Group items tagged

Mandy Schumacher 1-24-10 Overview: creativewritingprompts.com is a website that is intended to provide teachers and students with hundreds of different writing ideas. There are over 300 prompts on the site and all of them are easily accessible. This site can be a very useful tool for educators, or anyone who enjoys writing. Content: This website is targeted at anyone who is interested in writing. Creativewriting.com provides the user with 346 different writing prompts. The prompts can be used to create poems, stories, or other creative works. The purpose of this site is not purely informational however; this particular website is also a commercial site. Along the side of the page there are ads promoting online courses, a journaling kit, other books, and there is a list of "sister websites" displayed on the bottom. Copyright and information about the author is easily accessible on the bottom of the site as well. Design: The site quickly downloaded to the homepage. The homepage is really easy to navigate. There are numbers assigned to each prompt. All the user has to do is place the cursor over any of the numbers for the prompt to pop up in a text box. The ads along the side and bottom of the page serve as a distraction but overall the site is easy to navigate and well organized. There are also links at the bottom of the page

Sara Scribner 1/23/10 Overview: This website called Beeswax is meant for elementary students to inform them of current events in a fun, interactive way. It is a new website so the creators are still looking for feedback to improve the site, but it is a great tool for students to learn about current happenings in the world. Currently it is only updated twice a week, but for elementary students I believe this to be sufficient. Content: Information presented on this website is high quality. Its purpose, to present news, is clear, complete, easily understood, and is interactive. Contact and sponsor information are current and available. There might be potential bias on this site however because of its sponsor, Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The amount of information offered on this site is sufficient, but the teacher would need some background knowledge about the event. An advantage to this site is that it is free of advertisements. Design: Beeswax communicates the news in a fun, interactive way and is aided by graphics that you click on to see the related story. It has a unique organization that is effective yet appealing. Sounds also accompany your actions as you navigate the site.

Sara Scribner 1/24/10 Overview: This website is kid-friendly and offers a wealth of information about the weather. Included are weather games/activities, encyclopedias, teacher resources, environment conservation ideas, and the daily forecast. Content is applicable in a classroom and is fit for its audience of elementary school students. Content: Audience and content for this site are easily determined. The sponsor of this site is The Weather Channel and a contact is given for the site, but other than that I was unable to find an author, a revision date, or a copyright date. To my knowledge, the information provided on this website is accurate, but I do not think one would be able to find in-depth information on a certain topic. Overall, the content on this site is well organized and easy to understand. It also offers a variety of learning tools from activities to videos to glossaries to encyclopedias which is helpful in a classroom. Design: The Weather Channel for kids has a lot of useful information for students desiring to know more about the weather. This visually appealing site downloads efficiently and one can easily move within the website because of superb organization. It incorporates graphics as well as informational videos with elementary students in mind. Although contact information is available there is not a date with the site's last revision or a copyright date. Also, there are a few advertisements on the sides of the page.

Overview: This site is a good study tool and teacher resource. The audience ranges from kindergarten to eighth grade and is loaded with credible information in all its subjects. This site can be quickly identified and the age range for the site can be easily determined. The author is clearly identified and information on the author is available. The content is updated frequently and all pertains to the original purpose of the site. Content: The content is well organized and the information in the site is easy to understand. The content is free of bias and provides interactivity throughout the various subjects. The content is updated frequently and is accurate. Grammar and spelling are correct and the information is consistent with similar information found in other sources. Design: The homepage downloads effectively. The user can verify that the site is what it is, a study help site geared towards students. There is an index and a site map, as well as the copyright date established at the bottom of the home page. Each graphic and audio/video file serves its own purpose. The site is useable with more than one browser. Everything is clearly labeled and organized and is worth visiting.

Bryana Wilson September 21, 2009 Website Review http://petrarch.petersadlon.com/sonnet.htm "Francesco Petrarch and Laura deNoves" is a site that goes into great detail about the life and art of Francesco Petrarch. I felt this site did a wonderful job of describing Petrarch's role in creating and perfecting his sonnets. It's a very useful site in researching Petrarchan sonnets and taking a look into the man who perfected them. The site is very well organized, and fairly current. CONTENT Petrarch is the subject of this site. It is made up of a variety of a wealth of information on Petrarch, his writings- including the infamous Petrarchan sonnet, as well as information on other things. I particularly enjoyed the quotes on the top of the page. There are links on this site that allow you tips on writing a sonnet and teaching a sonnet- which I found very helpful. There are links to all of the sections in the site on the homepage. These include pictures, writings, books, essays written on Petrarch, and so on. I personally enjoyed the web links section that sends you to a variety of sites concerning Petrarch. The site is most assuredly aimed toward both students and teachers wishing to read and gain insight into Petrarch and his writings. If there are any questions or comments about the site, there is a link to contact Peter Sadlon with any questions or comments concerning his site. Considering all the information was researched by Mr. Sadlon with links to his resources, I believe this site is a great tool. It was last modified in 2007, but I believe the information is applicable to modern day. DESIGN This site is clear cut and easy to maneuver around in. I personally found its organization refreshing and aesthetically pleasing. The information is easy to find thanks to the table of contents on the main page that moves to a vertical section on the left-hand side once switched over to a new section. This helps when you are trying to ma

This web site provides games and tools a teacher and student can use to learn mathematical skills such as decimals, fractions, and other systems used throughout history.

This video is a quick overview of the conjugations and some examples of how to use the verbs Ser and Ir. This is a helpful video for students going over this chapter in a Spanish class or for a teacher going over this material. The video is plain, simple, and easy to watch. The content was clearly discussed and the design wasn't distracting. It is easy to tell the content of the video by the description provided below in the information section. The author of the video and their information is listed and contact information is available. Links to other sites are functioning and a date of publishing is noted. It is clearly an informational video and it is easy to understand. The information covered in the video is correct and consistent. This video is a good learning tool for the conjugation of ser and ir. All of the content downloaded properly and the video loaded fully. The links provided to get more information on the topic are functioning and relevant. The animation used and the audio files all served their purpose of informing the viewer about the verbs. The information is consistent and organized, date of publication is listed, and a link to their website is provided so the user can contact if necessary.

Jessica Chandler January 24th, 2011 *Overview: This site is called Starfall. This website was designed to help students read. There are different categories to choose from such as ABCs, Learn to Read, It's Fun to Read, and I'm Reading. Each category has great contents once the recommended link is chosen. ABCs read the letter aloud that is chosen and shows word in which make the correct sound. Learn to Read contains different easy reads on line for the kids to read. It's fun to Read contains different types of reading such as tongue twisters, poetry, music, and etc. I'm Reading brings up a selection of books to read. This allows the students to choose what book sounds the best. If the child doesn't know a word, clicking on the word will read it out loud. There are many useful things to get out of this website for elementary and preschool kids, and for the teachers of that certain level. *Content: The content is very clear and prepared. It is easy for children to understand the concept of this website. It is easy to access everything to learn about reading. A child could participate in this designed website alone or with the parents. It has great content and is very beneficial for the younger students who cannot read. This website also makes reading fun! *Design: This website is fantastic! It helps the students love to read and demonstrates different patterns and the alphabet to the children. It is very colorful, but only the links are. Therefore, the content isn't hard to read. It is easy to find what you are looking for, and the site Is not overloaded with a bunch of information. It is quite eye catching and would be an excellent website for kids trying to learn how to read!

Whitney Reese Reviewed: 2/4/12 www.starfall.com Overview: The purpose of this website is to teach children to read with phonics. The intended audience for this website is children ranging from the prek grade levels to second grade. It includes many resources such as the letters of the alphabet and their sounds, tools to learn colors and numbers, short tales for beginner readers, several word and reading games, reading materials for more advanced readers including comics and plays, and many interactive educational games. It also has its own unique curriculum for teaching children to read. My overall impression of this site was very good. It was really easy to navigate and loaded quickly. It is very colorful and kid friendly. It also has great content for learning to read. Content: The content of this site is very clear and concise. It is organized in an orderly fashion, which makes finding where you want to go easy. The authors of this site are identified and are credible. The content of this site seems very up to date and serves as a great resource for teaching children phonics. The quality of information provided is very good and every aspect of the site seems to work properly.  Design: The design of this site is very attractive using bright colors and animated graphics. The homepage is set up easily so that kids are able to navigate but has links that adults can use to obtain site information as well. All multimedia aspects serve a clear purpose. Kids would love the design of this site. 

A free website to teach children to read with phonics. For preschool, kindergarten, and first grade. Exciting phonics games and online interactive books.

Overview: This is a free site that allows users to create and publish their own stories after creating an account. It is intended for all writers, but has specific features for educators and students. Users do not need an email account and there is no minimum age requirement. The site has templates, artwork, and programming for book creation as well as teacher administrative capabilities. This site has excellent design and content and is perfect for the classroom. Content: Users can quickly tell that the site is for publishing stories and that it is appropriate for all audiences. No authors are identified, but it is clear that storybird is a corporation with many contributors and the content they generate indicates that they are qualified. There is a "contact us" link in the help section and there is an "about" section as well. Last updated information is available on all stories, but not on general site content. All links function. In addition, it is easy to navigate and there is a how to video. Content is complete, organized, easy to understand, and free of bias. The site is almost entirely interactive as it is based on creation. I explored several eBook tools and this one is the best one for teachers. The site does not have any external links, but all content serves its purpose. Design: The homepage is visually attractive and downloads quickly. Navigation is simple and content is clear. There are many resources to help first time users navigate and use the software. The site sponsor information is available at the blog and at the help section. There is a link to email for assistance. The site is easy to navigate, includes an index at the bottom of the page, and all links are active. Excellent multimedia is used to make the site look good. The website is available on a variety of browsers, including Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari. The content of the site is excellent for the classroom. The content is organized, easy to use, and design is consi

Katya Larson February 2013 Overview: This site was created to give educators and K-8 students a cache of websites to go use for educational interactive games. It is easy to navigate to the subject and topic of your choice. Once you get to the topic of your choice, there are many links to outside websites with games. It is appealing to the eye, but I do not know how useful all of the links are. Given that this website was created by educators, the games should be age appropriate, but a few have distracting advertisements.  I would use this site for "extra" activities rather than teaching activities.  Content: There is not very much content on this website because it is mostly links to other sites. The content available is accurate and the majority of the game sites seem appropriate and accurate. The link to the authors (Jefferson County Schools) is very busy and hard to navigate to find credibility, but I think the teachers who created this site are mostly credible. Design: The website looks good. It is appealing to younger students because there are cartoon pictures of other children. The colors are appealing. It is easy to navigate through the website and find what you are looking for. There is no copyright date or revision date. 

Stephanie Mecca 2/5/12 Overview: The purpose of this site is to help students learn about the Renaissance in a fun and interactive way. The graphics and navigation tools are fun and interesting. The intro to the site is very fun and intriguing. The site includes a lot of information about the people, places, and art of the time. The interactive questionnaires are fun and keep the viewers interested. There are two working links to different websites that serve as other resources, one of which is the Allentown Art Museum which created the website. The intended audience is both students and teachers. Though the site is mostly for students to interact with, there is a tab for teachers which helps with lesson plans. Content: Although the content is easily determined and the quality is good, there is a problem with some links. Mostly the links about the authors of the site and the contact information are not working and one pop-up says "under construction". There isn't any place that lets the viewer know when the site was last updated either. The site is very interactive though and keeps the viewers interest and the interactive traits keeps increases the value of the site. The one good thing about the information about the authors is that the link to the Allentown Art Museum is working, so you can look about background information about the website there is needed. Design: The biggest problem with the websites design is the broken pop-ups that contain all of the information about the website authors and the contact information. There aren't any direction to using the site but those are not need very much, since the site is pretty user -friendly. The graphics and animations are what make the site interesting. The reanimated artwork that talks and makes sounds helps make the site more interactive and entertaining. The currency information is not working but the external link to the Allentown Art Museum is working. The overall presentation of the site is

Morgan Kuchta September 1, 2010 Sparknotes.com Overview This site is a great resource for students who struggle with reading in school. The website provides book and chapter summaries and plot overviews along with character analysis for all main characters in each book reviewed. The books that Spark Notes provides information on are those that have deep and complex plot lines and character development that are often found in classrooms of all grade levels. Perhaps one of the most useful tools on this website is called "No Fear Shakespeare", which translates the old English of Shakespeare into modern English so that students might have an easier time remembering information and comprehending it. Although the site organization is poor and it throws too much information onto one page, I believe this website could be an extremely valuable resource to teachers who assign reading to their classes. Content At first look it is easy to tell where you are and what is provided, in general, on the site. The audience is pretty clearly defined as students but it is difficult to tell exactly who will benefit most from this sitel There were no listed authors for the site although there were authors listed for each of the book summaries done on each separate page with an email address attached. The revision dates are included on every book review and the links to related sites are all functioning. The information quality was incredible. Although it was not well organized, it is by far the most comprehensive literacy site that I have used in the last few years. The other links posted were pretty good, although most of them were just for the interest of the users rather than usefulness for help with English homework. Design The homepage download was no problem, while it was attractive to the eye, it was a little information heavy and a it was kind of hard to tell exactly where I needed to navigate. There were a LOT of advertisements in the margins and even in other areas of th

Randi McInerney September 15, 2011 Overview: The website "Sparknotes" is an educational and entertainment website with various study resources available. The information is most relevant to high school aged students, but late middle school and college students, as well as teachers, could also benefit from this site. College video tours, book summaries, analysis, and quizzes, and ACT/SAT/AP/GRE test preparation material, and news articles are also available. The content and design are effective and organized, but the advertisements can be distracting and seem overwhelming. This site can be abused by students wishing to plagiarize or to avoid reading a book, but has so many great things to offer if it is used appropriately. Content: There is a lot of educational material available on this site. Video clips, interactive tours, blogs, cartoons, and more can all be found on this site. There are various links in order to contact them, but no direct contact information like an address is provided. Besides educational material, there is lifestyle, entertainment, and dating information. I think that this may be distracting from the educational aspects of the site, but it makes sense because of the audience the website is intended for. Design: The site downloads efficiently and is visually interesting, especially for the intended audience of young adults. The site is easy to navigate, especially if you know what you are looking for from the start. In this case, the search bar will help you easily locate what you are looking for if it is indeed on the site.

Sparknotes is a resource aimed at high school and college students. It offers summaries of literary works as well as test prep. The main purpose of the site is to simplify in-depth texts down to a modern English level. Unfortunately, these summaries are not all that is available. The site largely consist of entertainment news. This aspect dominates the site, making it hard to find the reviews and study resources. Because of this my overall impression is that the site includes a good about of information for those looking for it, but is also a place where one can very easily get side tracked, rendering its information useless. It is worth a bookmark, but is not the most useful thing. The content of this site is very diverse. As for the literary summaries, there are over 100 on some of the best known works in many different subject areas. The site is up to date and loads easily. Most of the summaries are based off of the most recent publications of texts. The site is confused about its purpose. The summaries and text prep sections are hard to find while entertainment news is profusely advertised and easy to find. The educational sections are labeled in small black index style links, while the entertainment section has large magazine like spreads. Although the site has relevant information that is consistent and helpful, it is congested with much needless gossip that has potential for abuse. The websites speed is quite good. It loads very fast comparatively. The homepage is attractive, but is attractive for the wrong reasons. It is hard to find relevant information on the site (although there is a lot of it). This makes navigation of the site difficult and can easily suck the user into a "twilight zone." The site is strong on most platforms, even having apps available. Content presentation is mores streamlined on the app, but is congested on a web version. An administrator is available to answer any questions and provide further information.

Overview Code Academy is a website that is used to promote the proper teaching of different computer languages to people of all ages. It is mostly aimed at people who are in computer science classes from middle school through college. The site has a number of corporate sponsors as well as many 'teachers' that donate their time to creating lesson plans for this site. They really advocate the teaching and learning of these computer languages. For being programmers, the site is actually fairly simple and had some glitches on my computer. I will attribute that as much to the computer as much as their programming.

a. Overview: This is a dot-gov site so it is presumed to be non-biased and accurate. The site is full of information including all the members of congress that are involved. This site is very informative with a history of what the site is about. b. Content: I like this site because it was the first one to be linked up to many of the science journals and other important global resource sites that are important to Earth resources that are being affected today. Although this site is loaded with scientific information, it does not however have a lot of resources for teachers. I think this site is primarily an information site to reference but does not offer very many tools for teachers. c. Design: This is a very professional and legitimate site. I would trust the information derived from the articles. This site has links to science foundations and the Library of Congress and a great "search" menu.

Emily E. Krabbenhoft January 22, 2011 Overview: This website provides interactive websites for teachers in grades K-12.  Subjects available range from Reading, Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies. All of the resources are based on standards and can be used to integrate other subjects. Content: While the contact is not actually on the website it is a large resource for links that lead you to these other websites that have already been viewed and used by other educators.Design: The main page is easily used by just clicking on the subject you are wanting to view. However, when you enter a subjects home link page it is just a large list of different links. Thankfully, the links do have a very short explanation of the website but the user will have to do some inquiry before using a website in their classroom in order to see if the website is useful or not. 

Jackson Miller 1/31/11 Overview My first site is an internet site designed to help people learn the English language. This is an interesting site for me, as I want to be an English teacher. The site is really for people who would like to better their English as a second language. The site offers great resources for any student as it has tests and quizzes they could take, basic grammar and usages in the English language, and even access to online teachers for aid. Personally if I was trying to learn another language, I would definitely want a site like this one to help me. It just has a great variety of tools, members, and advanced technology to aid in learning English. It seems like a great site to me. Content As far as content goes it fulfills every requirement. It is a very easy site to navigate around right off the bat. It is very clear what the goal of the site is, and what it is meant for. All the staff involved in making and maintaining the site can easily be found at the bottom. It was revised very frequently, so I'm entitled to believe it is revised often. The information is all laid out in a good order, and they have really anything I could think someone would need when learning English. Design It really is not the prettiest site in the world. It's very bland and orderly, but for a strictly educational site like this that is not a bad thing. It's a very fast site, from all the hot keys. It is constructed very well. It is easy to find exactly what you are looking for very quickly, and everything on the site is aimed towards helping people better their English.

Meghan Snell September 11, 2011 Overview: This website is a great site for teachers and students. The website offers many different things such as printable worksheets, interactive games, study tools, stories and more. For someone who is looking for math related work, it offers all kinds of different assignments and tutorials that can be very helpful. It's very simple to use. Everything is just within a few clicks and there is no extra downloading necessary. Content: Everything onthis site seems reliable and easy to use. There is a header at the top that seperates everything into age groups and subjects. There are also tabs that take you to information about the authors of the site as well as how to get a hold of them. The site is updated weekly which keeps all of the information from being outdated. All of the content on the site is easy to get to and hassle free. It is an educationl website mainly for teachers as well as kids. I believe most people using this site would find it quite helpful. Design: The design of the website is done very well. It downloads efficiently and everything is clearly labeled and all the links seem to work very well. There is plenty of information that makes the site worth visiting and it is attractive to all of its audience. The graphics aren't too out of hand or overwhelming either.

Kathryn Slothower September 11, 2011 Overview: The purpose of this website is to help students with math problems that they do not know how to solve. There are different sections available to look through for the correct math subject. The website is easy to navigate through and can be very helpful for students or I could also see it being very helpful for teachers and parents. There are many resources for the students to use and help with math. Overall this website is a good website that could be very helpful.  Content: There is a lot of content found within this website. The main content found is all of the information to help find the answer to the math problems that they need help with. The only purpose of this website would be only to find the answers. There is no lesson on how to master the math skill. However the website does show you how they solved the problem with is very nice because then the viewer can really see how the problem is solved to use on other problems. I could see myself using this website for personal uses when I cannot figure out how to solve a math problem.  Design: The design of this website can be very confusing. Web Math is sponsored by Discovery Education so at first you see Discovery Education and the viewer does not know what to click on to receive help. There is an index at the top of the page that breaks the different levels of math up. This is a huge help for the viewer. Nothing on this website drawers viewers to the website to use it. 

Overview: Its sponsored by NCTM, it is an easy website to use for students in K-8. There are powerpoints and videos to talk the user how to work the website. I would highly recommend this website to use in classrooms. Content: This website is targeted at the children but there are family as well as teacher activities. It is nice how they have print off worksheets for teachers to use in their classrooms. This site focuses on math, and covers algebra, geometry, measurements, numbers, and probability and statistsics. Design: This site is very easy to use, you can tell its targeted for the students due to the simplicity and kid friendly images that are on the homepage. The site is very appealing and if I was a (elementary) student I would be interested in playing around on this site.

Agriculture.com is an extremely useful resource for an ag instructor. This sight combines the markets agricultural news and forums that we can use to build curriculum for our classrooms. We can use this sight for talking points or to allow the students to use to find research for their desired topics. This web page was used very often when I was in high school learning from my teachers. They were able to use this information to help mold me into the advocate for the industry I am today, also this allows ag teachers to instill a knowledge in their students so that they can educate the public in the importance of the industry.