Hypermedia website

http://www.sesamestreet.org/home

The Sesame Street website is designed for developing the literacy, numerical, and motor skills of young children. I haven't asked how kids feel about this website, but from an adult's perspective, the kids should have found this site very engaging and easy to navigate.

The layout of this website is very suitable for young children. The navigation bars have larger picture icons than the literal descriptions, which is very considerate for young users whose knowledge about print and literacy is still developing. Also, this picture oriented feature caters to users from all over the world. When logging on to this site, no matter what their age, language is, they could navigate easily and locate what they intend to. Besides, the colorful and vivid design is of great appeal to young users.

The thematic organization of the materials presented on this website makes it easier for children to locate the topics, characters they are interested in. For all the games and videos, they are categorized by subject, theme and character. It also helps the users to track back efficiently without getting lost in the hyper link maze. For instance, under the "by subject" categorization, videos that serve a variety of purposes are listed under the different titles, with iconic descriptions that aid understanding.

The quality of the videos and games on this website is excellent in terms of motivating child to learn and meeting learning objectives. Most of the videos are presented in a way that relate to children's prior knowledge from life experiences. The connections between what children already know and what they need to know is established through the interesting dialogues and behaviors of the cartoon characters. Children's assimilation of new information is done in a edutainment approach. On top of all this, there are also parent tips on the side of the screen accompanying each video and game that shows how parents can improve children's learning outcomes by following some simple instructions. The involvement of parents in the learning process will definitely enhance children's achievement. This is especially useful for young children, whose self-management ability is not strong enough to support them in utilizing the website to its fullest potential.

One of the shortcomings of this website is that it mostly requires children to watch and learn rather than encouraging them to produce input or engage in interactions. If children have a chance to get in touch and share learning experiences with other learners, the motivation and engagement might be even better. For example, if children can compare their scores with other kids from the internet, or if they could exchange comments for certain videos, chances are that they might want to explore more video clips and games.

Non-linear text

Somehow, the hyperlink doesn't work all the time under this embeded mode.
try this link, and click on "start presentation:

http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=ddsqpx45_22c3c4fwch

One of the advantages of non-linear text is that it gives the reader a feeling of in control. Rather than negatively receiving input, they get to decide what comes next and what is presented. Although such decision making is not one hundred percent, at least it boosts the participation and motivation of the readers by increasing involvement.

In the "personality-teller" slides I made, I think the readers would find it more engaging and interesting when they are directed to a certain slide after making the choices, compared to the traditional slide by slide format.

However, non-linear text has several down sides, one of which is the difficulty of tracking back to a certain point in the text. Readers might lose the track of their path while enjoying the convenience of the "on demand" presentation, especially when the linkages are numerous.