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EVALUATION
REPORT OF THE WEB SITE
Evaluator:
Michael Vassilakopoulos, PhD
SEPTEMBER 2004
CONTENTS
1. Purpose
2. Description
3. Aesthetics / appearance
4. User friendliness
5. Speed of response
6. Contents
7. Advantages
8. Technical deficiencies
9. Proposals for improvements
and future extensions
10. Conclusion
11. Annexes
Á. Testing and evaluation
environment
Â. Evaluator’s
data
1. Purpose
This
world-wide-web site has been created within the LINGUA project entitled
Hellenic Enjoyable Language Learning On the Net (HELLO Net) and has the
following purposes:
a) To provide on
the internet intensive lessons of Greek, mainly for students from foreign
countries wishing to visit
b) These lessons
to be attractive thanks to their modern appearance, to their easiness of use
and their multimedia character (text, sound, video / images, interactive
exercises).
c) The lessons to
be complemented by other useful information, like information about the basics
of everyday life in
The aim
of this web site (in a wider sense) is to make the mobility of students towards
Greece more easy, giving adequate linguistic and cultural supplies to the
candidate visitor / student for his living in our country, removing, thus, the
fear that possesses many of the foreign students on the thought of visiting a
country with one of the lesser-spoken and difficult languages and with
peculiarities in its social organization.
2. Description
The home page of the
internet site is the following:
The user can choose (from left to right) between the
Greek, British, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, or Belgian flag and be
led to the home page of the corresponding language (of the French language, in
the case of the Belgian flag). The moving wavy images that move randomly from
left to right have exclusively an aesthetic purpose and provide a pleasing and lively sensation.
The home pages of the various languages are
equivalent. The Greek home page differs in not having a link to pages of
linguistic lessons. The English home page appears in the following. Every
reference to this page holds for the home pages of the other languages, too.
From this page the user can choose: a flag and be transferred to the home page
of the corresponding language, a link on the left (one of the red frames, which
will be commented more extensively later on), or a picture-link on the right
(to be informed about the history of the Euro, or to be transferred to the web
site of the cultural Olympiad, “Athens
Next, we
refer to the pages to which the user is led by selecting one of the red frames
on the left. By selecting the «Hellonet» link, the user returns to the home of
the program (Home function).
By selecting
the «Who we are» link, the user is led to the following page that gives
information about the partners of the project and provides links to the
respective web sites.
By selecting the «About
Greece» link, the user is led to a page with rich material about the Greek
modern life, the Greek civilization and the Greek history (an overview of
Greece, useful telephone numbers / telecommunications, banks / post offices,
monuments / sites, consulates / embassies, education, environment, religion,
festivals, entertainment, public transportation, stamps, recipes, Thessaloniki,
Macedonia, the Acropolis of Athens, the Greek language, the Olympic games,
products of the Greek land).
By selecting the
«Newsletter» link, the user is led to a page that contains links to the
newsletter issues of the project. These issues, independently to the language
the home page of which is being browsed, appear in English (the language that
is expected to be spoken adequately by most users). The following page depicts the initial page
of the first newsletter.
An
indicative reference to two of these issues follows. The fall 2002 issue
presents the partners of the project and a research based on questionnaires
filled by 425 students of various European nationalities (except for the Greek
nationality). This research reached very interesting conclusions regarding the
wish of the students to visit
By selecting the «Links»
link, the user is led to a page with a series of links from which he/she can go
to other web sites / pages that provide rich material about the Greek banks,
Greek and International Media, Sports, Greek museums, educational sites, Greek
and international web portals, the Arts, Greek and international search
engines, the Greek mythology, big Greek cities, entertainment and the Greek
monuments. Independently to the language the pages of which are being browsed,
the web sites that the user may be led to appear in English (the language that
is expected to be spoken adequately by most users).
These
links make up a unique collection of sources of information about (modern)
In the home page of
every language (except for the Greek language) there is a link that guides us
to lessons of learning Greek. For example, from the Spanish home page, by selecting
the «Lessons» link, the user is led to the page that follows.
Given that from this page the teaching of the
lessons for learning Greek starts, some introductory information is presented
to the user.
There are two menus.
The left one has 5 choices, which, in turn:
·
Welcome
the user (Welcome)
·
Describe
the structure of the lessons (Introduction)
·
Provide
information about the requirements of the system of the user (System Required)
·
Inform
about the symbols and the abbreviations that appear in the lessons (Symbols)
·
Provide
contact data (Contact)
The top
one has 8 choices, which, in turn, lead to:
·
the
home page of the lessons
·
the
lexicon (dictionary) of the Greek language that includes the total of the words
presented in all lessons (the Greek words are given in alphabetical order,
along their respective translation in English, French, Italian, Portuguese and
Spanish)
·
the
alphabet of the Greek language
·
4
parts of 4 lessons each and 1 revision lesson based on the material of all the
4 lessons of this part
·
the
grammar of the Greek language that covers the material presented in the
lessons.
Each lesson has 6 parts:
·
the
Presentation, with texts and useful expressions
·
the
Application , with texts and exercises
·
the
Glossary, with new words and expressions, and
·
the
Grammar, with presentation of the relative grammatical phenomena (by category,
like articles, nouns, adjectives, pronouns and verbs) and exercises
·
the
life (with pictures and short texts) of the fictitious Erasmus student Carmelo,
who has visited
·
a
game or puzzle that makes learning more amusing
The page that follows is the one
that appears when the user selects the lexicon, which depicts all the words
that exist in the 16 lessons in each of the 6 languages of the web site. First
language is the Greek one, according to which the words appear alphabetically
ordered. For each Greek word, its gender and category are given.
The page that follows is
the one that appears when the user selects the alphabet through the Italian
pages. The alphabet to which we are led through the pages of any other of the
foreign languages is analogous.
To the left, there is a
menu with choices for:
·
the
home page of the alphabet, where for each letter there is a word that has this
letter as an initial one and the respective image and link (loudspeaker image);
by selecting this link the sound of the word is downloaded and is “played” by
the loudspeakers / headphones of the user’s computer.
·
the
vowels of the Greek language and their combinations
·
the
consonants of the Greek language and their combinations
·
exercises
·
a
game of words
In the page that follows
there appears a lesson (indicatively, the first lesson of the Portuguese language
is depicted, although the lessons are analogous for all languages). On the left
side of the page there are the links that lead to the Presentation (texts and
useful expressions), the Application (texts and exercises), the Glossary and
the Grammar (grammatical phenomena and exercises). Each lesson is completed
with the link that refers with pictures and short texts to the fictitious
Erasmus student Carmelo, who has visited
One of these games is depicted next.
The games have from 1 to 3
difficulty levels and concern:
- Greek
mythology (Icaros and Daidalos, the Labyrinth of Minotaurus, the
flesh-eating birds of Stymphalia, the evil witch Kirki)
- Greek
science (the mirrors of Archimedes)
- puzzles
with letters and images
These games make the use of the web
site more agreeable, by combining learning and amusement and constitute a
motive for the repeated visiting of this web site.
In
the page that follows, the grammar to which we are led starting from the French
or Belgian flag is depicted (the grammar page for the other foreign languages
is analogous). From this page we have access to all the individual pages that
concern to the presentation of grammatical phenomena in the 16 lessons. The
presentation is done per grammatical phenomenon (the articles, the pronouns,
the verbs and the nouns). There is a navigation menu that helps the reader to
move to the grammar chapter that interests him.
3. Aesthetics and Presentation
The aesthetics of the web site are
characterized as very good. The logo of the site (and of the project) that
appears next is particularly elegant.
Moreover,
the home page of the site (appearing on the cover page of the evaluation
report) positively predisposes the user for the pages that follow. The letters
that accompany the logo of site are characterized as being of high quality:
The home pages of the
various languages make use of frames that, thanks to the use of curves and
distressed lines in the decoration of the top and left frame, escape
from the commonly used frames that have the form of simple rectangles. The blue color is dominant. However this does
not give impression of monotony, since the image seen by the user is enriched
by the red links on the left and the multi-color flags on top.
The home page of each
language is dominated by the moving word Hellonet. At the pages of the
individual lessons, a different color is used for each part of 4 lessons. This
discrimination by color helps the user to make the respective intellectual
discrimination (since each part of 4 lessons refers to a different group of
subjects). The colors are quite intense, without leaving a negative impression.
This way, the user is kept in vigilance, but he/she is perhaps getting tired
more rapidly. In these pages, there is also use of frames but in a more classic
sense (here the frames have the appearance of simple rectangles). The use of
the non mechanistic font Tahoma in the left frames of the lessons makes the
appearance of the respective pages very agreeable, as well as the use of icons
for the functions
“Next” 
, “Previous” 
, “Home”
and
“E-mail” 
.
In
general, in all the pages of the web site there is an extensive use of pictures
and icons, successful use of frames, there is a balance of colors and the
choices of fonts are good. This site, many times, reminds to the user a book
that teaches foreign languages, where, within the attempt to achieve the
objective of learning, there is use of colors, pictures and several fonts.
4. User friendliness
In
collaboration to the very good appearance of the web site, there is an
increased easiness of use and friendliness to the user. No specialized
knowledge, or experience in the use of internet is required for the successful
use of this site. The use of frames permits keeping of a number of elements
stable, while others are altered, according to the selections of the user,
helping, thus, his/her memory process and
facilitating the navigation within the site. The use of drop-down menus
in the pages of the lessons is in conformance to the modern and widely accepted
user interfaces. The extensive use of pictures, sounds and colors gives
multimedia characteristics to many pages of the site, without this happening
against contents. We must note the existence of exercises with an interactive
character (questions of correct or error, of multiple choices, of filling in
the blanks), where the user acts (responds to the question) and gets feedback
(he/she is informed about the questions that were answered correctly or
erroneously). This interactivity gives to the web site characteristics and
capabilities of distance learning in a way that is particularly direct and
friendly to the user. A friendly sense for the user is created by the games
that contribute to the casual relaxation from the intellectual faculties of
comprehension and memorizing.
5. Speed of response
By making
use of a three years old computer of average capabilities and an internet
connection that is quite common in Greece and probably obsolete in several
European countries (see Annex A at the end of the report), the speed of loading
of the pages was adequately satisfactory, without giving the impression of
malfunction, even to inexperienced users. The sounds are encoded in mp3 files
(downloading of which was done quite fast). Moreover, significant downloading
time was required for the games; an inevitable situation, since loading a
series of images is needed for their operation. It is estimated (by empirical
criteria) that the existing computational power and network connection will be
sufficient for an average load of 30-50 concurrent users. This means that the
existing infrastructure can cover a daily number of visitors that exceeds
6. Contents
The
contents of the web site can be divided in two major categories: a) useful
information for living in
As
far as (a) is concerned, the information accessible by the user by choosing the
«About Greece» link (as it appears in the home English page, or the equivalent
link in the home pages of the other languages) is particularly complete and
covers a wide range of the modern Greek reality, the Greek culture and history.
The relevant part of the web site is probably one the best of its kind that
exist today on the web. This page is supplemented by the «Links» page to which
we may be led by the home page of every language.
As
far as (b) is concerned, in every foreign language, a rich series of lessons of
Greek language is provided. These lessons successfully cover a wide range of
the knowledge of Greek language that a foreign student would like to have in
order to visit Greek within a framework of educational exchanges. There are 4
parts each of which contains 4 lessons. Each part is followed by a revision
test based on the material of the 4 lessons that it contains. There is an
independent part that concerns teaching of the Greek alphabet. In particular,
the lessons cover the following subjects:
1st
Part: Salutation, acquaintance, personal, family and professional information,
the Time, conversation on the phone
2nd Part: Shopping, means
of transportation means, trips
3rd Part: Greek cuisine,
entertainment, civil services, renting an apartment
4th Part: Health, media,
celebrations and customs in
The lessons are very attractive,
since they make use of sounds, pictures and interactive exercises, creating a
pleasing multimedia distance learning environment. This environment is mush
more effective than a printed guide for learning Greek, thanks to the use of
sounds and interactivity. The lessons have a uniform structure (see the
«Description» section). They cover the whole spectrum of teaching Greek as a
foreign language, since they include texts, useful expressions, grammar,
glossary and exercises. The revision test at the end of each part of lessons contributes
to the successful learning of the related material. Finally, for each foreign
language, there is auxiliary reference material (lexicon and grammar),
contributing to the completeness of the lessons.
7. Advantages
The
web site hellonet.teithe.gr, as analyzed in the previous sections, constitutes
an elegant, pleasing and modern environment, through which a foreigner
(student, or not) can quite fast and effectively get acquainted with elements
of Greece (everyday life, history, culture, education) and also learn a quite
significant initial part of the Greek language that will allow him to deal
successfully with his living in our country. The lessons of Greek language are
distinguished for their organization and richness.
The foreigner who will
devote 3-4 weeks for visiting hellonet.teithe.gr for 1-2 hours per day will
feel quite ready to visit
The
multimedia character and the interactivity, that constitute integral elements
of hellonet.teithe.gr, contribute to the pleasing browsing of the site. In
collaboration to the games, the good aesthetics of the pages and the modern
interface with the user make up the preconditions for high visiting of the site
and the spreading of its existence and usefulness from the one foreign student
to the other.
The
use of the above capabilities, does not only please the visitor of the site,
but at the same time, increases the easiness of memorization and comprehension
of the provided information and knowledge.
8. Technical deficiencies
Like in
every site, hellonet.teithe.gr
has some technical problems (very few in the case of hellonet.teithe.gr) that
could be easily dealt with. More specifically,
- Some
pages, like the page «Who we are» (in the English home page and the
analogous pages in the other languages) are affected by the choice of font
size that the user does at his/her browsing program (the letters appear in
a different size and in some cases the selection of links the size of
which has changed is difficult). It would positive the size of the font to
be independent from the choice of the user (especially the inexperienced
user, as far as web browsing is concerned).
- The
selection of «Links» in the home pages of the Greek, Italian, and
Portuguese leads always to a page of English language (e.g. with an
English term for the category Banks, or the category Arts).
9. Proposals for improvements and future extensions
Some proposals for improvements and extensions of the
web site follow.
·
An
accompanying printed leaflet of small size that would contain a selected part
of the information of the site could be created. This leaflet would be useful
at times when the foreign student does not have access to the internet, since
he/she could carry this leaflet with him/her at all times.
·
It would be very useful to have, at the home page of
each language, simple and explicit instructions about the choices and
adjustments that the user should make (recommended browsing program, encoding
of fonts, size of fonts in the browsing program, screen resolution, size of the
system fonts), so that all the pages of the site appear correctly. Such
instructions appear in the home page of the lessons of each language.
·
Since there
is no web site without problems, it is considered as essential to make and
materialize plans for the management and the periodical maintenance of the web
site by specialized personnel.
·
The lexicon
could be enriched with more words, beyond the words that appear in the lessons
and are included in the lexicon now.
·
A version of
the site without frames could be build for those users that have an old
computer (older than tree years, or without updated software).
·
A counter of
visitors could be embedded at the home page, so as to make obvious the
popularity of the site.
·
A Users
Forum could be embedded in the site for exchange of opinions and of experiences
/ information about visiting of
·
There could
be a capability of optional user registration, so that the site administrators will have access to
fundamental data of the users (for statistical purposes) and have the ability
to contact users through e-mail.
10. Conclusion
The web site hellonet.teithe.gr is a
remarkable effort for the dissemination of the Greek language and the
facilitation of the foreign students who wish to visit
11. Annexes
Á. Testing and evaluation environment
The tests were done using a personal
computer of medium power (1,3 Ghz CPU, 256 MB RAM) with Windows XP operating
system, Internet Explorer 6 as web browsing program and a connection to the
internet through a dialup line, occasionally ISDN with a speed of 64kbps and occasionally PSTN of speed
56kbps. This testing environment
approaches the typical computer system that a user will use at an Internet
Café, his house, or a computer in an academic institution (with the
difference that the connection speed to the internet at such an institution is
expected to be higher).
Â.
Evaluator’s data
Michael Vassilakopoulos, PhD
Studies:
- Diploma of Engineering (1990),
dept. of Computer
- PhD (1995), dept. of Electrical
and Computer
- Degree of Pedagogic
Studies (1997), School of Technical Pedagogic Studies of
- Post-doctoral researcher,
Lab of Data Eng., dept. of Informatics, Aristotle Univ. of Thessaloniki
Foreign Languages:
- English (Certificate of Proficiency in English, Univ. Of
- French (Certificat de Langue Française, Institut
Française de Thessalonique)
Distinctions:
- Pre-graduate, post-graduate and post-doctoral scholarship of the
Scholarship Foundation of the
Reviewing / evaluation activity:
- Member of the scientific committee of international conferences
- Reviewer of papers for numerous scientific journals and conferences
Professional Activity:
- Computer Engineer in Informatics companies
- Researcher in several research programs
- Informatics Engineer of the Greek Public Administration
Michael Vassilakopoulos, PhD