One of the first metasites that was developed for teaching and learning French, Clicnet offers a high quality and regularly updated list of links for classroom or independent learning activities and resources, such as grammars and dictionaries, full texts, and video and audio materials. Developed by Carole Netter and based at Swarthmore College, Clicnet also publishes original texts by francophone authors along with discussions between students and the authors.
Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing. Clicnet provides resources for all four skills. Students can practice grammar, develop vocabulary and reading and writing proficiency through interactive exercises and other resources from Clicnet and external websites. French is used exclusively except for the introduction to the site where information about the setup necessary and the intent of the site are described. For some exercises and tests there is scoring.
Technical Requirements:
Some links lead to websites that require Quicktime or activation of Javascript, etc. but most websites referenced on Clicnet are in simple HTML.
Content Quality
Rating:
Strengths:
Clicnet is one of the four or five best collections of French links. Its best features are the quality of its organization, the careful selection and classification of referenced websites for educational purposes, and the variety and originality of the collection, which encompasses the entire range of proficiency levels
Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool
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Strengths:
Clicnet is a collection of useful websites for teaching and learning French, comparable to "Tennessee Bob's Famous Links". Most links point to external resources, including the software and plug-ins needed to ensure the best performance of browsers. There are also internal links. Clicnet offers its own exercises, texts, recordings, images, and animations. It can be used in class, projected on a screen, for a variety of activities: listening, reading, writing, speaking and/or assigned to individual or groups of students for specific tasks and remediation.
Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty
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Strengths:
Clicnet has evolved from a busy and colorful layout to a simpler, clearer one, and a search engine has been added which makes it easy to find what one needs. Links from the front page or general index lead to a table where activities and resources are classified according to pedagogical objectives. It should be noted that the art and icons are original creations by the author.
Concerns:
The sound of audio recordings prepared by Clicnet is sometimes too faint even with the volume raised to the maximum. Some plug-ins don't work well with Netscape or cannot be installed. The author should review the selection of audio materials and retain only those that work on all platforms and browsers. Instructors don't always have the choice of the machine or system they will use in class and students all use different systems. Use of audio materials may be limited at this moment because of this problem.
Creative Commons:
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