WEBSITE EVALUATION FOR BETTER!

       Hello, there beautiful adventurers! This week I want to talk about websites and their evaluations. We now can easily access to any sort of information with just one click, we even can form our own source of information like I do. That means every person on this planet can put something on the Internet. So, while searching for the true information we should be critical and we should evaluate our sources whether it is a website or an article! 💁

    I want to evaluate and ELT website to show you an example of  'How to evaluate a source?'. I found this website called  Demand High ELT  by Adrian Underhill and Jim Scrivener while searching on this website. Aim of this website is to give a sense of 'Demand High' to English teachers by not being anti to any type of method or task. Its target audience is actually English teachers as it tells about how to go beyond the textbooks in class and improving students' skills. So, shall we start evaluating? 😊

    Here is the link of the website: https://demandhighelt.wordpress.com/

💭 WHO AUTHORED THE WEBSITE? IS THERE ANY INFORMATION ABOUT THEIR QUALIFICATIONS OT CREDENTIALS?

    Unfortunately, anywhere on the website, I could not find the names of the authors except on other websites suggesting and explaining this blog. However, in an article on the website, I found a powerpoint show that reveals their names. Adrian Underhill and Jim Scrivener are the people behind this nice website. After doing some research on google I found plenty of information about them again I could not find any information about them on the website. I can certainly say that they are qualified people on ELT as they have books and give seminars.

💭WHAT IS THE CONTENT OF THE WEBSITE?

    It is actually a website that mostly focuses on the idea of 'Demand High'. You can find more information about Demand High here, on the website.  It also consists of lots of articles, speeches, tasks, and training for teachers to make self-reflection and be better for their students' needs. 

💭WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE WEBSITE? 

   
    As I have mentioned before, its purpose is to make teachers think more about their students and go beyond the textbooks. It helps teachers to make critical thinking about how to provide content for the class to improve students' skills more deeply.

💭IS THERE A DATE THAT SHOWS WHEN THE SITE HAS LASST BEEN UPDATED? 

The last post on the website is from April 2015 which means it is no longer updated. However, you can still find a variety of helpful information as an ELT teacher or as a prospective teacher. The good part is on their home page there is a section called 'Where are We Now?' which can be seen as a goodbye or as a sign of not being updated. 🙍 It tells that even though the website is not being updated, they are still working on the idea of Demand High and giving seminars.

💭ACCURACY OF THE INFORMATION- ARE THERE ANY ERRORS?

    There are lots of good comments from the people all around the world on this site, saying how helpful it was for them and discussing the topics under the posts. As far as I observed, the information on the website is really accurate and as a result, it is very helpful. I could not find any spelling mistakes or any wrong information as it comes from qualified people. 👌

💭ARE THERE ANY BROKEN LINKS?

Unfortunately, I found a broken link which is the very last article they have posted. When you click for the full article an error page occurs. Other than that you can find plenty of well-working links. 👍

💭ARE THE IMAGES OF HIGH QUALITY AND APPEALING TO THE TARGET AUDIENCE?

      As you click on the website, you understand that this site is not for people who love pictures and colors. Because the very only picture on the website is on the home page and other than that there are only links and some powerpoint shows. I think there should be more visuals as there are more appealing but this is a serious website working on serious ideas and it is for adults mostly. 🙅So, I can understand that people visiting this website are not looking for pretty pictures but very deep information and tasks.

💭HOW CAN IT BE APPLIED TO EFL TEACHING?

     I personally find it very helpful for those teachers, who don't want to go through only textbooks but want to have a class full of activities to help students gain the skills that they need in their real lives. I think prospective teachers can also benefit from this website and fill the information gap as a result of lack of experience. It can be applied by teachers themselves to be reflective teachers and to make their teaching more influential for both inside and outside of the class. They can't apply it directly to the class and students but by the information that they gain they can create their own style of teaching for needs.

    Now that we know the questions that should be asked while evaluating a source, we can easily get the true and reliable information from accurate websites. Thank you for reading my blog and if you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask. 👯 

   Have a wonderful day, people! Seek for the true information and please approach critically to every source you find!

Refiye.