Dexway courses have recently been undergoing a considerable update. Many images have been replaced in order to improve quality and relevance, following along the same lines as the Companion courses. This update reflects Dexway’s commitment to continuous improvement and to providing a more effective, engaging and accurate online learning experience for all learners. This improvement ensures that our Dexway courses offer materials that your students, be they from schools, universities, academies or companies, can identify with.
More than 16,000 unique updated images
The Dexway team has already updated more than 16,000 unique photographs that are repeated throughout the different lessons of the different versions of our e-learning courses. These images appear in all versions and levels, as well as the English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish courses. The task requires attention to detail to ensure that the selected images are culturally relevant as well as providing information in the context of the lesson. In addition, as in previous updates to the course content, gender roles have been revised to give an egalitarian image that better reflects today’s society.
Sustainability also receives greater emphasis, in line with its current importance.
Quality criteria
The images used are selected by the Dexway team (specialists in linguistics, pedagogy, instructional design, UX) following strict quality parameters.
- Image quality
- Quality of information shown in the image (adequately fitting the lesson, without leading to confusion in the concepts).
Relevance
As time goes by, everything changes – technology, fashion, furniture, urban scenery… In the process of renewing our images, we also consider cultural relevance so as to avoid showing scenes that may have become obsolete. By doing so, a more direct relationship is established between the exercises and real life, helping students to connect with the material. This is especially important in vocabulary exercises where one would not expect to see a cathode ray tube television, for example. This is a vital aspect for younger learners.
It is therefore essential to consider cultural relevance, authenticity and adaptation to developments (in any area, such as those mentioned above).
Importance of the update for learners
Having up-to-date images is important both aesthetically, as a pleasant environment is always motivating, and educationally. Images create intellectual contexts and emotional connections, and both realities are fundamental to the learning process.
In addition, as a learner’s vocabulary grows, the lessons reflect a changing and expanding reality. It is therefore necessary to use images that encompass all these changes and developments.
Modern contexts for improved identification
Identification through images and context plays an important role in Dexway language courses, both for visual comprehension and the contextualisation of vocabulary. Images provide a visual representation of the concepts and vocabulary being presented in the courses. They are a definitive link to comprehension and because of this, they must represent reality as closely as possible. The modernisation of photographs and infographics, helps students to internalise the concepts being worked on both easily and effectively.
Moreover, the images have another function: contextualising the vocabulary, which also facilitates memorisation by association.
Emotional connection and experiential learning
Images are important because they connect with learners: they provoke emotions and evoke experiences. If they reflect a reality which is close to home, it will be much easier for that bond to come naturally.
This task, which we aim to carry out at all levels and in all languages, will continue progressively until all versions have been updated. Many of these, such as Dexway Specifics, require very particular images. Therefore, in addition to the more than 16,000 image files that have been used in hundreds of thousands of sites in Dexway language courses, many more will need to be added before the task is completed.
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