It is an animated dictionary on telecommunications, data networking and internet technology.
Type of Material:
Animation
Technical Requirements:
HTML
Identify Major Learning Goals:
Telecommunications, data networking and internet technology terms are explained with animations and textual descriptions.
In the section head ?about TECHtionary? (the first entry under Alphabet A that most visitors are likely to read), the author explains the original goal of TECHtionary: it was conceived as ?a children?s story book on ?how things work? for Internet, data networking, telecommunications, and other complex systems.?
The website, however, appears to assume that users are fairly knowledgeable about basic concepts about these fields, an assumption that undermines the original goal. A decent glossary of key terms (that can be easily retrieved by users) can go a long way toward accomplishing the original goal.
Target Student Population:
Given the assumption that users must have some prior knowledge about related concepts to use this website, College students may be an appropriate target segment (Introduction to networking or internet technology class).
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:
As mentioned earlier, some prior knowledge or familiarity with basic concepts in the disciplines covered by TECHtionary.
Content Quality
Rating:
Strengths:
It describes and visually demonstrates several telecommunications, networking and Internet concepts. Clearly, the author of TECHtionary has worked hard to present a visually attractive framework.
The author has a very worthwhile goal: to provide simple explanations for concepts related to the above fields from a easily accessible source.
Concerns:
Unfortunately, this website includes a lot of technical jargon without appropriate definitions or clarifications. (For example, the content for ?bandwidth? does not include a definition of bandwidth.) Some acronyms are also used without definition (e.g.?CBR? and ?VBR? mentioned under ?ATM Cell? are not defined anywhere) so the website assumes that users are very familiar with these fields.
Textual information can be enhanced.
Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool
Rating:
Strengths:
Can be useful in explaining key concepts in telecommunications, data networking and internet technology fields.
Concerns:
Some animations may distract the learner. For example, when one visits the ?about TECHtionary? part of the site, visually bright, intensely busy, and dynamic graphics appear very distractive.
The website could probably tone down some animations that distract from the learning experience; this may help decrease the ?wait? before the requested information appears.
Another concern is the varying pace of the information presented across concepts in the TECHtionary. For example, when users request more information about ?Akami? the visuals that follow move in rapid succession. Under these circumstances, the average user cannot digest the printed information in the screen. Indeed, the information could only be read after pressing ?Play again? repeatedly. However, this problem did not arise,
or was less severe, for other concepts included in the TECHtionary.
Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty
Rating:
Strengths:
Visually appealing animations.
Concerns:
The user is confronted with the ?hourglass? problem often i.e., the wait involved before the requested information appears on the screen. Although the animations used are visually appealing, they also perhaps contribute to this ?wait? problem.
Users appear to have no control over the sequence of screens because in many cases, successive units corresponding to an entry are organized as animations. As a result, it is often impossible to return to the previous screen within a sequence of screens that correspond to an entry. In some cases it is not possible to return from a sub-section (e.g. From ?Play again? in ?Video:Streaming?). Also, the text does not fit into the screen area in some cases.
We noted the inconsistent use of buttons (e.g. ?Text? is used in most cases for textual information; but ?More? is used in ?Video:Streaming?). Search appears to be limited to the list of entries beginning with the selected letter of the alphabet. This raises questions about how concepts whose names start with a number were treated. It was somewhat surprising that the entry titled ?66 block? (connection point for twisted wire terminations) was grouped with entries under the alphabet A.
The total number of entries is only 421, a relatively small number given the multiple disciplines covered by TECHtionary. Also, it the ?search feature? that is embedded within the list of was very cumbersome and slow to use.
Creative Commons:
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