E-learning website observation & analysis: Starfall.com

1. E-learning Website
Observation &
Analysis
Tonny Meng-Lun Kuo
Advisor: Prof. Shelly Young
Institute of Learning Sciences
National Tsing Hua University
[E-Learning Spring 2014]

2. Overview
1.Introduction
2.Website Analysis
3.Conclusion
4.Q&A

3. Starfall.com

4. Introduction
•Star+Fall= “evoked wonder and delight”
•Free educational website for the early literacy
development
•Phonics, reading, and mathematics
•For young English language learners
•Founder: Stephen Schutz, early reading difficulty

5. History Year Progress
2002 the launch of the website
2006 the launch of “Pumarosa”
2009
the release “Starfall Kindergarten Reading and
Language Arts Curriculum”
recent the launch of mobile apps

7. Objectives
•Research-based systematic learning objectives
•Four levels
1.Learning ABCs: letter-sound relationships
2.Early beginning reading: word family
3.Intermediate beginning reading: sentence-level
4.Advanced beginning reading: various genres

8. Target Users
•English language learners: build up
their reading ability, fluency, and
comprehension
•Educators: implement proven teaching
methods for classroom use, additional
subscription
•Parents: homeschooling or bolstering
the instruction child receives at school

9. Framework

10. Level
1

11. Level
2

12. Level
3

13. Level
4

14. Others

15. Demo

16. Website Analysis
•Web-based learning provides students with a
different information architecture and interface
design in comparison with conventional classroom
learning (Hamid, 2001).
•Pedagogical, cognitive, social, technical interactive
factors need taking into consideration
•Conceptional framework

17. 1. Five levels of web use
Interface
design
activity
design
multi-media
design
interaction
design
Personalization
Participation knowledge-Pull
•Cognitive theory
•Behaviorism
•Gestalt Theory
•Constructivism
•Nine events of instruction
(Gagne, 1985)
•Information processing
theory
2. Theories and practice
3. 3P model
•informational
•supplemental
•essential
•communal
•immersive

18. 1. Five levels of Web use
•0) no use, 1) informative, 2) supplemental, 

3) essential, 4) communal, 5)immersive
•Students are not productive members, and only
obtain most information from the web.
•Apart from reading, students are not able to
transfer their personal experience in their daily life
to the production of oral representation.

19. 2. Theories and practices
Interface
design
activity
design
multi-media
design
interaction
design

20. Interface design
•Gestalt theory referred to the theories of visual
perception, attempting to organize visual elements
into “group”.
•“law of organization”: proximity, similarity, closure,
and simplicity
•the interface design of the website is appropriate
for young learners.

21. Activity and interaction
design
•Related theories: behaviorism, cognitive theory,
information processing theory, constructivism, and
nine event of instruction (Gagane, 2005)
1.Introduction
2.Monitoring learning process
3.Closure
•Gagne’s model+social interaction

25. Multimedia design
•Three layers:
1.the utilization of the media can improve
understanding of the learning content.
2.the style of the multimedia shows congruence
with the website.
3.the use of the multimedia is legal and stated with
an appropriate Creative Commons license.

26. 3. 3P model
•Personalization: little because the website does
not offer mechanism to foster individualized
learning
•Participation: no groups or communities
•Knowledge-pull: phonemic awareness formation
or reading training, the development of reading
ability can be seen as a way of knowledge pull.

27. Discussion and Conclusion
•User-friendly interface and
rich learning materials and
multimedia resources
•Flash-based
•lack social interaction

28. Peer learning
webcam and sensors
Plan/curriculum

29. “As learning in 21 century is changing in ever-
faster pace, educators and E-learning
designers should speed up with the trend of
web-based learning to create meaningful,
unthreatening, and effective strategies to
facilitate digital natives’ learning.”

31. Thank you!
Tonny Meng-Lun Kuo
[email protected]
[phone]