Crayola, maker of the classic crayon (plus more) caters to children; the Crayola website encompasses what kids want.
Kids want to:
- have fun,
- learn new things,
- create, and
- share with their friends.
Crayola.com includes a wide range of activities for kids from coloring books, to craft projects (in written and video form) to games at different levels of ability. Email capability allows kids to share their creations with their friends.
Crayola.com has links to Crayola international sites – Canada, Australia, UK and Mexico.
Royal Talens, maker artist paints, colored pencils and pastels, caters to adults. Their website gives adults what they want.
Adults want to:
- learn about the product(s), such as:
- where to find the product,
- what other products the company makes,
- how to use the product,
- where to find the product,
- have fun, create and learn new things, and
- communicate with others.
Talens.com offers product information both at a high level and at a technical level for the amateur artist and professional artist. It has a ‘How to Paint’ section where the budding artist can learn to paint, or a seasoned artist can learn a new technique. It also has a forum for discussion and a gallery of company and artist work (that can be emailed).
Royal Talens is based in The Netherlands; the site is available in many languages. The user can select to see content based upon European country or language.
Pedagogy vs Andragogy
Research in pedagogy (the teaching of children), andragogy (the teaching of adults) and learning styles has practical uses in website design.
Crayola understands that pedagogy is teacher directed. The website has sections devoted to teachers and parents with relevant information on how they can direct children to think creatively, interact with activities on the site and use Crayola products in the home and classroom.
The For Parents link features Arts & Crafts projects, Coloring activities, ideas for parties, ways to interact with teachers, tips on how to encourage creativity and traveling with children.
The For Educators link provides Lesson Plans, ideas on how to incorporate creativity in subjects such as math and science, as well as a place where students can post their work, to name a few.
The Royal Talens website illustrates principles behind andragogy with the How to Paint section. Adults learn best when they can link the knowledge they already have to new skills. They are “autonomous and self-directed” (Hoffman), they want to know the application before the theory and they benefit most when they are actively involved in the learning process. The teacher serves to encourage and nurture.
‘How to Paint’ is a step-by-step set of instructions on how to paint transcriptions (a copy of a painting by another artist). Royal Talens encourages the adult learner to begin painting: “We offer you step-by-step plans in most techniques and in different styles. So whatever your choice, you’ll be amazed at your own talent.” For example, transcriptions to learn about Painting with Oil:
Learning Styles
Four Learning Sytles are demonstrated on the two websites:
- Verbal/Visual Preference
- Tactile/Kinesthetic Preference
- Visual /Non Verbal Preference
- Auditory/Verbal Preference
Best Practices suggest that information be presented on a website to accommodate the broadest number of learning styles. This means each message should be presented in several ways so that users can choose which way they want to get the information.
Verbal / Visual Preference
These users prefer to get information through words.
Crayola.com accommodates children of different ages and reading levels. The use of the visual in combination with the verbal addresses these differences.
Crayola.com uses a combination of verbal and visual to make choices in what traditionally would be a drop-down list. Through the Create and Color link coloring pages can be created and printed. For example, in the ‘drop-down list’ of tools below; when the hand pointer (controlled by the mouse) points to an icon, the icon name appears in the green bar (‘Move’ is partially hidden by the hand) and a bubble offering more detailed information (“Allows you to move stuff around”) is displayed.
For example, Step 2 of the Italian Landscape painting:
Each step includes a detailed explanation and an illustration of what the painting should look like at the end of the step:
Tactile/Kinesthetic Preference
“Creative Play”, being physically active, hands-on is what these users prefer.
Crayola.com is packed with hands-on activities. The Coloring Books link has many coloring book pages in many categories that can be printed and colored, it has functionality to create one’s own coloring pages (“Create and Color”) and print them, and many other creative activities such as “Digi-Color” (online coloring), “Certificate Maker”, “Card Creator” and “Idea Generator”. These activities require more advanced level of technical ability.
Coloring Page link:
Create & Color link:
Digi-Color, Card Creator, Certificate Maker and Idea Generator links:
Royal Talens How to Paint is hands-on instructions that can be printed. (See screen prints above.)
Visual /Non Verbal Preference
Visual/Non Verbal users like information to be presented visually in pictures, video, animations, icons, etc.)
The Crayola site is very visual; icons and pictures are used throughout. Icons are large and more realistic than the traditional icon; for example, the printer icon (‘Print’) shown below. Also shown below, the line drawing for ‘Create’ mimics the line drawing that can be created and the photograph for ‘Color’ shows a real person coloring the printed coloring page. The blue arrows show the progression of tasks in a visual, non verbal way.
The Talen site uses pictures and icons with a minimum of text. The product listing below for pastels is mainly visual. The user can click the icon to enlarge the photo.
The detail photo below is displayed. This picture is also displayed when the text label is clicked. To find out which colors are in the box, the user has to open the Color Chart link or the Folder link (which is a brochure about these pastels).
Auditory/Verbal Preference
These users prefer information to be presented through the spoken word as in podcasts and lectures.
The CreaTiVe tm link on Crayola.com has videos demonstrating a variety of craft projects by a child/adult team. Each video features one craft project and runs about three to four minutes.
Royal Talens does not have video or auditory capabilities.
In conclusion, the Crayola site is rich in accommodating all learning styles discussed while the Royal Talens site covers many, but not all styles.
References
Hoffman, B. Andragogy: Teaching Adults. Encyclopedia of Educational Technology. Retrieved from http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/articles/androgogy/index.htm
Knowles, M. Andragogy. Retrieved from http//tip.psychology.org/knowles.html
Turns, J. and Wagner, T. (Feb. 2004) Characterizing Audience for Informational Web Site Design. Technical Communication.
Why no titles on the posts?
ReplyDelete