Peer Review

Centro Virtual Cervantes

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Reviewed:: Jul 12, 2009 by World Languages

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Ratings

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Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

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Overview:: This mega site is divided into four main categories listed on top of the main page: Enseñanza, Literatura, Lengua, e Artes (Teaching, Literature, Language, and Art). The site was developed by the Cervantes Institute in Spain. The acronym AVE stands for Virtual Spanish Classroom and was developed to assist with the diffusion of materials for learning language and culture. Central Virtual Cervantes provides information, curricula, research, and other resources for educators, students, and the general public. The collection offers many activities for students of all levels. “Mi mundo en palabras” provides children from ages 7 to 9 with a variety of interactive colorful games and activities. The rest is for more advanced students of Spanish. “Pasatiempos de Rayuela” provides many games and activities to help learn grammar, vocabulary, and culture. The site also offers a bulletin with regular updates on literary personalities and cultural events in Spain and Latin America. The topics in literature are broad and include authors from Spain and Latin America. We highly recommended them to students, scholars, and the general public.
Type of Material:: Collection
Recommended Uses:: Due to the large amount of material, educators need to be selective and preview a site before giving an assignment. The content in “Mi mundo en palabras” can be used with beginning Spanish students to learn colors, objects, and directions. “Historias de debajo de la luna” and “DidactiRed” can be used by educators to create lessons and to motivate student learning. The literary readings and grammar exercises are recommended for intermediate and advanced language students. The games of the “Pasatiempos de Rayuela” could be assigned as extra homework practice for students of the Spanish language, however, because the instructions are in Spanish the true beginner could have difficulties.In this mega site, the possibilities are endless.
Technical Requirements:: Use of the “Virtual Spanish Classroom” requires Macromedia Flash and Windows media as well as a voice-recorder such as Java and appears to work well in most browsers. The learning activities on the “Pasatiempos de Rayuela” section require a free “Shockwave” plug-in. This part of the site appears to operate best through Internet Explorer on a PC. I was unable to open these learning activities on a MAC using both Safari and Firefox.
Identify Major Learning Goals:: This site provides the learner with a variety of resources. Through use of the “AVE” or “Virtual Spanish Classroom,” the user can develop their comprehension of spoken and written Spanish and improve the sophistication of their written and spoken responses through very engaging practice activities. The “Pasatiempos de Rayuela” provides the user with a series of Spanish grammar and cultural games through which the user must accurately identify or create the correct answers. The “Cultural Bulletin” contains cultural, up-to-date, realistic, and engaging videos in Spanish about a variety of socio-cultural topics.
Target Student Population:: The site is most appropriate for students of intermediate to upper-level College Spanish language, literature, and culture or art.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:: Because the entire site is in Spanish, the user should have at least intermediate level comprehension of Spanish.Beginning, advanced, intermediate and native Spanish speakers can use it with appropriate support from instructor.

Content Quality

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Strengths:: • This mega-site has a great wealth of material, the majority of which is of the highest quality in design and content. • The “Daily Cultural Bulletin” section linked to on the homepage has a variety of engaging video clips about cultural events happening in Spain, interviews with writers (Alfredo Bryce Echenique, Francisco Ayala, Laura Esquivel) literary critics, film directors, actors (Carmen Maura), etc. that could be used in many contexts. The listening activities are clear and understandable. • The weekly Spanish language activities of the “Virtual Spanish Classroom” are very comprehensive and integrate listening, reading, writing and speaking of Spanish around a specific theme, for instance the environment. Completion of each activity takes about one hour.
Concerns:: • The games of the “Pasatiempos de Rayuela” section have problems with relation to content and usability. The amount of material reviewed in many of the games is inadequate and the content is often lacking focus. The auto-correction feature of the games often provides unclear feedback and in the case of one activity, the answers were incorrect.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

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Strengths:: • This mega-site has a great wealth of material that could be used in a variety of learner contexts. • The videos of the “Daily Cultural Bulletin” section could be watched as homework or in class and allows the reader to access unique and interesting video footage. • The “Literature” section contains a wealth of current and engaging critical scholarship on a vast number of Spanish and Latin American authors for the professor or student of Spanish literature. • As the site states, “The Instituto Cervantes´ Spanish Virtual Classroom is an Internet-based educational infrastructure set up to provide Spanish courses.” It is targeted to learners of Spanish as a second-language and features a new activity every week. These activities are engaging, comprehensive (there is an audio, video, and reading component), and interactive (user responds in a variety of ways such as free-written, multiple choice, and recorded response). The content is realistic and up-to-date. • As the site claims, the “Pasatiempos de Rayuela” contains, “más de mil pasatiempos interactivos para el aprendizaje del español.” The games in the “Pasatiempos” section allow the user to creatively employ grammar, vocabulary, and cultural concepts to complete the activities. The user can browse the learning activities according to didactic material or by game type (crosswords, hangman, multiple choice, word searches, etc.). Within these two divisions the activities are further organized into four different learner levels (beginning, intermediate, advanced, superior). Each game has a specific theme, for instance fairytales, Spanish history, Spanish love songs, Picasso, the job-search, etc. Additionally, the “Pasatiempos” section has a link to a resource called, “Cd Rayuela” where the professor can create his/her own learning activities on the web. Educators need to explore the site and select what is most usable for the level they are teaching. The literary readings are extensive and could be assigned in sections to illustrate literary genres or for reading and critical thinking. The oral activities could be used in the classroom to practice listening comprehension, and the grammar exercises and games could be assigned for practice outside of class. Educators could use the material to create their own activities as well. “DidactiRed” contains good information on how to motivate student learning.
Concerns:: • The activities in the “Pasatiempos de Rayuela” section are often poorly explained, which often results in the user having difficulties successfully completing the tasks. The concepts reviewed within the activities are not presented clearly and the feedback is often unclear.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

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Strengths:: • Although the amount of material within the Centro Virtual Cervantes is at first overwhelming the user will quickly become acquainted with the layout of the site. The site contains a map page that has links to all of the content organized by theme that the user will find within the four sections. • The design layout on the homepage is visually overwhelming but the other pages are appealing. • The videos within the “Cultural Bulletin” section are very engaging and of very high quality. • The hour-long review activities in the “Virtual Spanish Classroom” are interactive, engaging, and easy to use.
Concerns:: • The entire site is completely in Spanish, including the instructions for the beginner’s level learning materials. • There are concerns with the “Pasatiempos de Rayuela” page, especially related to ease of use. Firstly, the learning activities require “Adobe Shockwave plug-in” and appear to work best on a PC using Internet Explorer. I was unable to access the activities on a PC using Firefox or on a MAC using Safari and Firefox. The instructions within the activities were vague and rarely contained examples for the user to follow. The design of the activities is sometimes poor, for instance there are reading comprehension activities that require the user to scroll up and down a lot.

Other Issues and Comments:: This megasite provides a wealth of resources for the professor and student of Spanish language, culture, art and literature and is most appropriate for the student of advanced Spanish language or Spanish literature. Central Virtual Cervantes offers something for everyone and with instructor guidance can be an effective tool.
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