As a student myself when looking at a website or more complicated VLE - I do think about independence. For example will this save me the need from going and bothering a tutor for advice? Will it give access to published material that will save me time -so that I have more time for thinking and spend less time rooting around? One really wonderful advance for learner independence at university has been electronic access to journal articles. All that information with just a few clicks incredible. No more rooting around in the dusty basement of the library followed by mammoth and probably illegal photocopying sessions.
Some of the language learning activities found on websites, however,are attractively presented -I'm thinking of 'Using Englsh for Academic Purposes' by Andy Gillett-but do they actually provide any more than a printed text book? Having said that I am aware that if I were in a remote place where there were no text books around I'd be very grateful for Andy Gillet's exercises.
I've just been looking at University of Birmingham-Kibbitzers. I do like the idea of focusing in via a website on small and difficult language points as they come up
and being able to ask questions and contribute opinions about these via the website. I think I like it because it seems so focused, not too ambitious and it is something you wouldn't be able to get from a book.
Alex's suggestion that we get students to evaluate websites is something that appeals to me. i'd like to know what students think about both the websites I've mentioned.
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Hello, I was interested in your comment 'but do they actually provide any more than a printed text book?' If they don't, I suppose you could say that at least access to the materials and costs might appeal to students.
I have spoken at length to Andy Gillett about his site. His view is that he puts his materials up on the web and hopes students make use of it. He doesn't seem too concerned about providing support or advice to students on how to use it. on the one hand I can see his point, he creates the materials, he uses them with his students and if others want to use them too then that's great. One the other hand, it seems to me that he has gone to great lengths to create the site and it requires a great deal of on-going investment. It seems a shame, having invested so much that his materials may not be used in very fruitful ways ...
I like sites that focus on one or two aspects of academic literacy and deal with it in depth. It seems to be that this enables those that have created it to focus time and effort on providing quality rather than quantity.
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