Group items tagged

Nathan Hissong 1/23/10 Content: The Worlds Smallest Political Quiz provides five questions concerning personal political issues and five questions about economic issues. Each question is followed my a matrix which includes whether you agree, are not sure, or disagree with the question. When you are finished with the quiz which literally take two minutes you are presented with a chart that shows where you lie on the "political map." Below the chart the site tells you where you are. For instance, mine is Liberal. Under that heading it explains what that political ideology means. The site also out lines the other political ideologies below yours Design: The design is rather modest in aesthetic appeal. However, in my opinion is appealing in the content it provides. The site that provides the quiz also has quotes from The Washington Post and USA Today hailing its legitimacy as a tool to understand the political system. In conclusion its content makes up for bland visuals. Overview: In my opinion, this site is very educational. I plan to use in my classroom. American High School students often have no idea where they stand on the political map. This quiz not only gives you questions to decide where you lie it shows you the other sides and shows you why you lie where you do. It is a good exercise to show how different the ideologies are and how extreme they are in nature. It is a valid teaching tool and is simple enough for complete naves to understand.

Erin Kirby January 23, 2011 Overview: The sight http://epa.gov/climatechange/kids/gw.html is a good sight for young children and older children. The purpose of the sight is to teach kids about global warming, allow them to play games, and tell them what they can do to help. On the website it allows you to pick a topic and learn a lot of things about it. The sight is simple to work because there are simple links and there is not a lot of distracting stuff going on. The sight could also be good for teachers, it could allow teachers to learn about this topic and find ways to teach it to their students. The sight seems simple to use and there are not a lot of things in the way. Content: This website is pretty simple and seems easy for most age groups. It is easy to see what the sight is about, it allows children to learn interesting facts. The site may be hard for very young children who cannot read because the sight does have a lot of words. There are not a lot of pictures so kids may become bored. The games are fun for children to play and they test the knowledge of what they have been reading. The author of the site, and words from the author were not available but it does say who the sponsor of the sight is. The content of the sight should all be educational and correct because the sight is a government website. The last time this sight was updated however was in 2006, so some stuff on the site may be old. The links on the site are helpful because they are picture and all of them work and don't take very long. The grammar and spelling is fine and there does not seem to be anything that is bias. Overall the sight seems simple and fun for children to learn. Design: The website comes up very quickly and the site run very quickly. The homepage is simple and the links are easy to follow and use. The graphics of the sight are clear and keep it more interesting for kids. Every game on the site seems like it has accurate information and all the information overall

government library, primary sources

Jaymes Talkington January 23, 2010 http://www.loc.gov/index.html Content This site is full of collections of books, newspapers, videos, and other documents on thousands of historical events and people that are kept in the Library of Congress. There are resources for kids, librarians, publishers, researchers, teachers, and visitors. All of the informational documents found on the site come with citations, and since the information is in the Library of Congress it is most likely creditable. There is also a link that allows you to ask some of the librarians specific question. Design The front page of the web site is pretty easy to use considering there are many specific areas to click on depending what your use of the site will be. Everything is clearly identified on the front page. It didn't take unusually long to load either, and all the other links I tried came up pretty fast as well. The "search" bar at the top of the front page makes it easy to find exactly what you are looking for. It may take some time to download copies of texts, but the videos don't take long at all. There is no advertising on any of the videos I observed so it gets right to the chosen subject. Overview This site's purpose is to make the Library of Congress's information available to anyone without leaving their home. Their audience can include kids, librarians, publishers, researchers, teachers, and visitors. The resources on this site include digital copies of books and journals, and also educational videos. Overall the cite seems like an accurate and easily accessible source of historical information.

This webstie allows students to research primary sources.

USDA MyPyramid Posted by: Jeni Waring 9/18/2009 This website is not just for teachers but for anyone who wants to know more about food and nutrition. The site has information about nutrition needs for children through the elderly and advice on eating right and being healthy. There are worksheets and informational posters in both English and Spanish that can be downloaded and used in teaching nutrition. The website is designed to be easily navigated and usable for anyone. It includes a list of links to other sites and a multimedia page that includes podcasts, public service announcements and animations. There is no advertising on the site. The site was last updated three days ago. The only problem that I found with this site is that it is difficult to return to the home page after viewing other pages.

Ross Lindstrom - September 21, 2009 Website Evaluation #3 - Politico.com This website is a flashy, attractive website that provides news stories on the American political arena in an easily digestible and easy to navigate format. The audience is pretty vast, including anyone interested in current events in politics. The purpose is to provide newsworthy political articles as well as a forum of discussion to debate content areas such as public policy, congress, lobbying, community, etc. My impression of Politico.com is that it is a well-designed, well-written conglomerate of differing opinion covering a wide array of political topics. However, at times it tends to emphasize the gossip aspect of Washington, running articles such as "Palin emerges as Facebook Phenom". Politico.com is incredibly well designed, with coherent organization of topics and content areas, relevant information regularly at the top, and an easy platform with which to navigate the many intricacies of American politics. There is a healthy balance of information and multimedia without the multimedia being too distracting and without the information being too monotonous. Loading and downloading times are quick. Gossipy stories about Washington tend to get more emphasis on the main pages, but browsing around the site and reading a few articles will tell you Politico is a heavyweight when it comes to intelligent political analysis and debate. The information is current, and links to other useful websites are prevalent. The first look at politico effectively tells you the purpose of the website, as well as the wealth of information it contains. The authors (and their legitimacy) of the various articles are all easily identifiable. The content of the website is all interesting, well-written and fresh. The website tends to lean on the liberal side of the spectrum, but still endeavors to include all dissenting viewpoints. The multimedia section contains a vast amount of information av

John Pokallus 31 January 2011 Overview: The Ecological Society of America - Ecosphere publication site is an online-only, peer-reviewed journal created to foster prompt publication of scientific findings in the field of ecology. The intended audience of this site consists of professional, or student researches within academia, government agencies, or other private companies that are involved in the broad field of ecology. The resources available are a collection of scientific publications that have been submitted to Ecosphere and accepted after a peer-revision process. Additional resources include links to other journals that are associated with more specific aspects of ecology. This site is very well organized and easy to navigate; the content information is credible and relevant to the intended audience. Content: At first look, the basic content of Ecosphere is easily discernable and it is stated explicitly in a brief paragraph titled "About Ecosphere" located immediately under the title-banner of the site. That same paragraph implies the intended audience via the selected language used to describe the site. Information providers are clearly identified for all publications and contact information is provided. We can assume that all content providers are qualified in the subject matter due to the rigorous peer-review that all publications are subjected to. All information on the site is dated and relevant to the demography of the intended audience and updated on a monthly basis. Information quality is superb and everything is well organized. Further information is available and related sites are linked under the title-banner of the homepage. Design: No errors occurred while downloading the homepage and it did so very efficiently. The basic design of the homepage was appealing and very simple, leaving no uncertainties about the content or location of information within the site. Ecosphere did not provide directions for navigating the site; however, I belie

Sean Wilde January 2011 Weather.com Content The name of this site really makes this site quite known what it contains. This site helps a fairly beginner to novice user of the internet find out what the weather is like for the day. It is a little better then the kids site but not as high tech as its government counterpart. The information is fairly accurate, although sometimes one does wonder about it when they look out their window. But it is the weather it sometimes is a little hard to tell. But this site is for news and is not trying to make a huge impression on anyone. This site isn't going anywhere, its needed and has enough information on it that is accurate enough. It may be hard for one to find a way to contact with authors that are somewhere on the site, but really this site is just a water downed version for the average person to use. Design The homepage is easily navigated and its links work, the graphics work, but sometimes if youa re on an older computer it is hard to get these graphics to work and links to load fast. The compatibility is wide, mostly because again it is a watered down version of weather news. But the information is enough to get one by hour by hour for weather needs. Overview The site is just intended for novice to beginner users or for those who just need a quick basis of what is going out there in the world today with weather. It has the main information that anyone wants so there is no need to add more. It is an easy correct enough weather site that one can varily easily get around and find what they need. Which if someone that is getting on to check real quick for today or to start planning a trip in a few days it's not a bad choice.