Reviewer:

Ferit Kiliçkaya

Middle East Technical University

Faculty of Education

Department of Foreign Language

Educational Technology & Society, 8

06531 Ankara/TURKEY

Site URL:

http://www.ompersonal.com.ar

Site title:

OM Personal Multimedia English

Objective of the site:

The objectives are not stated explicitly in the site. However, one can infer that the basic aim is to provide learners of English with multimedia sources in English.

Intended audience:

The site seems to be useful for both students of English (especially for those whose native language is Spanish) and teachers of English.

Domain related aspects:

It is an educational site and it focuses on teaching English. The site provides audio and text materials in English and explanations in Spanish.

The content of the site is original and although it is a commercial site, all the content is free to those who are registered (registration is free).

Structure of the site:

“OM Personal Multimedia English” site is basically divided into four sections:

>  Learning and practice

>  Listening Comprehension

>  Reading Comprehension

>  Extra Edutainment

Under the section headed “Learning and practice”, there are pages related to basic elementary course, tests, dialogues, exams and common errors in English. “Listening comprehension” hosts songs, conversation and dialogues from movies, and everyday dialogues. “Reading comprehension” provides reading passages, dialogues and e-books written in English, which I think is a valuable source. “Extra Edutainment” provides games, cartoons and some lyrics.

Usefulness and richness of each topic:

The site provides learners of English with a variety of materials in English not only in text but also in audio and pictures. It seems that it is rich as regards the materials provided.

As far as the educational value is concerned, I strongly recommend this site to learners of English.

Connectivity:

I did not have any problem in having accessing to the site. I tested the connection speed through ADSL connection and modem connections and no problem occurred. No special software is needed to access the site. However, to listen to audio files and access to the materials designed with flash, it is required to have a media player and a flash player, which are freely available on the Internet (Winamp for example).

Interface related aspects:

The layout of the website

The layout is good and the links to the pages in the site are clearly identifiable. However, the animations on the links are a little bit distracting.

Site structure

The structure of the site is clear and you can easily find what you are looking for with clear titles and links. The background color is not distracting, fonts are readable and the links are clearly identifiable.

Navigation

You can navigate easily. There are some icons and some animations to make the navigation attractive. It has also a site map.

Search facilities

No search facility is provided.

Overall issues:

The site is supported by a commercial firm and all the contact details of the site owners are clearly stated. The site includes some banners; however they are not distracting, they are just related to the content itself provided by the site owners. Also, the advertisement is clearly differentiated from the main site content.

The site is regularly updated (once a month) and the members of the site are informed about each update. In addition, on the main page new content is announced. I have checked the external links to other sites and none of them led to any failing to connect messages.

Other comments:

The site is rich as regards the content and most of the materials on the site are supported with audio materials. The exercises are not just mechanical and it provides the learners with lots of reading and listening through songs and dialogues. However, some of the texts and words are converted to audio versions through text-to-speech programs, which resulted in robotic sounds. Instead of a program (because of the current limitations of this technology), a native speaker should read these texts and words.

The multimedia course for learners of English at elementary level is clearly fascinating since audio files are provided and communicative needs are taken into consideration and what is better, although the site is supported by a commercial firm, all the content (more than 4500 pages) is open to access without any payment.