Group items tagged

Scholastic.com Learning Activities (Grades K-5) Sara Scribner 1/23/10 Overview: I found this website to be very helpful. It has numerous resources for student activities and links to other sites with information and resources for teachers. Ads are present throughout this site, but they do not overwhelm you. Also, on the primary page with learning activities for students there aren't any ads at all. Not only would I use this source in my classroom, but I would recommend it to others. Content: Scholastic, a website for teachers is very credible. Information found on this site is current (updated and links work) and information to contact or learn about the sponsor/author is available. There does not seem to be any hidden agendas on this site. This site is organized according to grade level, K-2 or 3-5, and has activities for both age groups. Its information is consistent/accurate, easy to understand, and organized making it easy to navigate. Another positive aspect of this site is that it has activities for subjects like math, science, language arts, social studies, and Spanish. Design: This site is definitely worth visiting. It's content and links to other useful websites makes it a valuable resource. Content layout is organized and everything is clearly labeled. Graphics provide a glimpse of what each game entails and add appeal to the page/game description. Animations and sounds make one's experience as he plays the games enjoyable and exciting.

Mitchell Sept. 5, 2011 Overview: Elementary Math Games is a website that has various games for math subjects. It has different activities for all grade levels and you can select the grade level you wish to play games for. It also contains worksheets that can be printed off for each grade. There are flashcards and puzzles as well. Content: There are games and worksheets for grades first through eighth. It contains 3-4 games per grade level and 3-4 worksheets for each grade as well. These worksheets are organized by grade and cover different topics. They are basic worksheets that can easily be printed off. Design: The design of this site is much simpler than the other site I found. It is less colorful but easy to navigate. The pages are organized by the grade levels. The problem is that before seeing the worksheet at all, you have to open it up. You cannot preview them at all. This site has problems with ads being in the middle of the screen again and this distracts from the stuff that is actually found on the website.

Nicole Sutton 9/5/11 Overview: The e learning for kids website is a nonprofit foundation that provides free and fun learning activities on the Internet. The website is for ages 5-12 but can also be used by people in the education department, parents who want to connect and learn what their kids are learning, as well as game developers who want to contribute. e-learning for kid's hopes to be a better source for children 's learning through being available through the Internet so it can be accessed from anywhere. It's free and offers course content in math, science reading and keyboarding. The website helps children master these important basics so they can be successful in their future lives. e-learning has many partners and supporters; there are also helpful resources such as a media link that connects you to new, case studies and other important information. Content: The e learning for kids website is very easy to navigate, and is very high quality. There is a very nicely laid out home page where you can click on the grade level you need. Below the grade level there is a list of subjects you can choose from. There is also a choice of languages to choose from at the very top of the page. Once you click on a grade or subject it gives you a list of fun and helpful activities as well as what grade it would be best for. The content of the site is very helpful and well laid out. The website seems reliable as well because it gives you a list of board members, executive team and advisory board so you know exactly who is involved in the website and what they do for the site. Overall I got a very good impression from the content of this well laid out website. Design: The e-learning website is very easy to navigate and very pleasing to the eye. It is colorful and lays out all the links that you need on the home page. There is a clear area to contact the creators of the site and sponsors or partners were very easy to determine. The copy writes date is clear and the

Overview: The purpose of this site is to educate kids about the U.S. Government. On the home page it asks for a specific audience in which you belong to: K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12. My impression of this site is that it is kid oriented, fun and educational to use, and also easy to navigate. It is a Government website and was updated last in May 2010, and then February of 2009. I focused on the 3-5 grader part of the website Content: The content is fun and informational about our Government. The information is cut up into different sections and aspects of the Government, from "Our Nation" to "Symbols of our Country" The content is fact driven but has a high value in my opinion because it also has games and activities. Design: The design of the site is very easy to follow and clearly states everything a student would need to know. The homepage is attractive and cartoon-like so it easily grabs the attention of the younger grades. The site is organized into different sections that are very focused on the different aspects of U.S. Government

1st Grade Math - Numbers and Operations in Base Ten 1) Counting sequence (1.NBT.1) 2)Place value (1.NBT.2, 1.NBT.2.a, 1.NBT.2.b, 1.NBT.2.c, 1.NBT.3) 3)Place value understanding and properties of operations to add and subtract (1.NBT.4, 1.NBT.5, 1.NBT.6)

Scott Chanthongthip on January 23, 2010 Overview: National Library of Virtual Manipulatives is a free website offered online to help teachers us visual aids to teach mathematics. The content is from the Utah State University and is edited by the university. Content is easy to navigate and understand because it focuses on students from K-12. Content: The National Teachers Council of Mathematics five content standards are listed vertically in a grid, while the grades for each of the standards are listed across the top of the grid. Navigation based on the content standard and grade level appropriateness is accessible because of this organization. Teachers just need to find the content standard and line it up with the appropriate grade level. Although the site has a version that it offers to schools many of the virtual manipulatives are easy to use as long as one's computer has JAVA capabilities. There are four different language options for the different virtual manipulatives, so it makes it easy to use in bilingual settings (English, Spanish, French, and Chinese). The main reason for this website is to offer teachers with computer technology to teach manipulation of different math areas when the physical manipulatives are not available. Teachers can also use the site to help explain concept clarity of hard to understand math functions. Design: The initial web page offers a grid of math standards and grade levels from K-12. Teachers can click on the appropriate link and it will lead them to more options on different subjects in the content areas. None of the links are broken for the virtual manipulatives. Design of the website is updated often by the USU. NLVM also allows users to select from four different languages.

Kaci Philpot Overview: The purpose of this site is to provide teachers and students with fun, interactive Math manipulatives online, because manipulatives help students to see visual relationships in Math and help to actively engage students. The website has the following standards for math education; numbers and operations, algebra, geometry, measurement, and data analysis & probability. Each standard has four different age groups to choose from: pre-k through 2, 3 through 5, 6 through 8, and 9 through 12. This website is one of the very few educational websites I have found that is free and clear or useless information and clutter. Content Summary: This website content quality is very high; it has an index chart on the homepage with grade levels and math standards. Each box on the chart is linked to a page of full of various virtual Math manipulatives. If you navigate to the credits page you can see who is in charge of creating what, however it does not provide information about or credibility of those individuals. It also does not have revision dates. But the site is well organized and has very rich content. The manipulatives are an excellent way to get students excited about learning math. Total yeses: 19 Total no's: 2 Total N/A: 3 Design Summary: The homepage of this site is very easy to navigate and understand, but it does not have very strong eye appeal at all. But the manipulatives are very useful and all have clear directions if necessary and all internal and external links work properly. It does not appear to have any outdated content, if Mathematics can even be outdated. My favorite link on this website is the link to the Spanish page. This would be very useful for teachers with ESL students; it helps to ease the language barrier. Total yeses: 22 Total no's: 2 Total N/A: 0

Chelsey Lynch 1/31/11 * Overview: This website is for the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives. The intended audience of this site is teachers, and students of all ages. The available resources are a wide array of virtual math manipulatives. This website is extremely useful to teachers because it provides children with a firm grasp on concepts by letting them learn directly through physical objects that enable students to visualize relationships and applications. * Design: This website is attractive and very easy to navigate. The main page of the website contains a large grid system which serves as a menu for the math content area and grade level. All information to contact the sites provider is given, and all the information is current. The instructions for the manipulatives are very easy to follow and the site even provides examples when necessary. This site has adequate graphics, though the music and sounds in games is a little dated and sometimes annoying. * Content: The authors of this site appear to be highly education and experts in this field. The purpose of this site is very clear and the content achieves the intended purpose effectively. This site is extremely interactive, well organized, and easy to navigate. I have personally used this site numerous times and love it. The only things I wish this site contained more of are links to websites that are similar to this or had further information.

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

Chelsey Lynch 1/31/11 * Overview: The purpose of this site is to aid students in higher level math classes with problems they may be having and provide further resources. There is an extremely wide variety of available resources on this site. There is everything from enrichment lessons, games, puzzles, links for graphing paper, and overviews of any math content areas. This website contains a great deal of information, but it is not organized very well. At first glance this site looks like it could be very helpful, but once you spend fifteen minutes trying to find what you are looking for it seems a little useless. * Design: This website is attractive and has an interesting layout upon first glance, but after further examination is clearly not very user friendly. The material on this site is far too broad to all be in one site. There are several topics to select from and once you click on that it takes you to another page where you then have to make another selection to actually get where you want on the page. The copywriter date is current and visible, but there are too many advertisements on this page to focus on anything, much less, mathematics. * Content: The basic content of this site is noticeably math but I find the bullets to select from rather broad. Information about the author cannot be found on the website, though there is a link to e-mail them. This leads me to wonder if this information is relevant or even accurate. The sponsor of this site was also very difficult to locate. This site is meant to be useful for higher level math classes, such as high school classes, but I found the help links difficult to understand. This site does contain links to the right of the page for other math related sites. This links worked, and were much more efficient than this one.

I have used the website www.TheMathWebSite.com in my classroom for the past 6 years. By using the internet technology fully in the math classroom, teachers spend less time in preparation/marking drudgery and more time interacting and helping your students. It is intended to be used to assist math class instructions by providing typical examples and solutions to most high school level math topics. 1)  Begin with Bellwork. Choose some questions from a Quiz or Test Sheet, and give out to the class via paper, blackboard or projector.  Let students mark their own or each others. 2)  Give a Quiz on yesterday's topics for marking.  Students can mark their own, each others, or the teacher can mark.  Everyone can do the same quiz, or a different quiz via paper, blackboard, projector. 3) Present the Class Lesson  using examples from the Quiz or Test Sheets.  Show questions and solution steps on a projector or overhead. Present as many examples as needed. Click on the question and the solution steps appear or disappear. OR Present the Class Lesson  via the Lessonboard using the mouse drag & drop method. The lesson can be created and presented line by line via projector/overhead or blackboard. OR Present the Class Lesson  via the Lesson Sheets. The Lesson Sheets only present one question or example at a time. Click on the question and the solution steps appear or disappear. Present as many different examples as needed. 4)  Give some Practice. Choose examples from the Quiz Sheets which allow immediate student checking of answers from the bottom of the sheets. Tests have answers that can be clicked out. 5)  Present a math Diversion such as a Puzzle, Activity, Game, or Enrichment topic to maintain their interest in math and to put some fun into the class. 6)  Assign the Homework. Show students the source of extra practice sheets on the website if they or their parents wish to get extra