trust that the information will be accurate.

The Queens Birthday site is also really complex. What level were you expecting the students to be? It looks to me like these sites require upper intermediate or EAP.

I feel that you have attempted to do such a lot. I think you have done way more than you needed to…you must have flogged yourself. It is very interesting and would actually be really useful for English speakers, say Middle School yrs 7-9 as well as ESL.

Overall, you have worked hard, that’s obvious. I just feel it would generally be overwhelming for students due to the density of the text and the volume of the work. You might like to consider, the following thoughts: What period of time would these tasks be done over? Could they be done in any order? How are they scaffolded for gradual learner development? What level of autonomy or teacher control are you expecting? Do you expect to evaluate it?