Review #1: ESL Website

Website reviewed by: Robert Bradford

1. SITE DESCRIPTION: This website features mysteries to solve, scary stories, magic tricks, and contests for kids.

• Site title: Mystery Net’s Kids Mysteries: Fun and Challenging Mysteries for Kids

• URL: http://kids.mysterynet.com

• System requirements: computer, modem, internet connection, web browser.

Site Author:

Newfront Productions, Inc.

300 Brannan Street, Suite 212
San Francisco, CA 94107
Tel: 415-284-5400
Fax: 415-284-5401
kids@newfront.com

• Subject Area(s): The primary use of the site is for reading/writing.

• Target Audience: For high intermediate to advanced students.

2. SUMMARY: The site is divided into several sections; solve it mysteries, chiller stories, quick solve mysteries, magic tricks, and winning mysteries from their kid’s mystery writing contest. While this site is not specifically an ESL/EFL site, it offers some very good and interesting resources for use in an ESL/EFL classroom.

3. CONTENTS

Educational objectives: This site does not state any educational objectives, other than providing an entertaining way for students to develop critical thinking and deductive reasoning. It does have sections on their main website (http://www.mysterynet.com), on using mysteries in the classroom. There are many opportunities for using this material for reading/writing as well as for listening/speaking practice in the ESL/EFL classroom.

Organization/Structure: The main page contains links to each of the sections mentioned in the summary. In addition, it also has links to their privacy policy, a page with more information about the site, and a link to Nancy Drew mysteries.

Content/type of activities:

The links on the main page lead to each of the sections of the site so you can go to a particular section without having to traverse others.

The link, which leads to the solve-it mystery, presents a short mystery story with a multiple choice question at the end. If the student chooses an incorrect answer, a clue is given and they follow the link to the answer and the solution. At the end is a link to the chiller story.

The chiller story is just a scary story, but at the end the student rates it on a scale of “not that cool” to “very cool” and submits the answer to see the response rating. At the end there is a link to the quick solve-it mystery.

The quick solve-it mystery is very similar to the solve-it mystery except it is much shorter. At the end there is a link to the magic trick.

The magic trick link gives instructions on how to perform a simple magic trick. There is no question or response required. The link at the end of this leads to the writing contest page.

4. SITE EVALUATION

This site was very easy to use and had a very logical layout. The pages had enough information, but were not over-crowded. There were no banners or ads on any of the pages. Navigation was very easy. You could link directly to each section from the main page, or follow the links to the next section at the end of the current section. At the bottom of each page there was also a link to each of the other sections. A link to the previous mystery, etc. was also provided in each section so that it was possible to go back to previous versions.

The site achieves its stated educational objectives of providing entertaining material to develop critical thinking and deduction. It is motivating in that students will probably find the mysteries to be interesting to read and challenging to solve. The site was not specifically set up for ESL/EFL studies, however, I believe it would be very useful as such. Students could read one of the solve-it mysteries and work in pairs or groups to discuss what they thought the solution might be. This would allow the site to be used for listening/speaking as well as reading/writing practice.

ADVANTAGES	DISADVANTAGES
Layout was very good. navigation of the site was excellent.	Very little interaction with students on site. Only questions for solution to mystery and votes for rating stories. More student interaction would have to happen in class as a result of utilizing this source material.
Very interesting and motivating materials.	There were some links which didn’t work when submitting votes. This may have been because I wasn’t registered, but everything else worked ok.
No banners or ads.	There were a couple of questionable uses of words in a couple of phrases in the scary story but may have been just another way of saying it.
Site was setup specifically for kids, so no concerns about language or links to unacceptable sites.	Not set up specifically as an ESL/EFL site for interactive student use.
Stories are short and easy to read.