openmind — Wed, 29 Aug 2001 20:55:51 +0000

Quote: Originally posted by jinxuk
Whichever way its done i believe its the encouragement and interaction of the parent/parents that makes a big difference

Quite agree! The education of a child should never be left to one thing only. At the end of the day the parents have the responsibility to the child to ensure they get the best possible start in life.

However, learning needs to be fun and interactive. I know kids were educated before the advent of PC's and televisions but now we have the facilities to use these tools to their advantage.

From a parents point of view, any teaching aid for children is a bonus....

jinxuk — Wed, 29 Aug 2001 20:46:25 +0000

The part you quoted flipper was`nt aimed at you, and please dont be offended about the way i put things, i just like to get straight to the point, and no sore points here.

In my own experience i have sat my kids down at the pc with an education package, with aliens to shoot as it asks a science question and at the end of it all they seem to remember is how many aliens they blasted.

Yet when i then sat them at the table with paper and pencil for a few weeks during the school break they picked things up much quicker and now there in front with there school work.I think we expect to sit them in front of a pc and this magic box will do the rest.
Whichever way its done i believe its the encouragement and interaction of the parent/parents that makes a big difference. Hopefully my site will help with this.

openmind — Wed, 29 Aug 2001 20:30:41 +0000

Quote: Originally posted by jinxuk
please stop patronising kids, not everything has to sing and dance for them to learn and retain information. If kids don't find history or any subject interesting then cartoons and a light show are unlikely to change this. Cute cartoons may seem fine for a five year old but will soon put off an eleven + year old.

It was never my intention to patronise kids (I am assuming this is for my attention) I honestly sat an eleven year old in front of the PC and asked him what he thought!

In my eyes if you are designing something for a child then the easiest way to gain the interest of that child is to test it on them....

My point that I was making, maybe I didn't put it across too well :blush: was that kids need to be constantly entertained to retain their attention. Mine certainly do! If this means making a site more attractive and interactive then so be it...

Apoligies if I hit a sore spot, it was not my intention...

jinxuk — Wed, 29 Aug 2001 20:20:05 +0000

Thanks for the reviews, some good some bad. Couple of points id like to clear up,

the age my site is aimed at, well i considered this and decided not to limit it with an age level. Does every site you visit need to show you what age its aimed at ?. This I feel is a burden, and I do not want to pass it on to anyone coming to my site. If you want to learn about any given subject does it matter. Even adults may learn a thing or two.

and please stop patronising kids, not everything has to sing and dance for them to learn and retain information. If kids don't find history or any subject interesting then cartoons and a light show are unlikely to change this. Cute cartoons may seem fine for a five year old but will soon put off an eleven + year old.

The difference between this site and the many others will be the worksheets that the child prints out. All questions will be answerable by looking through the appropriate topic. and the bold headings that separate each section of the topic will help them find the answers so they dont have to trawl through the whole article.

Example :(subject)Roman Army
Q1) what was the name given to Roman soldiers

answer will then be easier to find, Romans/sub heading Army/, get it? it isn't rocket science people.

As for the colour (color) issue well that's peoples taste and I cant cater to everyone, some like it some don't.

Also the content is very minimal at the moment, but as im a one man band trying to put it all together it will take time, but there will be plenty in the near future.

and the Games link is not there to take up a bit of space, these games will be mostly of my own creation, they will be purely educational games to either print out or learn online and there wont be an alien in sight.

Links are needed on all pages I agree, and as for the cannon (some people) well that represents history.

Official Kiddy Test!

openmind — Wed, 29 Aug 2001 11:47:02 +0000

I thought the best way to try and critique a web site aimed at kids was with a kid! So grabbing the nearest 11 year old, my son Daniel, by the lughole I sat him down and this is what he came up with!

I like the colours, theyre nice & bright but I can't see many cartoons...Whats the games!!! (always sidetracked by anthing starting with Ga and ending with mes!) Oh there's nothing there. I'd probably use it for my homework though....

Whats the expression...'from the mouths of babes...'!

Well he certainly liked it, from an adult perspective (that's me now ) I think the site shows great promise, obviously more content needs to be added but thats just a time thing I suppose...Loads up fairly quick on a 56K modem...The logo is a little bland but then graphic appreciation has never been one of my strong points!...

Overall score daniel? 7/10

Kids r great for some things eh?

Now back in your cage Daniel....off you go.....

disaster-master — Wed, 29 Aug 2001 04:02:41 +0000

I guess since I have been a homeschool mom for several years now and am familiar with almost every educational site available on the net I say it needs work on content. I know that you aren't finished with it but to me it looks like so many of the other copy-cat educational sites out there. You need something to jazz the content up. Something different.

You do have a very wide range of subjects here and it is going to be difficult for you to make any one of them interesting enough to keep people at your site. I don't mean to sound harsh. I just hope you plan on adding a lot more. There are just so many of them it will be hard for you to beat what the larger sites have.

The printable worksheets are a great idea. The more you have the better. That is one thing that will bring people back. I assume that you will be selling educational material also from seeing the "Shop" link. That is good and will help with increasing your traffic.

I like how you have the little different colored circles but the font needs to be plainer. I agree with the advise everyone else gave you on the font.

I don't think the background and the shade of blue match very well. It just isn't "lively" enough. And the left and right side border graphics took a little long to load.

The title, Homework UK, needs to be a brighter color instead of the dark blue. The little star cutouts and the red rollover buttons at the top are cute. I like those.

You need some text links to each page maybe at the bottom as well as the graphic links. It was annoying having to go back home to get to the next page.

I will be interested in seeing what all you have as far as content when you are finished. Keep at it!!

Busy — Wed, 29 Aug 2001 02:31:47 +0000

i like this layout (design), first unquie one in a while BUT
(hehe always a butt) i dont like the background color

the links up top are hard to make out
the text on the index "learning materials .." is a little blurry, making it hard to read.
on the pages themselves you have the topic button at the bottom, maybe move it to the top?
the pages also have the word "index" index to most people (i could be wrong here) means the first page, so could, to some mean this IS the web site if come from outside your site
I'd also add a "top" link at the bottom of the longer pages

is the maths page finished, are you just linking to the main directory for the printable pages or are you going to make a text version, the directory could be confusing and has that "i couldnt be bothered finishing it" look

I realise by the missing links its unfinished but am curious as to what level this site is for, you have no mention if its primary, high school etc
i know our education system is totally different to the USA but am unsure about the UK, USA's high school is our college, their college is our, well we don't really have one. we go to unitech after college if wanting to further our education

the house graphic fits the site but whats the cannon got to do with it? (and am so glad its not animated)

on the history page, dont forget to add the scottish and english history, when i went to the UK i found the history of the scotts very interesting, didnt even know they had tryed taking over USA

jinxuk — Tue, 28 Aug 2001 21:50:42 +0000

if you hold your mouse over the underlined text in the articles such as history/romans you will see these are not links, a box similiar to the alt box pops up to explain difficult words, i have used javascript and the link is void. any words that are just in bold i have yet to complete.

taff — Tue, 28 Aug 2001 16:03:31 +0000

Oh, I get it - the underlined words aren't links while the non-underlined are... too confusing!

a) chose a link colour, and b) avoid underlining the other text.

I too would like to see a non-bold, sans serif font for the text. It would be easier to read.

It would be nice if there was some sort of site navigation system throughout so I didn't have to go home before exploring a new section.

Nice colour scheme and layout although I agree that the text graphics need to be sharper.

Megan — Tue, 28 Aug 2001 13:28:58 +0000

About the other pages - First of all I would switch everything to a sans-serif font. It's much easier to read on a screen. Another thing I'm finding that all of the fonts are a little on the big side. Paragraph formatting also needs some work (use the tag!). Having links in the same colour as the text could be confusing to some people - I would change those to blue or something.