Assessing Educational Websites

This page aims to help you to assess educational (especially grammar) websites. There are links to some articles on the subject and a short quiz on the content of the best of these articles (the quiz may not be here yet - patience!). I have been involved in some educational website design, particularly being a consultant on the first version of the British Council site (at http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/).

This page contains links to some grammar and vocabulary mistakes pages on the web. Please note that these resources are all outside actionenglish.com and the content is obviously the responsibility of the site on which they are hosted. I would appreciate any comments on these sites.

All of the sites open in a new page. A few difficult words are also liked to definitions in the excellent Cambridge Dictionaries Online, (these also open in a new page).

 

Education Specific Links:

http://iteslj.org/Articles/Kelly-Guidelines.html
Although aimed at web designers this is an excellent site, a "must-read".

http://www.vts.rdn.ac.uk/tutorial/engstud?sid=5910832&op=preview&manifestid=130&itemid=13105
A very nice short tutorial on "trustworthiness" ending in a short quiz to test understanding.

http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/net/comps/eval.html
A rather dense academic type article on evaluating educational websites, especially from a multi-cultural perspective. For practical evaluation, the checklist questions may be the most useful part of the article.

 

Other Links:

http://www.library.ualberta.ca/guides/criticalevaluation/index.cfm
The University of Alberta library has some excellent resources on aspects of the internet and true to form, their evaluation checklist is outstanding.

http://www.metrac.org/programs/info/assess.htm
Some good checklist questions, particularly on "trustworthiness" and URLs.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1842142.stm
An article about problems with the design of some commercial sites. Many of the same design issues apply to educational sites.