Implementing and Evaluating Arabic E-Learning System - Assignment Example

System Evaluation: Arabic E- Learning System Introduction In a modern world, online collaboration is very necessary for professionals in various fields to be able to enhance their skills. The modern times are referred to as the information age where information is paramount for people to thrive (Markaz, 2012). People of the same profession find themselves wanting to share the information they have. Every profession acts both as a consumer and a producer of information that is not only relevant to his profession but also that can be used to enhance the profession as a whole (Nagle, 2013). Having a way to improve and harness this information and have it shared with the other professionals is important. As a producer of information, every professional is expected to be able to share the information and ideas they have produced in their course of work. As consumers, they expect to have an easy way to access the information that has been produced by others in the same profession. This applies to all types of professions. Teachers are no except from this need of information production and sharing. In fact, this need to produce share and information and collaborate is highly necessary for teachers, regardless of the subject they are teaching (Cowen, 2014). As part of the Arabic teachers’ community, I have identified a need to have collaboration and sharing system for Arabic teachers. As a result of this, I have in the past come up with the design which when implemented will help in teaching Arabic teachers to share their ideas and to build each other. The following is an implementation and evaluation of the design I have designed in the past. Context of the e-learning system The system is designed to aid learning and sharing of ideas. The system is geared towards helping teachers who are engaged in teaching Arabic to high school students. The system must be able to meet some pedagogical principles in order to aid in helping the teachers to not only share the knowledge but also to be able learn from the system. It must be able to motivate the teachers in using the system to enhance the system. The system is not going to be useful unless and until the system is used by the teachers. For this to to be a reality, the system should be easy to use, and must prove its self useful to the users in order for them to find it useful. This means that the system must be intuitive which means that the users must be find it easy to learn how the various components work and how they can navigate the system (Klopotek, 2002). It must also be able to act as a knowledge management system which means that it will be able to capture knowledge as it is produced and also disseminate the knowledge as soon as possible. The process of the e-learning system Fig. 1.1 the process of implementation of the system Analysis The analysis was geared towards identifying all the needs of the system with regard to what the final system should be able to do and how it is able to do it. As Feather (2003) says, this is very important in any system design process as it lays a foundation upon which the system will be developed. These were as follows; Goals These are the goals of the system in terms of what it is supposed to do. These included the ability to help the teachers to share information, the ability to help the teachers to easily get information from the system and also the ability to produce and disseminate knowledge. The other is to help the teachers develop their career as they engage with the other teachers through the e-learning system. In this particular regard, the system acts as a collaboration tool that leads to better professional outcomes for the Arabic teachers. The e-learning system must also be able to facilitate knowledge development and capture the knowledge from the teachers as they use the system. This is important in making the system to be useful to the teachers continuously (Hobart, 2000). If the system fails to produce more knowledge as time goes on, it may fail to continue being useful to the community of users as they may eventually utilise all the knowledge in the system. The system must therefore continually produce more knowledge and information as time goes on. Learners’ needs Learners’ needs are very important in that they are the core of the system. The biggest mistake that any system development process can make at this juncture is failing to capture learners’ needs (Wilson, 2011). While it is not possible to capture all the needs of the users in one bit, the initial design must capture all the critical needs of the learners in order to make sure that the e-learning system is able to deliver its mandate. This is done by talking to users or at least a section of the users in order to find out what is important to them in terms of the knowledge and information they require about teaching Arabic in high school. Materials The materials necessary for the system to go live will include the various teaching information about Arabic. These materials must be available for the system to go live. Phase II: Design of the system This is the phase where the actual product has started to show its actual face. I have designed the interface of the system which the users will be using to interact with other users, to generate knowledge and information as well s to share and disseminate the knowledge. This is shown in the following figure. Figure 1.2 the Arabic e-learning home page: http://arabicteachingresource.weebly.com/ Fig 1.3 Arabic teaching resource page http://arabicteachingresource.weebly.com/resources.html In the implementation, the needs of the users have been meticulously considered to make sure that they have been captured properly. This is based on the system analysis done earlier. However, as Wenslus (2001) says, the needs of the users can never be fully implemented and therefore this is a continuous process that may continue to be done even after the system has gone life. Designing a website The design stage included the conceptual stage of the process. This was the virtual representation of the system and how it is going to look like as well as what it should be able to do when it does go live. The e-learning system has to depend on a website so as for it to be able to deliver its mandate. In this regard, it has to consider the requirements necessary to design a website. The requirements include; A webpage editor software or resource A server, free hosting or paid hosting. For hosting, free hosting has the obvious advantage of cost management while paid hosting has the advantage of better services such as bigger bandwidth (faster speeds of accessing the resource), more (unlimited) storage for the materials and many other advantages such as security. Suggestions and recommendations At this stage of the implementation, it is necessary to make sure that the suggestions and recommendation of the users as well as other sources of recommendations have been used. These recommendations are such as the ways in which the system can be improved in order for it to meet its needs in a more effective way. Phase III: Development At this stage, the website is being developed. The website will be the one hosting the e-learning system for the Arabic teachers’ online learning resource. The development will include the addition of material to the system in order to make the system useful. These materials will be in terms of the services needed, the various resources such as e-books and other materials the teachers might find useful. It will also include the implementation of the testing system which will be used for testing and evaluation. The development will also include the collaboration tools so as to ensure that the system is able to deliver. Links The fact that the e-learning system is being implemented over the internet will mean that it has to be linked to the internet. Additionally, as noted in the analysis and design stage, it will be absolutely necessary to make sure that the e-learning system is connected to the various social media platforms such as face book and twitter in order to make is more useful. These social medial platforms are very useful in the modern world and most internet users use them. They will also be very useful in the next stage which includes inviting users to use the system and also motivating them once they have been invited. Connecting social media to the system is not going to be a hard process because a lot of plug-in exist which can be used to connect the various aspects of each type of social media. For intake, face book has a lot of plugging that can be used to connect the various tools it provides such as page like, element like, and page as well as element share. This plug-ins can be easily incorporated into any website by just copying and pasting the code for the plug-in. Phase IV: implementation This is the second last bit of the process and has the major steps that must be addressed. The first is the invitation. Invitation Invitation is very important for the system to successful because regardless of how technically sound the system is, without users actually using the goal of the system becoming useful is futile. In this regard, it is absolutely necessary to ensure that the invitations and welcome messages are sent to the right person and the people are motive to come use the system. As identified in the system analysis part as well as the design stage, the social media will be very important for the purposes of invitation to the system. Meaningful integration The very essence of an e-learning system is the meaningful interaction between the users (Manuel, 2012). While accessing information is also important need served by the system, meaningful interaction is also necessary and the users must feel that they are gaining something by belonging to this community of users. Phase IV: Overall evaluation of the system Implementing the system proved to be a little difficult than anticipated. The main areas of challenge were the inclusion a testing system as well as the invitation process. Regardless of that, it can be argued that the system has been implemented with a certain level of success which will make it easier to use. The system is able to deliver some of the mandate it was designed to deliver right from the beginning. There are however more that needs to be done in order for the system to be as useful as envisioned at the design stage. Issues for future development One of the issues that will need to be reconsidered is the meaningful interaction among the users. The initial design of the system was geared towards making sure that the system is able to facilitate collaboration among users and also generation of knowledge and information as the users contribute materials. However, there may be a problem with this because it is not guaranteed that the users will be motivated to share their material. If this becomes the reality, it will be hard for the system to sustain its usefulness to the community of users. This means that the future implementation of the system may need to be redesigned in order to ensure that this aspect of the system is sustained. The other problem that has been identified is the issue of hosting. In the design stage, the issue of the various hosting alternatives did not come up and this only came up during the implementation. At the moment the system is being hosted on a free host and this may affect the way the system is effective. In the future time, it may be necessary to have a paid-hosting in order to improve the effectiveness of the e-learning system in terms of the speed of access, security and the storage capacity. The other issue is the issue of scalability, both in terms of the size in megabytes and also in terms of the functions of the system. This must be addressed in detail to ensure that the e-learning system is able to grow as the community of users grows. Future considerations Just like any other system, this system did not lack some challenges as identified above. There is a necessity to have a plan to make sure that the problems will be solved in the future. These considerations are as follows; Improve the system to be more useful in increasing meaningful integration among the users Improve the invitation process to make the process more useful Consider upgrading the online hosting of the system in order to make sure that the e-learning system is effective. Conclusion It is very clear that there are some problems that the implementation must deal with in order to ensure that the system is implemented successfully. These must be developed in a way that makes the system to be able to meet all the user needs. It will also be highly important to consider other factors that are not technical but which can affect the effectiveness of the systems. These include social factors which can affect the motivation of the users to want to share knowledge. The end-users should be inspired to use the system in sharing their knowledge and information. This will go beyond the technical implementation. It will be solved through working closely with the community of users to identify anything that can hinder this process. These issue must be considered with all seriousness and be implanted properly for the benefit of the users. Reference list: Cowen, J. (2014). Literacy for Children in an Information Age: Teaching Reading, Writing, and Thinking. New York, NY: Cengage Learning. Feather, ,. J. (2003). International Encyclopedia of Information and Library Science. new York, NY: Taylor & Francis. Hobart, M. (2000). Information Ages: Literacy, Numeracy, and the Computer Revolution. New York, NY: JHU Press. Klopotek, K. (2002). Intelligent Information Systems 2002: Proceedings of the IIS 2002 Symposium, Sopot, Poland, June 3 - 6, 2002 ; with 64 Tables. New York, NY: Springer Science & Business Media. Manuel, P. (2012). E-Learnign System in the Modern World. New York, NY: Pearson Education. Markaz, I. (2012). Leadership and Management in the Information Age. New York, NY: I.B.Tauris. Nagle, J. (2013). English Learner Instruction through Collaboration and Inquiry in Teacher Education. New York, NY: IAP Publishers. Wenslus, P. (2001). Implemting System Design. New York, NY: Guille Books. Wilson, I. (2011). Informaton Information System Development. New York, NY: Pearson Books. Read More