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Sean Wilde January 2011 kids.yahoo.com Content At first look you defiantly can see this site if for kids, and that it is for entertainment. But as you explore the site you also learn that it is educational, and also can help the authors(which seems to be merely a company) make money. There seems to be many sponsors since it appears that multiple companies pop up at different and the same pages of the site. There is no readily available revision date, they must update frequently seeing as how well the site is ran. The desired affect is achieved in this site because even as an adult I found myself thoroughly entertained searching this site, with games and educational items throughout the site. All links and graphics worked and were smooth. Design For the amount of information that is on the homepage it loads very quickly. And with all the moving features and things that are jumping around it is attractive and really grabs your attention. You always know where you are in the site as links show you are switching and they correlate with the website. Its easy to move around and get to twhere youwant to go. The graphics and extra tidbits that are put on that come from different companies all coexist very well. Really the only downfall for this site would be, that it is very hard to get in contact with someone from the website that runs it where it isn't just a quick response email. Overview This site is a good everything a kid needs site. It has games and videos from kids shows and games that correlate to thos shows as well. It has research information for kids to learn educationally. This site is just very well rounded for kids that could really search for anything they want or need. That includes entertainment and educational.

Murphy Muirhead9-8-2011 OVERVIEW:  This Yahoo! Kids site is a great site for children to explore learning games, music jokes etc. and its all kid friendly! The intended audience of this site is kids age six through thirteen. Through this website kids have a variety of resources that are educational, fun and introduce them to great things to do on the internet, such as e-cards.   CONTENT: The content of this site is great for kids. It provides many educational learning opportunities for them. However, the author of this site, and the last revised date is not apparent.  DESIGN: The design of this site is very eye-catching and grabs the attention of the users. It is very organized and easy to use. In a way, all the content on the homepage could get a little overwhelming but for users who are familiar with the internet, this site should be easy for them to navigate through. 

Monique Koller Jan. 24. 2010 Invention at Play is a website designed to get kids interested in being inventors. Content: This is a cute website that has good stories about people who have done some inventing. It also has informational videos and games that encourage parents to allow play as exploration. The games are educational and logic based. Design: This site is very easy to navigate. The links work well and guide you to places that you might find interesting later. The games are educational and encourage creativity. It is easy to find who you would need to get a hold of if you had any additional questions or concerns. I wouldn't be super surprised if this site added new stuff regularly. Overview: The big goal of this site is to encourage learning and imagination! It is built for children and parents. This site has a lot of great stories of people who have become inventors, it has learning games, and informational videos that encourage parents to keep their kids exploring! I really enjoyed Word Play and Tinker Ball, the videos were reassuring and the stories of inventors are inspirational.

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 website is intended for students and teachers to practice their math skills. It offers free math games for students from grades kindergarten to seventh grade to help them learn and practice their math skills. This math site has tons of high quality interactive activities, ranging from basic skills like shapes, numbers, adding and subtracting to advanced skills like rounding, fractions, multiplying and dividing. I think that teachers would find this website useful for their students to use in or out of the classroom to form a better understanding of simple math. My overall impression of this site is that it is a fun and educational way for students and teachers to learn more about math. Content: The main purpose of this website is to provide a place for students to practice their math skills by playing games and activities. When first coming across this site, I found that it was difficult to see who the intended audience was, but after further observation I found that the site was full of math activities for students. The content of this website is well organized into different categories of math and provides directions on how to play each game. The site also offers an overview on the subject selected that one can view before or after the game they play. From going through this site I found that the external links that are provided are not for math but instead for other basic school subjects, which may be helpful. All in all, children would benefit the most from this website because of its fun and easy way to learn math. Design: The graphic design of this webpage was not as attractive as it could have been. I found that the way information was presented may not be the most appealing to young children and at times was hard to navigate. The graphics were appropriate for the site and the games were presented in a way that children could easily understand. This website is defiantly a fun way to teach math to younger children.

Caitlin Pilch 8/31/11 Content: At first look, I was unable to identify what the content is on this site. The author of this site is not clearly identified, and there is no obvious sponsor. The revision for the content on this site is not relevant. The information on this site is organized by grade level and also activity subject. There are games and activities for the different grade levels. There is not a large amount of resources/games/activities on this site. The content on this site is adequate but compared to other sites is lacking. The links on this site are unrelated to what the site's content is. Design: The design of the site is lacking. The site downloads quickly but there is no appeal to any of the pages. It is hard to tell what page you are on. There are two separate indexes-one for different grade levels, one for different activities which is confusing and it doesn't clearly indicate where you should navigate to. The content presentation is not sufficient compared to other children's websites. Overview: The purpose of this site is for entertainment and education. The recommended target audience is kindergarten to fifth grade. This site offers different games and activities like number games, word games and interesting facts. I am not impressed with this site. It does not offer very many activities and the ones it does offer do not seem to suffice for the target population. This site is not visually stimulating and I don't think a child would find this site entertaining.

Sheppard Software is a website for students of all ages in all subject areas. It has hundreds of games for a very wide variety of audiences. However it is a commercial website with as many advertisements as games in the free version. It does have an ad-free version, but it comes at a pretty steep price for a school or school district.  Content: This website does not have a specific audience, it is directed to students in all grades. It covers many bases, but in is mostly online games and doesn't really offer any classroom activities. I was also disappointed by the number of advertisements and user reviews on each page. This only distracts from the true purpose of an educational website.  Design: This website I found to be pretty disorganized. There are breaks in the middle of lists of games for ad banners that do not relate to kids and user reviews of the website. They do have a toolbar at the top that navigates to pages if you are looking for specific types of games, but those are colorless, and still full of review and ads. I also did not see information for when it was last updated or contact information. 

Overview: This is a free website that has a bunch of games and tutorials for kids on a variety of subjects. It seems like it is meant for kids in elementary school and it also has a separate preschool tab. Content: This site has a variety of different subjects that kids can practice with like US geography, animals, nutrition, and seasons. Each subject as sub-categories and then a list of games. There are cute pictures that go with each game as well as a summary of the game. The site is a little tough to figure out with a couple of similar tool bars and then a lot of steps to get to the game you want so children would need the help of a parent or teacher. Design: The website is fun and not too horribly hard to navigate. I think it's something that kids can use at home with their parents and at school with their teacher.

On math blasters there are similar characteristics as math playground. Although on math blasters the games are geared more towards beat the clock and racing games. Math blasters has organized the games into different grade levels. Math blasters also gives different resources that help to incorporate math games into a child's everyday life. The website also has the resources that provide teachers with fun interesting ways to teach math and get children more involved. A strength this website has it that is it very organized and looks like a lot of fun when you first log on. Although after trying to use the website it is hard to navigate through different tabs to find the games for students or resources for teachers. Although at the bottom of every page in the website their is a navigation bar that has everything organized by games, resource,worksheets, and lesson plans.

Overview: Academic skill builders is an educational gaming site. it allows children to improve their skills in math, language arts, and geography while holding on to their attention through car races and meteor destruction. Content: the site is quite obviously designed to help educate and entertain children in elementary school. Links at the top of the web page take you to other pages including information on the site's creators, and research on how video games could improve a child's education. Each game fits completely into the parameters of "educational gaming" as they all included different ways of helping kids hone their academic skills. I did not discover how often the site is updated or revised, however, and think that frequent updates to a game site are important so the content will not lose excitement. Design: This web site was well designed. It was easily navigated, and the games and links loaded properly. the homepage is attractive, and you are easily able to find links to all of the content on the site. These links are labeled effectively. Shadoe Konicek 8/31/10

Overview This site is for children to learn. It is for a younger age probably around the 3rd or 4th grade level. All the links work, but some of the videos and games take a while to upload. They could be uploading slow because of my internet access, however. It is a very fun and energetic site for kids to look through and learn and play games all at the same time. I think kids would really enjoy exploring and learning through internet, therefore this site would be a good one for them. Teachers could use this form of technology to teach. Content There is a lot of different types of content on this site. There is everything from biology to history to spelling. With so much different information and topics kids could take a lot from this website. It is a multipurpose website that is fun for the student, but also a learning purpose as well. The links all work and go to the correct page. My favorite part of this website is all the different games to be played in the different subjects. Kids can have fun while learning because of the great areas of information and learning there is to be done on this site. Design The design of this site is okay. It is pretty well organized which is helpful for children, although these days kids know more about technology than their elders. I believe students could navigate through the site pretty easily and would love to explore the various activities and pages. Having the pictures is very good for students as well because of how much visuals have become a part of learning in society. The design is not the best but it is eye catching and pretty well organized, and works.

Overview: Kid's Know It is a site with educational games. It does not seems like it would ve appealing to kids. The site seems to be intended for younger kids, but it is unclear. I think teachers would be more appreciative to the site than the actual students. Content: There seems to be a lot of different subject areas as well as games. The site however, does not specify what grade levels it is intended for. On the plus side, there is an 'About Us' section, information about the copyright, as well as a way to contact the operators of the site. It seems to be done in a professional manner. Design: The site is colorful and catches the eye. There are lots of games and many different categories. Each subject has a picture and a description of what the link contains. The initional picture you see when you first come to the site could be more appealing. The design overall is pretty good.

Taylor Pilch 09/09/2011

Trevor Santy Sept 14 2011 Overview: This site covers a multitude of subjects for varying grade levels. It is extremely user friendly and very easy to navigate. The main page has links going to individual subjects matters such as history. This site is very presentable with almost no ads, except for a few educational ones, on it and nothing to really distract students while on the site. My overall opinion is that it would be great for teaching as it also has a few recreational activities as well giving the site a multipurpose function; to teach and to be used as an extra activity if the time arises. Content: This site contains different activities for different subject matters such as history, math, science, and a few others. It also has a games tab that contains learning games for all ages ranging from the easy to some that are very challenging. Design: This websites design is extremely user friendly. With tabs to each subject and then banners to different activities. On top of that it has reference pages to other sites as well as a parents area and a preschool area. It also has contact info in its own tab. However, this site may be too flashy and distracting for some of the younger students so supervision while using this site is advised.

Oct. 7th 2012 Overview: This site is designed for educational entertainment and gaming. The content and design of this site make it evident that it was designed for children. This site offers many different resources for kids to access and use. The site includes games, pictures, polls, and even a parent teacher section. Content: While the site is obviously designed for children it contains many different categories and levels of learning. I would say the content ranges from a Pre-K to a fifth grade level. Although there is no clear indication of what game or program was designed for what level of student it is clear that some games are meant for the older elementary student. The site is also packed with seasonal games and activities, for example all of the Halloween games are broadcasted on the homepage right now. Design: This website is very eye appealing. The background is not just plain white and there are tons of interactive pictures posted on the homepage leading you to games and activities. All the designs are age appropriate for students in elementary although the load time could be faster.

Korinne Thoren 14 September 2011 NGA Kids Overview: NGA Kids is a site created by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. This website provides an interactive page where kids can make their own art and zoom in on the works of famous artists, providing an overall collaborative exposure to art. NGA is geared toward younger students, as denoted by the 'Kids" but I think there are tools and games on the site that could be utilized with students up to middle school age. NGA also has resources dealing with the National Gallery of Art available on its page. Overall, I think this is a very fun website and although it is geared toward younger students I really did enjoy playing the games, arguably making it a good way to pass time for older audiences as well. Content: The overall content of this website is good, although the immediate site is not super informative, it provides many educational and interactive games for kids. NGA does contain links to other portions of the National Gallery of Art, which are helpful and more informative, making them a good resource for older students looking for information. Contact information for the website creators is readily accessible and there are explanatory directions for the games and activities on the site. Design: NGA's design is well put together and almost reminds me of looking at a National Geographic magazine with its black and yellow layout. Information and games are easily accessible and labeled and the same basic format is used throughout the site. The links provided by NGA work well and are informative and the use of graphics and animations really bring the website to life for it's users. Overall, it is a well-designed site and easy to use.

Erin Kirby January 23, 2011 Overview: The sight http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/index.asp is a good sight for grades 4-12. The site provides information to help you learn about schools, find a public library, play different games, take quizzes, learn different subjects in math and more. The site does have many different links and it is a simple easy to use site. It has many different educational facts that some kids might find interesting. I think overall the information could be helpful and many students in a classroom or at home would enjoy learning about the facts, getting involved and playing the games. Content: This website is simple to use and the links are easy to follow. It is a government website so there are not a lot of pop ups or things that get in your way when trying to learn or play games. The games are interesting and educational. There are certain games that allow you to pick what grade you are in so the information applies to that certain age group. At the bottom like on most websites there are links that will show information about the site, but there is no place to find one main author. When going through the site I found that it was all very educational and kids that are into math would really enjoy it, but kids that arent may have a problem enjoying the sight. The links on the site are very simple to follow and allow students to do many things on there own. This is a sight that involves a lot of involvement that can be very fun. Overall the sight seems good for grades 4-12, it would be a good tool for students to use for many different reasons. The sight has a lot of math, quizzes, and educational facts that change daily. Design: The websites speed is fast and the links all work very smooth. The graphics are good and very smooth. The homepage has very clear links and it is not busy. It is simple to use! There are not a lot of distracting things and the site is simple and to the point about educational information. The sight is great for s

http://play.lego.com/en-US/default.aspx Reviewed by Angela Eiden 8/31/2010 Overview This site was created by the famous Lego Company. This site is loaded with fun and interesting games, comics, movies and downloads. Furthermore, this site has tons of content to entertain for hours. However, the drawback is that most of this stuff is not set up into a traditional educational way. Therefore, this site may be entertaining and loaded with fun stuff, but it will not be the perfect educational experience. The games are all Lego related and are quite engaging. However, they do have games for all ages, including preschoolers. Content This site is filled with content, including a copyright listed at the bottom of every page. However, there are no additional sites listed, with the exception of other sites that were created by Lego itself. There is also a copyright for all of the logos listed on the site. Design This site is extremely engaging due to the colors and themes used throughout the site. However, adult supervision may be required for younger kids. The site can be a little misleading on the easiness of getting to where you want to be. You may have to click through several pages to get to the one you are looking for. This may be quite difficult for younger ones to handle.

Hannah Clucas October 10, 2012. Overview: neoK12 is an educational video website. The whole site is basically a giant database to help teachers with their lesson plans. The main purpose of the website is to offer educational videos that teachers can use in their class. But there are also quizzes on topics of choice, diagrams, pictures on topics of choice, and even an option to create a school presentation. The site is simple but useful, though it is probably more useful for science and history teachers rather than language arts or math teachers. Content: As I said above, neoK12 is a website that allows teachers to find videos to help with their lesson as well as quizzes, pictures, and diagrams. All of the videos are from Youtube and cover a wide variety of age groups. The content was amazing in some areas and not so great in other areas. In regards to the history and science sections for videos, they are amazing. Several of the science videos are from National Geographic and the history videos are well done and cover a wide variety of eras and cultures. Several of the language arts videos were not made very well. They would probably be more useful to teach with if a teacher cannot come to class. It is the same for the math videos. The quizzes are useful and relevant. The ability to create a school presentation is a great tool for students to write about what they have learned or for creating study guides. All of the videos and other functions of the website are relevant and useful. Design: The site is extremely easy to navigate and is well organized. The home page is the list of the main categories of videos and their subcategories. The design is very simple, nothing flashy or amazing. The site does not bombard you with ads or other websites, which is nice and helps insure that students will stay on the website.

This website shows many different links to science videos, games and lessons. This helps the teacher and the student in many ways. It gives the teacher a way to look at other lessons and other perspectives to help them teach the class in different ways. The students also get to look at other ways to learn something, and they get to play games and watch videos to learn content instead of reading. Content: The website has multiple different links that relate to sciences from earth and space science to physical science. Each link that is clicked then shows different activities for different grade levels.

This website shows many different links to science videos, games and lessons. This helps the teacher and the student in many ways. It gives the teacher a way to look at other lessons and other perspectives to help them teach the class in different ways. The students also get to look at other ways to learn something, and they get to play games and watch videos to learn content instead of reading. Content: The website has multiple different links that relate to sciences from earth and space science to physical science. Each link that is clicked then shows different activities for different grade levels.

John Ripley 9/13 Overview: This is a site produced by the Federal Reserve to promote financial literacy. It is aimed at providing information and activities to all age groups from kindergarten to adult. There are only two games/activities for the K-4 level and I didn't think that either one was especially good. There are several more games for kids at older age levels that are a little better. I still can't imagine kids getting excited about playing any of the games that I looked at though. The games/activities are only a small part of the site and I think that the real strength of the site lies in the information that it provides for a high school age audience that might be exposed to the information through a teacher in a classroom that could help interpret it. The educational value is more as an aid to a teacher in planning a lesson or relaying a concept rather than assigning the

Interactive website full of artistic games for elem. students

This website is used for the instruction and education of art, including but not limited to great artists, different types of art. This webpage includes ratings for all their games based off difficulty (1.2. or 3 stars) This rating system is especially helpful when instructing students on what games they should play and which ones will be too hard. Grade levels include 2-6th. Content: The content of this page ranked average as I could not find some pretty important things. I couldn't determine the base content of the site, since they are all games, to gauge this, you would most likely have to play the majority of the games. The topic of Art is universal through all applications. I couldn't find date revised or who the admin was, but the sponsoring by Tate was received loud and clear. I felt like this webpage could be very helpful in one specific topic, or very distracting depending on the age group that this webpage was introduced to- I concluded that it would more benefit grades 2-5. There was no biased that I could detect, since the art games were of a wide variety. Design: Overall, good design of this webpage, but a little overwhelming if you didn't know where to start. The homepage is formatted nicely, but there is gratuitous amount of color and things to click on. I could not find a working link to contact the admin, or off-site links. ~A.Rodriquez

Mandy Toll 9/11/11 Overview: This website includes Abraham Lincoln learning games for kids. The website is intended for teachers and students who are looking for more information on President Lincoln. There are educational games for students to learn more about Abraham Lincoln, links to information on other U.S. presidents, the Gettysburg Address, famous quotations from Lincoln and many other informational things about Abraham Lincoln. Within the site there are a lot of links to other pages to further your knowledge about U.S. presidents but mostly Lincoln. I thought that this website was useful in allowing you to find information on Lincoln and would be suitable for students to use as well as teachers when learning more about Abraham Lincoln. Content: There was a lot of good content to this website. There are a lot of different links to allow both students and teachers to gain more knowledge on Abraham Lincoln and some information on other U.S. presidents. It is easy to tell what the website has to offer and who the audience is. The information is up to date and is appropriate for finding information on Abraham Lincoln. The links on the page to other sites are current and work well. The information on the site is for finding more information on Lincoln and games for students to play to gain more knowledge on the president among other things about Abraham Lincoln. The content on the site is well organized and easy to find. All the information is easy to understand as well. The information on the site also is consistent with other information in other sources. This site will most likely help in the future. Design: I did not think that the overall appearance of the website was very attractive however I liked how simple it looks and how easy it is to use. You can tell what you are looking for on the site and navigate around it with ease. The links on the site are helpful and appropriate and go with the subject matter. There were no uses of multimedia that I found wh

Overview: This website is a great website for children to explore. This website offers some great games and learning activities. This website is not only for science, but many other subjects. All over the website are characters from the movie Madagascar which Is a smart move for the website as a whole because it grabs the learners attention with the characters that they like to watch on the TV. This is a great website to use as a teacher because it has fun interactive games that students will enjoy doing.  Content: The content on this website is not only for science, but for other subjects as well. There are tabs for games, activities, videos, and mobile devices. The games and activities available are very informational and help teach the different subjects. There are informational videos as well that have the characters that all of the students enjoy to watch as well. There are science lessons, math, English/ writing, and geography lessons available to learn.  Design: The design on this website is very creative. The designer of this website used characters from the movie Madagascar to draw the students attention. This is a smart way to get younger children to go onto your website. The pages of the website are very colorful and welcoming to students. There are no advertisements, but there are links to share this website on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and some others. This would be a website that I would use a teacher because it isn't a boring page with links. This website would keep my students engaged and they would learn as well.