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Brianna O'Shea October 13, 2014 Overview: The purpose of this article is to talk about what the purpose of the No Child Left Behind Act was and how it has changed. Even though NCLB hasn't reached the goal it was designed to in the allotted time, the change of focusing on growth rather than test scores, has shown an improvement in schools and has seen to help students. The audience of this article is those doubting what good NCLB can offer and why it is still in effect. Overall, this article shows a side perhaps unknown about NCLB and would be good for potential teachers to read. Content: The purpose of the article and its audience is clearly identified, as well as the author yet no links are given to contact or look into the author. The article is recent and links to other sites work and provide good additional information. The purpose, informal, is clear and its purpose is achieved. There seems to be a little bias towards NCLB, yet the article does point out on critique of the Act and accepts it.  Design: The title is clear and the article is well organized with headers and good lengths of paragraphs. The sponsor and copyright are clearly identified while the site is easily maneuverable. The links to other sites are helpful to look at if confused or wish for additional information. Information is easy to find under each header. There are no additional links for the author or similar articles from this page. 

Website with lesson plans that will be useful for my WebQuest on the Basics of Acting. Jennifer Durn.

Posted by Erika Jeffs on 1/24/2010 Overview: Brightstorm is a dot com website for high school students to prepare for various college preparation exams, such as, the ACTs and SATs along with advanced placement exams. The site offers practice on certain subjects of the tests. The math section is particularly emphasized and has wide range of high school level material. It includes videos of concepts and practice problems that are very helpful. However, the website does sell practice packages which is the ultimate goal of this website. Content: The audience and purpose of this website is very clear. There is information about the creators of this website along with their credentials. The "managers" are qualified and contact information is available. The site has current information and seems to have been updated this year. The purpose is obvious, they do not try to hide that they ultimately wants to sell something. Brightstorm is effective for practicing high school level math and has accurate information. The site is interactive because it offers videos teaching concepts and practice problems as well as a question/answer feature. Also, it is very easy to navigate because it is organized and has clearly marked tabs. As far as I can tell, grammar and spelling are correct. There are not many outside links. Overall, this website as good content. Design: The page loads quickly. When you arrive at the home page, it is appealing and not too cluttered. There are clearly marked tabs that contain the most important aspects of the site. There is also another set of tabs that are easy to find with information about the creators and contact information. The copyright is clearly stated. Navigation is very simple because everything is broken into subjects, and many video clips are available that load quickly and work well. The math section is particularly helpful and has a lot of useful information for high school students. It is very simple to find the informa

Useful Website for my WebQuest on the Basics of Acting. Jennifer Durn

Useful website that will be included on my WebQuest for the Basics of Acting. Jennifer Durn

Mandy Schumacher 1-24-10 Overview: Internet 4 Classrooms is a website with many components. The purpose of this website is to help teachers use the Internet effectively. On the "Home" menu the user can choose to visit any of the seven links posted. Those include: Grade Level Help, Links for K-12, Technology Tutorials, Assessment Assistance, Daily Dose of the Web, On-Site Training, or About Us. This is a free website that is designed to help teachers find free Internet Sources to use in the classroom setting. Content: This site is full of information and consists of many separate components. This site is mainly visited by teachers who are hoping to find a way to integrate the Internet into their classrooms. From the site the user can choose a specific grade level and subject. Once the user has selected a grade level and subject a list of sites that can be used for classroom instruction appear on the screen. For example, if the user chose Language Arts for Elementary Students, sites such as "American Literary Classics" or "Brain Food" would appear and the user would then choose one of those links to instruct their students. These links can take you to anything from a list of good books to read in the classroom, word puzzles to challenge your students, or anything else related to Language Arts for Elementary students. Design: The website is somewhat organized, however, it can be a little confusing to navigate since there are so many separate links on the Home page. There are also several ads which can become distracting. Overall this site provides good information for teacher and students about using the internet as a learning tool.

Trevor Santy Sept 14 2011 Overview: This site is mostly a teaching resource with activities for grades from preschool to 12th grade. With many different activities ranging through different class levels. The activities also cover a large variety of topics from science to math to English making it a good learning tool as well as a good place to practice the skills associated with that subject. It even says the grade level the activity was meant for making it a must have for a teacher's resources. 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 activities for all ages ranging from the easy to some that are very challenging. Also the activities make great lessons for aspiring teachers and the site has help sections in case you get lost or don't know what grade to do an activity for. Design: This websites design is extremely simple and straightforward. With tabs to take you to individual class levels and activities. On top of that it has a handy on site teacher training for using the activities that is pretty easily designed using a mix of videos and text.

Randi McInerney September 15, 2011 Overview: Internet4Classrooms is an educational website primarily for teacher usage, but could be used by students. There is a good amount of information available on a variety of topics, but the site is not as organized or appealing as it could be. Helpful links, educational games for k-12, assistance and information for teachers, technology tutorials, and SAT/ ACT prep are available. Content: There is a lot of information available, but the SAT/ACT prep is only accessible if you become a member. Interactive games, tutorials, and information are available. The content could be easier to find and access. There is email information to contact the website developers. Design: The site does download, but is not that visually appealing or organized. The site provides tabs to find information, but then will just list a large amount of information that you are expected to look through in order to find what you need.

Mark Hyde www.shmoop.com Overview: This is a good site for students to go on to find information on many things. It is full of information that has been written by credible sources. Good source to go to study or to find information. Has lots of links to different subjects. Content: Has anything from mythology to any historic event. Click on a subject and you get a introduction followed by many other things such as summary, themes, the myth and other information about it. It has links to study for big tests such as ACT and SAT. Design: Very colorful and appealing to high school kids. It is easy to use and to find subjects to study. Click on a big subject and it lists little things inside that subject to learn more about. Set up really well, but can seem pretty packed in the main page of it.

Alyssa Maurer The website Teaching Channel is designed to connect teachers to one another across the world. The site also provides video demonstrations of in class techniques that can be used for video reflection and coaching. The audience is for teachers across the country that can influence and assist one another. The entire website is based on connectivity between all teachers who visit the website. The website also acts as a social networking site by allowing visitors who register with the site create profiles. My impression of the website is that it could be a very useful tool for teachers to continue to improve their lesson plans and to be able to retrieve constructive criticism. The Teaching Channel as a website seems to be very useful as a teaching resource for teachers. It was created specifically for teachers to connect with one another and share their experiences in expectation that the audience can gain knowledge from others practices. As a visitor of the website you can also select grade level and topics to further a specific search of videos. Along with the videos which is the main portion of the website they also have a blog, newsletter, and questions and answers page. The website is created by a non-profit organization that clearly defines their mission, contact information, terms and conditions of the website, discussion guidelines, video guidelines, media coverage, and frequently asked questions. The site seems to be quite user friendly with a modern look to the setup of the website. A critique of the website would be the visual aspect of the website. It also only allows teachers to interact with one another and forgets to include students and parents. The site does seem to be modern and created in our generation for easy access and navigation. The videos are filtered by subject so that each teacher can easily navigate through the website to reach the desired subject area.

A compilation video that shows a wide variety of one of the more important scenes of Hamlet.

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.

Shelley Limegrover January 22, 2011 OVERVIEW The first site I evaluated was physicsclassroom.com. This site is intended for both students and teachers of physics at the high school and early college levels. The site is very comprehensive including everything from curriculum and worksheets to tutorials and simulations. I found this site so helpful and easy to navigate that I imagine I will be returning to it many times in the future. CONTENT As noted above, this site is very comprehensive. Information is easy to access including information about the author, who is a graduate of chemical engineering and now a high school physics teacher. The author claims to make frequent edits to the site, thought the dates of last revision are not apparent. As far as I can tell, the information appears up-to-date with current-day physics knowledge. All pages contain complete information and there are no broken links. DESIGN This page is very well designed. The author did an excellent job presenting a lot of information in a concise format. The navigation is easy to use and the layout of the pages is consistent. Portions of the site that may be problematic for the user are accompanied by a brief introduction and, when applicable, instructions (such as for the interactive portions of the site). Should any confusion arise, the author's contact information is available.

Ericka Chorniak October 7, 2012 Overview: The purpose of the Physics Classroom is to provide examples for teachers, as well as ideas for instruction and worksheet opportunities. This site is also a good resource for high school level physics students because it provides practice problems and explanations to answers in addition to physics games for the students to entertain themselves during their free-time. The links available on the site can be used as good resources a wide range of purposes. For example, there are sections on this site that provide guidance for using the site, there are review, explanation, and even ACT sections for the students who are struggling with the content, as well as a section for teacher that will provide ideas for teaching the content and problems to work through. Based on these things and personal experience with the site, my overall impression is that this site is not only worth using, bookmarking and referring to, but also it is worth sharing with others. Content: The content of this site is easy to determine at first glance and it is easy to determine the intended audience. The authors of the site are clearly identified, their information is available for viewing, and appear to be qualified. The sponsor of the site is also clearly identified and they provide contact information for any questions. This site provides the date it was last revised and it is appropriate for the material. All of the links are current and work properly. The purpose of this site is clearly identifiable as informational and it achieves this purpose effectively. The content appears to be complete, is well organized, is easy to understand, offers sufficient information related to my needs/purposes as a future high school physics teacher, is free of bias, provides interactivity, is accurate, and is consistent with similar information in other sources. The spelling and grammar are correct. The site provides links to other sites (within the site) that are related

Overview- The site itself does not have much content regarding information at all, but it still is a great research tool. Rather than having information on the site, it acts as a home base in finding relevant and credible sites and tools for kids. It is easy to find other sites regarding the content you are interested in. Everything it suggests for you can become a great tool in either research or studying. Content- This website overall is pretty good. It is very credible for the fact that it is created by and maintained by Kent State University to help provide information to students. The site itself gives you links to information and research about any subject relevant to a student in grades K-8. It is like any other database used in libraries around the country, but is centered on helping kids. It allows them to search for information without worrying about if the site is credible or now. Design- The design is very kid friendly. Everything is easy to find and visually appealing. There was a lot of work done to this site to make sure that kids would be both interested and able to use the software. Every link was usable and always came up with a credible source.