Criteria D - IDU Reflection

Throughout this term, I have been working on creating a website that can help teach the basics of French to year 7 students. This website had to be interesting, fun and informative so that the students would learn in an exciting environment. While doing this I had to ensure that the website included necessary elements such as activities (using Scratch and other programs), a variety of appealing colours and most importantly it had to be kid-friendly so that the website would be enjoyable and simple to use. Looking further into this point, the website had to satisfy the target audience in order for it to actually succeed. The key element of doing this was to actually test it on year 7 students. While making this website the most challenging part was creating the database for the website; an extension task only I did. In my eyes, this was necessary for the website so that I could add security and personalization. The database would store all the accounts made for this website and show the specific user their progress report. This database was created using Caspio and took me many hours to perfect. However, it still has some flaws which include the fact that the activities and the database were not integrated. So the user had to enter their results after they have finished with the activity. Although this may not be such a big flaw, I knew that the user could enter any result on their progress report. However looking back I can see that this flaw would only affect those who do not want to benefit from this unique feature. What I enjoyed the most while creating this website was to experiment with all the different features WIX had to offer. It was very amusing to see what I could with a single block of text. The possibilities were almost endless. I was able to create rollover images, embed games and so much more. For next time, I would improve on including more French text on the website itself. So I could have a translated page in French and one in English. The French one would be able to teach English while the English one would be able to teach French. To do this I would merely add a link that would lead to the translated page.

Integrating Digital Design into French was definitely interesting for there some benefits and disadvantages. Some of the advantages included the ability to explore a new language as an interdisciplinary learner. I had to research how the language worked and how I had to combine technology with French. This included but was not limited videos, games, audio files,  pictures and puzzles. However, some of the disadvantages outweighed the benefits. One of the disadvantages was the fact that the information I was limited to some very basic topics such as numbers. Overall I can see how this unit has helped me relate tin ire than one branch of knowledge. Although it was a bit challenging creating the games, the database and the website, in the end it was worth it. I can now relate almost all of my subjects together because of this new and different experience.