Group items tagged

Overview: The website ABCya.com is a website for elementary school grades K-5. The purpose of this website is to help children understand math, and language arts in a fun way. The website offers many different types of games, puzzles and tools to further the education of elementary grades K-5. Content: The content of the website ABCya.com is somewhat clear. This website is fully completed and is used effectively with a well organized home screen that is easy to understand and helps the child or the teacher find the correct grade and then from there the child or the teacher can find the grade specific learning tools. The website ABCya.com would be a great reward tool for teachers to us due to the fact that the website is somewhat built for learning but it also is more geared to having fun. The website ABCya.com can be a fun website for grades K-5. Design: The website ABCya.com is a bright website with many different colors that might distract the attention of younger children. This website also has a tool that can be used to find the desired grade level that the teacher or parent can use with their children. The website does have a few ads on the sides of the page that can distract the young child to look at. Also to find the desired grade level the child or the teacher will have to look at the bottom of the page, which might not be good for younger children because they will not know where to look. This website would be great for more of a reward site than an actual learning site.

Audience: Parents, but with the provided information, it can easily be translated into advice for teachers, guardians or loved ones of a student. Overview: The purpose of this website is to provide parents with information about how to work with and help children who have anxiety disorders relating to school. Available resources that have been provided on this page include information on how to prepare a special needs child for school, how to help relieve a child's anxiety or depression, and ways to help a special needs child with homework. Though there were some minor visual and content flaws about the site, it does give good advice and is worth revisiting when needed. Content: This page mainly provided different approaches for parents to take and numerous tips to follow when dealing with their anxious child, but those tips and approaches can be very useful to parents and the main point of each tip is given immediately. Intended purpose was clear and in bold print. There's no wondering and translating what each tip "could have" meant or what it "was trying to say". The only thing that the website didn't provide was the last revision date. The website also provided additional videos, but they were not directly related to school anxiety---under the "Related Video" section, there were videos on ways to relieve breastfeeding problems, relieve separation and anxiety, and what as 504 Plan was. Though there are available articles given to further advance a viewer's knowledge on ways to help children with anxiety, or "special needs", the "Related Videos" (except for the breastfeeding problems one!!!) does mention other related anxieties and provides a useful way to help an anxious child succeed and feel comfortable in school (aka the 504 plan). This website is definitely one that is worth revisiting just because it does provide useful tips and points to help viewers learn about how to help an anxious child, without any word confusion.

Information on child development including prenatal, physical, intellectual, language and social development.

Ryan Pinkston January 22, 2011 1) The site provides the information and tools parents need to understand the uniqueness of children and to enable them to help each child develop into the successful human being they were meant to be. Their mission is to help parents develop a positive parenting style that leads to a family where parents and children can listen to each other, support each other and have fun playing and enjoying family activities. 2) Content Credibility- It is easy to determine the basic content and intended audience. The authors of the material are available and easy to find. According to the information given the authors appear qualified to present information of this topic. I couldn't tell when the last update occurred but information seems up to date. The website is well organized and the information is easy to understand. 3) Design Overview- The page downloaded in a timey matter. It is a little boring to look at, however, it is clearly organized and has tabs highlighted in different colors depending upon the information you are seeking. The site definitely has information worth visiting; the information is all clearly labeled and organized. Information is easy to find and the links are easy to use. They have links that lead you directly to the staff that provide the information for this website. 4) This is a website that I would use to help parents understand their children. It has a ton of information that can be used to help parents better understand and help their children.

Overview: The website PrimaryGames.com is an all purpose website for elementary and middle school aged children. The purpose of this website is to help children understand math, science, social studies, and language arts in a fun way. The website offers many different types of games and puzzles, along with games to further the education of elementary and middle school aged children. Content: The content of the website PrimaryGames.com is very clear. This website is fully completed and is used effectively with a well organized home screen that is easy to understand and helps the child or the teacher find different types of games or subject areas without any problems. The website FunBrain.com would be a great tool for teachers or parents to use in the classroom or in the home setting. The website PrimaryGames.com can further the math, science, social studies, and language arts skills of the grades K-8 and the children can have a great time in using this website as well. Design: The website PrimaryGames.com is a well designed website with many different colors that grab your attention. This website also has a tool that can be used to find the desired subject areas that the teacher or parent can use with their children. The website does have a few ads that can distract the eye to look at the ads instead of looking at what the website has to offer and at times can be a little too busy for children and they might get distracted. This website also offers a teachers section that offers many different tools like print zone of different activities and worksheets. Overall this website can be a great tool to use in the future.

Overview This is another good site to send home with parents. It is simplistic and easy to use without too many hassles. It also has many games that children can enjoy playing. It is appropriate for many grade levels so it will transfer well to different classrooms and students. The variety of games give students many options. Content The content is nicely organized and easy to see as well as to decide what to do. The content is appropriate for all most elementary student and have a way to review. There is a variety of different games for students to play that use math in different creative ways. Design The design of this site is wonderful. They use colors to highlight sections and show different ideas. All of the colors are bright and stand out very nicely. The site is well organized offering many different categories for games. The games are not sorted by grade level of idea but they are easy to find because there isn't tons of games to sort through. The level of the games vary and most seem appropriate for students to play. The bright colors continue throughout the site.

-Overview: This website is very visually appealing and child friendly. There are lots of colors and graphics on the homepage and lots of different things that children would be excited to click on and see. The website is mainly made for children to play educational computer games and learn new things. It is centered on primary grade levels and their educational experiences. There are different resources for children to learn new things and the backgrounds are based on the seasons and holidays. -Content: On this website there is a ton of different games under each subcategory and has various types of games under each subject. They are all tailored to primary level children and are easy for them to play and learn. There are things for the students to print out and various puzzles and other games that the students can access on this website. I am not sure of the content of all the games if they are all educational, but just having the matching and certain aspects of not academic games is still important for a child's development. -Design: This website has a lot of colors, large print, and pictures. It is tailored for young children so they are able to navigate the page on their own and can learn to recognize the colors and words. The website divides the games up by subject and then lists them after you click on the subject which is good so that parents and teachers can help the students focus on things that they need to work on even if it is through a game like this. It also makes it easy for teachers and parents to see the different things that are offered to the child to play and it is good for the child to learn to recognize and read these words. They all have pictures or clip art with them so that even if the child cannot read the word they can tell what it is by looking at the pictures.

Overview: This website is helpful when learning about the social development in children of all ages. This does include newborns all the way to 6 years old. This website is able to get across the basics of what goes on. However, it is pretty vague; I would hope to have more detail. Content: The content is correct from what I have read already. It also tells you what you should expect from your child at these certain ages. Design:It is easy to follow and not an eye sore. It isn't confusing with a bunch of links.

Cole Baumann January 24, 2010 This website holds many hints and suggestions on how to help children with dyslexia. The site holds many suggestions on how to help students with dyslexia such as little ways to help them remember things and suggestions on ways to help them feel more comfortable in the classroom. This is helpful as children with dyslexia do feel a lot of stress that no other student does due to knowing there is something wrong but not knowing exactly what. They do not know why they struggle with work in the classroom while other students seem to perform just fine. This website will help teachers and parents make the students feel more comfortable in the classroom and may even be able to help the students work with their problem to become more literate and, consequently, be able to help them grow as a student and a child. The design of this website is very entertaining. There is a picture for almost every paragraph which is just pleasing to look at. This prevents boredom as you search through the website and explore. Also, this website allows you to change the background color which is not a real important thing but it is always fun when websites add little things like that to keep it more entertaining and more appealing to use. Additionally, the site looks presentable and very nice. It is not a very 'sketchy' website to go to which is very important if you are trying to help your student and you do not want your computer to fail due to finding a terrible virus. Though the website is for parents who have children with dyslexia, this website could also help teachers improve the learning abilities of any student that seems to be having trouble reading. This website does not consist of large programs or big dramatic ways to help dyslexic students learn, but there are small items and suggestions that in the end if you put them all together the teacher may be able to help the child function as a better student.

Posted by Riley Kallhoff on 1/25/2010 Overview: Funschool.kaboose.com is a site for teachers and students. It is a place where teachers can find educational games for students. This site has a lot of stuff going on in it. There are a lot of advertisements and just unneeded things in the website. The purpose of the site is to make life easier on teachers and help them in the classroom. The website is a little out of control and I would think this makes it hard to navigate. I had some problems figuring it out at first so I think students would struggle as well. Content: This is a website that is a little overwhelming when you first come in. There is a ton going on and you really don't know where to start. I would say it's a little hard to determine what exactly this website is used for at first. It's hard to tell if it's a teacher or a student website. The authors of the site are hard to find and the site is hard to navigate in its own right. You will click on one thing and it will take you on a little bit of a wild goose chase to find what you want if you ever do find what you are looking for. The links on the site work fine, but there are very few of them and most of them are distracting advertisements. I'm still not sure if this is supposed to be an educational site or if it is suppose to be for games. This site is hard to understand and I'm not sure this is a good site to send students to. Design: The website comes up very quickly, and is a fast site as far as downloading goes. However, when you get to the homepage you are confused from the start and you are overwhelmed with chaos. There is far too much on the homepage and it is like to much stimulus to know what to do next. I found it hard to navigate my way through the site. There are advertisements and it takes way too long to get to your desired destination. I think the graphics and animations are very hard to follow and take away from the site instead of enhancing it. The informa

David May 1/23/11 Fun site of games and entertainment. Educational to younger children. Overview: The website is filled with games and fun quizzes for younger children. The games look interesting, but they aren't filled with meaningful information for anyone with a mild understanding of history. The history information quiz is very basic such as who was the first president of the U.S. There are links to crafts and home activities. The website is for children and parents because the home activities and advertisements. Content: The audience is younger children which is clear by the bright colors and the fun game link pictures. Another hidden audience is the parents of the children that will be playing games on this website. This is shown through with the home craft projects and the advertisements for sandwich meats and other child oriented products. The website has a large copyrighted page and a large page of contact information with phone numbers as well as email addresses. Helping children learn is what the supposed site goal is with many advertisements of things that children would want. The clear owner of the site is Disney because the ads and the many links to other Disney sites and online stores on the links areas of the website. The site is very well put together to gain the attention of child and does a good job of entertaining them while hiding a bit of learning with it. Design: The site has wonderful appeal even older than grade school students get caught by this site. Everything is where it says it will be with wonderful smoothness and ease of use. Any type of additional information regarding the copyright, other links, and sponsor (which is Disney) is clearly identified with an entire page or more devoted to it. The site is very well put together and that is easily seen. The games and animations work very well and are quick to load. The games and animations will keep eyes locked on the screen for hours.

Overview: The Literary Center Education Network is a website created to help children with basic literacy needs in elementary school. There is tons of helpful information for parents and teachers as well as activities for students. This website has several categories of learning that focus on all aspects of elementary level literacy. Content: On this website, you will find a tab titled 'Play and Learn'. In this tab there are several categories that the student is able to choose from including uppercase and lowercase letters, shapes, writing, words, numbers, colors, and keyboard. Once the student enters each category, there is an activity that includes a woman's voice that narrates what the student is to be doing. There is also a 'Parents and Teachers' tab which includes things several additional activities that can be implemented to correspond with the activities the children have already done in the Play and Learn tab. Design: I believe that the design of this website is very user-friendly once the child has entered the Play and Learn tab. There may be some difficulty in getting to this tab, as it is not especially distinctive from the other sections of the website but once they are in the Play and Learn tab, there are several links accompanied by pictures that are easy to navigate even for a child.

Michael Gonzales September 14, 2011 Overview: The kid friendly website covers a wide range of topics from earthquakes, geology, rocks and minerals, and even fossil fuels. The information provided is supplied by government agencies that supply information that benefit many young scholars about information regarding science. Content: This website's homepage consists of a variety of links that offer a child to go and explore information regarding Earth Science. This site allows children to explore ideas of how things work like how earthquakes form as well information about NASA. This is a Government owned site that has material suitable for children as well as adults. The child base website is broken into two main groupings which has material that is suitable for each age group. The site is straight forward with its information and does not offer many things to sidetrack your learning. Design: The design of the website takes on a professional appeal, the layout and colors are eye catching and are simple and welcoming. The links that are provided allow the users to navigate through and find information with ease. The website provides information that is relevant to its topic and does not confuse or throw off the user. I can see this being beneficial in my classroom when I ask my students to seek a professional website that offers great information regarding science.

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. 

Peggy Hall\nAugust 31, 2010\nWebsite Evaluation\nOverview:\nI reviewed the website, Reach Every Child which is a website that helps teachers establish lesson plans. I believe the point of this website is to link the viewer to other websites that have information (i.e. lesson plans, facts, and data) about certain subjects. It is mostly a resource for teachers and students looking for information in whatever subject they need to discover more information in. I feel like this website could use some more content in explaining its overall use, but it does have a lot of great links for the viewer. This website needs to be enhanced, but the meaning behind it is good. I did also find some lack in labeling each section effectively. It took me a little while to completely understand how this website works and the author's credibility and contact information is lacking. \nContent:\nAs I previously mentioned it was not easy for me to decipher the overall objective of this site, I knew it dealt with lesson plans, but how those lessons plans were presented and used on the site was a little confusing at first. It is known on the webpage that Horace Mann developed it and that it is founded by educators for educators, but it does not have a bibliography page or link describing who Horace Mann Company is. It addresses in its disclaimer that if there are any questions to email them, but there is not an email address. This website does have over 5,000 resources and different links which I do find beneficial. However, it does also mention that you could hit a dead end and to not be discouraged. It is not apparent how current the information is that is being displayed on the webpage. This site does have some organization, but as I previously mentioned there is not exactly a clear homepage or labeled content links etc… There are a lot of links which do not clearly explain where they will be taking you next. \nDesign:\nThe design is lacking. It does not catch my eye appeal when I first l

In the first article that I found, there was a study done on cyberbullying in Greece. They looked at all things that could impact the bully and the victim from things such as parenting to online impulsiveness. I believe the intended audience is for the general public especially parents and school staff personnel. As I read through this article I find that it is a very good study with relevant information and a good purpose. The introduction did a great job on explaining what cyberbully is and who are the bullies and victims. They also did a great job on explaining why people bully other online such as gaining a sense of empowerment or simply out of boredom. The article gave plenty of statistics that made the article easier to follow and understand. The results were very easy to understand which was nice when trying to apply this study to something else. I also think that they did a good job on correlating parent to child bonding and how that could make an impact. Something I did not particularly like about this study is that it was done in one place, on an island. I think that it is hard to truly measure how much adolescents get cyberbullied with the study if over a single group of kids. This study really focuses on the fact that cyberbullying is a big problem in the world of adolescents.

In the first article that I found, there was a study done on cyberbullying in Greece. They looked at all things that could impact the bully and the victim from things such as parenting to online impulsiveness. I believe the intended audience is for the general public especially parents and school staff personnel. As I read through this article I find that it is a very good study with relevant information and a good purpose. The introduction did a great job on explaining what cyberbully is and who are the bullies and victims. They also did a great job on explaining why people bully other online such as gaining a sense of empowerment or simply out of boredom. The article gave plenty of statistics that made the article easier to follow and understand. The results were very easy to understand which was nice when trying to apply this study to something else. I also think that they did a good job on correlating parent to child bonding and how that could make an impact. Something I did not particularly like about this study is that it was done in one place, on an island. I think that it is hard to truly measure how much adolescents get cyberbullied with the study if over a single group of kids. This study really focuses on the fact that cyberbullying is a big problem in the world of adolescents.

Over View: Activity Village is a website that allows children to explore various subjects from Thanksgiving, to Steve Irwin Day, to Japan. It gives children examples of activities that they can do to learn about their subject which includes color pages, crafts, some youtube videos, and geography if they are learning about a country. Content: This sites purpose is easy to determine. It is a free site where children can learn about various topics and subjects. Everything is free and can be printed easily. The audience is for younger kids, but there are subject areas for all the grade levels. This site would give kids a good introduction into a variety of subjects. Design: The design of this website is very child friendly. There are a lot of colors and the text is fairly large. I think that it is probably meant for teachers and parents to find the activities and give them to the children, but an older child would be able to navigate the page with little supervision.

This website is full of nutritional information. There is information to be read over by parents/guardians but there are also games and activities that can be done by children. The site is very interactive and is a great way to bring healthy eating into children's homes. Parents/guardians can look up recipes and daily nutrition facts for their child.

OVERVIEW: The purpose to explore readingrockets.org is to learn how to teach small children how to read and to see research that has been done on children reading. The audience for this website includes parents, teachers, principals, librarians, school psychologists, school counselors, and speech pathologists. If you fit into one of these specific categories all you need to do is click on the link at the top of the home page. There are numerous resources available on Reading rockets ranging from videos on how to teach reading to resources for school psychologists helping struggling readers. The Reading rockets website gave me a fantastic first impression. One of the first things I did on this site was watch a movie and I learned many new and interesting things! CONTENT: Like all of the other websites I reviewed, the content of readingrockets.org was fabulous. The information given seemed to be accurate and the content is complete. The information was easy to understand and extremely interesting. If anybody was struggling teaching a child to read, this is the first site I would direct them to. It does a wonderful job satisfying the need of teaching literature and reading. DESIGN: There is a lot going on at the home page of readingrockets.org, but it is well organized and easy to navigate. There is a table of contents bar with links not only on the top but also on the left side. All of the links work great. I did not experience any problems with getting to a specific web page on the site. Finally, the website is current with a 2012 copyright date at the bottom of the home page. Overall the design of Reading rockets is fantastic.

Morganne Harper The site http://specialed.about.com/ contains a lot of materials that could be useful when teaching or handling a child with special needs. There are many articles talking about behavior and how to handle certain types. There are also links to sheets that help with fundamental skills such as counting. Towards the bottom on the left, there are more detailed sections that you could navigate to, which would give you more specific information on a certain area. At a quick glance, it is not easy to see that it is about special education. There is small gray font near the top that says special education, but not much else. The authors and resources of their information is relatively easy to find. It is at the top of any article or link that you click on. I had trouble finding the date that anything was published or updated. Some areas that should be put together aren't and some things are put in what seems like random places. Information contained on the site is of good quality. It is meant to be a helpful source to utilize, and does a decent job at giving content to allow this to happen. The homepage opened quickly and lead me to what I was looking for. Near the bottom of the page there are multiple colors in links that draw your eyes to them, but on the top and in the middle there was a lack of appeal. It looked like something about "boring" education. You have to scroll for a little bit to get to the links that you might want, until then there are just articles that seem to be in random order. Some of the graphics that are used as clip art for articles are repeated, losing the effect and interest.

Khan Academy is an excellent resource for parents, students, and teachers. It is basically a free online classroom with video lessons and the opportunity to try and solve problems in short online quizzes. It has resources for math, science, economics, and more. The resources are intended for a diverse audience with resources that vary from kindergarten all the way to high school and beyond. Teachers and parents can use it to help their students or children to get extra instruction and practice. Students can use it to help them develop a better understanding and to help them practice or study for tests. The site is well made and the information is credible which makes it an excellent resource. The content is obvious as Khan Academy has a drop down tab that allows you to navigate to all the different subjects and the audience is also obvious as each subject is broken down by which grade you are in. The content specialists are all experienced experts in all sorts of different fields and so the information can be verifiably accurate. Everything is well organized and the information is explained mostly through videos which tend to thoroughly explain the information. The website downloads very quickly and is aesthetically appealing. You can tell that it was professionally made. All of the links work and directions for using the website are fairly straightforward. All the videos and graphics serve a clear purpose which is typically to explain and illustrate different subjects. For example in the Trigonometry section a video is shown which illustrates a right triangle and the different ratios that can be used to solve the sides or angles of the triangle. The website is also extremely current as the copyright date is 2015.

Trevor Montgomery Khan Academy is a resource that students, teachers and parents can all use to encourage and promote positive attitudes and confidence for students in math by using activities that seem like games that actually help students practice and hone their math skills in a seemingly fun learning vessel. Khan Academy is also an extremely great resource for parents and teachers because they can not only track their child or students' progress, but also create activities and lessons for students to do outside of class and have their own online tracking guide. As far as content goes, the activities are based on grade level and category for the students, so as teachers, you have a lot of control as to what the material is. Additionally, you can add students to the class at any point and when necessary, look at the lessons from a "student view", where essentially you are logged in as a student and can take a crack at the lesson yourself to see if there are any errors or misconceptions. This is actually a great tool as a way to, in a sort, "proofread" your lesson or online homework activity assigned. You can also track skill progress specific to each of the students and when a child is done mastering a certain activity, you can keep track of that and maybe quiz them in class as a way of ensuring mastery of the concepts. The intended audience is parents, students and teachers alike. As a personal user and someone who knows they will use this resource as a future teacher, I have to say I give this resource a big thumbs up. So as far as easiness and fluidity of the website goes, it couldn't be easier to navigate. Especially for students, you couldn't ask for a better layout of a resource like this that clearly identifies goals and activities for you. As a teacher, everything is neatly organized in one place for you to navigate back and forth through students and activities.

Jade Line April 14, 2015
This article is about how finger painting benefits children in all different ways. This resource is intended for mothers of toddlers and preschool teachers. It talks about the different motor skills that finger painting can help the young children develop. I think this website is well put together and easy to follow. It gives me great ideas for my lesson in class. This site is credible and the author is known, although she is a demand media, and isn't a credible teacher. In this article she talks about how fine motor development is the number one component of finger painting with children. She compares finger painting to having child zip up their jacket, they are using hand eye coordination which is helping them develop fine motor skills. Finger painting also opens children up to creativity and literacy/vocabulary. For example, the child could describe how the paint feels: squishy, slimy, or sticky. This website helps the teachers and parents to understand the importance of finger painting. It also helps them realize that it isn't just a mess, its fun and productive. The resource gives them ideas on what to do with the children and shows them different content areas they can take the finger painting with. The overall design of the website is appealing to the eye and very easy to navigate around. There are links provided with different content of finger painting as well, that work as well. There were no ads on this website that distracted the eye.

The purpose of this site is to inform people about science. The audience of this site is students and teachers of grades 1 to 6. Overall this was a very fun website. Although for being a more child geared website it should have been a little more interactive. There was a little quiz at the top of the home page but that was all. The content of this site was over scientific facts. There are multiple scientific categories that a person can choose from. The content was pretty simple. It was more science facts for younger kids. Though it was simple facts the facts were accurate. There was also no date of last revision. There was an email and an address so that you could contact the author in case you had a question about anything. The design for this website was highly eye catching. It is a website that was engineered for younger kids so it is very fun. It wasn't too overpowering in the design though. It was also a very easily understood design. A young kid would easily be able to navigate his or her way around the site. Although there were no directions given as to how to use the website.

Levi Jensen September 2, 2010 Website Review http://www.nclark.net/Biology Overview The Amazing Biology Teacher Resource website was created to provide science teachers a place to reference when teaching their classes. I assume that this site was created by a present or past science teacher. The main focus of this site is in assisting in making lesson plans for teachers and to give helpful ideas for science activities. This site covers both biology and chemistry subjects and also offers many links related to science education. Overall, I found this site to be rather elementary in design, and also had some difficulty using some of the drop-down menus. Content At first look it is quite easy to understand that the intended audience is for science teachers. One drawback that this site has is that information about the author is vaguely apparent. There are no sponsors given, and the only way to contact the author is through a management email to which there is no name given to write to. It seems as though content is updated quite often due to the links posted but there is no revision date provided. As far as information quality I believe that this site does a nice job and the content is readily available and easy to read. Design I had some problems using some of the dropdown menus on this site. Upon trying them a second time they worked just fine for me. The visual appeal to me looked as if a child had designed it. This is supposed to be a professional website that is used by professionals. Also the home page is just a list of topics that could be broken down into groups in order to create a more orderly page. Finally this site needs to have citations behind the information that they are providing so that the reader is able to look the information up to confer the information.