Text Processing

‘Text processing’ plays an important role in online learning as it determines how well the readers will understand the materials taught online. Among those factors that will cause misunderstanding, I think the most significant is the reader’s mental representation. Regardless of how good the web site is, it will be useless for a person if his or her personal experience and knowledge are not good enough. How can people understand an online material if a topic is not familiar? Thus, I totally agree with the authors’ ideas to create a link or even a video to enhance the understanding of the topic.

Moreover, the text should be easy to navigate and comprehend. International students, generally speaking, do encounter a language barrier in learning. Therefore, language is another important factor to be considered in online learning. Also, online learning does not have any body languages to assist the understandings. To make the learning process easier, easy texts, visual representation, videos, and images should be included in the web pages. These factors are particularly useful for international students. Nevertheless, English as first language student will also find these factors beneficial.

As an international student myself, I usually will not go through web sites that contain only text not written in my mother language if it is not mandatory. Without a doubt, visual representation, easy text, and the links to various objects will enhance my understanding when I encounter difficulty to understand the online materials. Therefore, the links to various objects (video, image…) and easy texts are necessary to make the online materials easier to understand. Hence, it can attract more people to go through the web sites.