We made an evaluation on a cd-rom program on topic English Year 2. The Ministry Education Malaysia published this cd-rom program. We evaluate this cd program through the instructional, curriculum, cosmetic and technical of the program.
The first aspect of evaluation is the instructional that involve motivation, interaction and feedback, and goal orientation. In terms of motivation, this instructional program is clear and well prepare. It has use various elements of multimedia such as color, brightness, sounds, graphics, and animation which is nice and has provoke student’s attention
The content of program is also good and very attractive like one of activity in this program is interactive activity. Nevertheless, it doesn’t provide game in this program because it has provides exercise in the end of each lesson. The question in this exercise has arranged based on the levels of challenge and comprehension from the convenient level to difficult level. Moreover, this program doesn’t provide competition with other students and the computer but has provided competition with the student herself and the clock.
In terms of interaction and feedback, this program able to reinforce the correct answer with positive feedback and it also has supply the correct response. However, it does not evaluate the student’s answers and does not explain why the student’s answers are incorrect so that, the student cannot make the correction. Then, the students may do the same wrong answer.
Next is part of goal orientation. This program doesn’t state clear goal for tutorial and doesn’t defined the objectives and goals. Therefore, students will difficult to refer.
The second aspect of evaluation is curriculum. It is about the accuracy and fairness of the content. The content in this program is fit well into the local school curriculum at the grade level for standard 2. All the information in this program is factually correct and based on the textbook. Other content like diagrams and visual aids include in the program well designed and technically accurate.
The third part of evaluation checklist is cosmetics. This part is very important for us to attract students in learning process. As we know, color and sound are the basic that can influence every body in any aspect and situation.
First part of cosmetics is color. In this program, the colors that are use by programmer are very suitable for student. The color can enhance student to do exercise at the cd and the impact and legibility of the screen. The students who are color-blind nothing will be worry to them, because no instruction, practices in red and green color. For example, the title in every chapter is orange color and the text in a black color.
The program requires no scrolling when reading the information. Everything will appear on that screen when we click. The text layout is easier to read and understand. It is because the fonts that is chosen very clear and simple. The editor are using comic sans for all words and colorful. For instance, the titles are writes in a size 22, and the question in a size 12. About the sounds, that is use not distractions from the main point of the screen, but it gives encouragement to student to continue the practice. As we know, music is something subjective to everybody. It can be motivation to every listener, in example, the instrumental music. The music can influence people. Therefore, the entire programmer can put instrumental music in the education cd as method learning.
The screen layout includes a well laid out combination of text, graphics, and animation which work together to make a particular point clear. In the screen, it has all basic buttons, for example; main menu, quit, e-test, e-journal, interactive activities, and pictorial dictionary. Therefore, it is easy for student to switch the activities that they want to do, whether, they want to continue with another practice or quit from that program. The basic button is friendly use.
Students have growing development in mental and psychology in the 8 years old. In this growing, the students must have something interactive, for example in the learning process, interactive cd must have a good graphic that can give good information and knowledge in a different method as usually they learn in class, and listen the information from teacher. In this program, they have pictorial dictionary. For using, the students just click at the word that they wish to know. Then, the picture will appear and sound of pronounce the word. That is mean, graphics aid understanding to students as well as remember the word. In addition, the graphics attach with words, pictures, and sounds, therefore, the practice become more interactive and innovative. Nowadays, students like to play game, maybe next time, the editor collaborate will programmer make more interactive and creative program, same goes like games education.
Furthermore, this program has set up the nice style of instruction. The instructions are clear, complete, concise, and well formatted on the screen. The user also can return the instruction if they need during the program. There are two types of instruction. Hearing the instruction from operator and clicking the instruction’s button. After that, the program will show to students how to do the exercises. It is important to students to get example first before doing some work. In addition, the mark will appear at the last exercise for each chapter. Therefore, it will give a motivation for students to improve their English as well as increase the words to use in daily life.
However, in this program, there is no information to students about how many questions that will be ask. Students have to click the next button to know there are more questions or not. Its make trouble for them and I hope that the programmer concern about this for the next generation in the cyber area.
The forth part is technical. This part, we look at how the system functioning. The system is going up smoothly and requires no specialized training to operate. If the students want to save the program into the desktop, they can easily copy the cd and keep to students on task. In the introduction, the students have to write their name and classroom, then click enter to start the program.
