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Ryan Magrum Sept 15th, 2011 Overview: The purpose of this site is to teach student about the frog system through a virtual dissection. The dissection lets the user display the organs of the frog in any combination with or without skin and skeleton without the mess of an actual dissection that many of us have done in high school biology class. The site is strait forward with a big frog picture to click on to start the dissection and various links to other information. Content: The first page has all the bureaucratic business with the contact info, the site creators and developers. There is also a link or two to other pages with more sites like this one and pages with more information. The dissection is a little disappointing. When one highlights an organ or set of organs the organs are sitting there like a real frog on a dissection dish. For a virtual dissection I wanted to see clickable options with descriptions and information (click on the heart and a box with info on the heart of a frog pops up). For a dissection, the pictures accurately depict what an actual frog looks like without the mess of a real dissection. The only other criticism is one can't physically touch the parts of a frog which is one of the benefits of the real life thing that the internet may never have. Design: The website is plain in nature. There are no fancy pictures or visual effect to draw a person into the site. I believe the site is there purely for educational purposes. The title page is white with black print and blue hyperlinks. There are no advertisements. The interactive frog brings the user to the page where the user can play around with the frog parts and view them and how the parts fit together. The art involved is somewhat primitive but the parts are colored and one can tell what they are. This interactive page is plain as well. There is no commercial aspect in this website - it is obviously for educational purposes.

Vocabulary games for all grades. There is a special section for high school students.

Overview When first opened this site is colorful and bright. It has a lot of links and information. All grade levels from kindergarten to 12th grade are represented on this site. It's a huge website with many different things for enhancing learning. It's a great way to build vocabulary skills with appropriate leveled games for each grade. I focused on the high school games which were very challenging and very useful. This could easily be utilized in a classroom setting for teachers who want to expand their student's vocabulary in a fun and effective way. Content Every grade level is represented which is great because finding effect high school interactive games online is challenging. Each grade level has a variety of different types of games like synonym games, spelling games, and context and definition games for example. They also have games that focus on the SAT's but there is nothing for the ACT's. There is also a section on vocabulary learning resources. There are many useful links within this section that both teachers and students could utilize. For those learning a second language they could use this site to see the vocabulary of the world. The down fall of that part is it is entirely in the language you chose. Design The design is very bright and lively. It is extremely easy to use. You just have to pick the subject you desire and the games that are available show up and they are categorized for easy use. You can find exactly what you are looking for and if you can't find it then it is probably not available on this site. The design may seem a little childish for high school students but the games are effective. The games also provide detailed instructions on how the game is to be played.

Overview: I really like this website. I feel it offers a lot of information and there are ample lesson plans and ideas for activities to do when it comes to doing a unit on the Olympics. The design is eye catching and easy to follow. The content if very worthwhile and the lesson plans are written by teachers who have used them in their own classrooms and have submitted them to this site. All of the lesson plans range from 1997-2011 and vary with what is needed to be taught. I feel the website is well designed, very useful for future teacher's who need lesson plans related to the Olympics or other units, and provides significant information as a future teacher who needs ideas. Content: This website provides many lesson plans related to the Olympics that teachers have used in their own classrooms, and this website also provides other units and themes that future or present educators can use in classrooms of their own. When it comes to research, there isn't much offered for that because this site is for lesson plans and activities to use in education. However, while it may not be a good resource for research, I feel as an educator needing ideas and lesson plans this website would be great to use because there is such a variety in ideas for lesson plans. This website is for educators or anyone needing a project for children to use on the Olympics, and everything on it is easy to understand and easy to navigate as well. Design: The design of this website is very eye catching and easy to use. The site title is in bright colors and there is a table of contents to the left with all of the themes offered within the website. All of the information is clearly labeled and is offered for all grade levels as well. The information is significant to what is needed as long as lesson plans and activities are what the researcher is looking for. A basic format is used throughout the site where all of the lesson plans are provided on the page and links provide the actual lesson

Overview: This website has a little information such as flags and mottos, competition, and medals. However, there is not a whole lot of information, and nothing that teacher's can use if they are looking for activities for the classroom. The information given is about a paragraph long and seems to be information you can find anywhere. The content can be used if needed, but if you are looking for more information there really isn't a whole lot to offer. The resources are other websites that give information on the Olympics and are good websites to use and better than this website. The design is poor, the site title is nice and big, but everything else is just text and there isn't any huge design within the website. Overall, if your needing some quick information on competition, medals, and flags and mottos, then this would be an easy website to use, but not one that I would recommend if a teacher is needing good information. Content: The copyright for this site is 1999-2011 so the information is up to date, but when it comes to seeing the actual information on the site, there isn't much to offer unless you need only information on medal, flags, and about the competition of the Olympics. The resources are reliable and up to date and are better resources than this website is. Reader's can quickly determine the content of this site and it easily loads, this site is also for teachers and students, but there is not a whole lot of information on a broad range of topic. All of the links to the other resources are reliable and provide much more information than this website. This website would not be something that I would ever use if I needed information and not something that I would ever return to either. Design: There is not a whole lot of design to this website. The websites site title, eHow, is nice and big in bright colors, but that is the only design to the website. Everything else is text and there is a lot of advertisement within the website as well. Th

Whitney Lindt Purpose: The purpose of this website is to make it easy for teachers to find fun activities for their students to do but also make it easy to use in the school setting because it is enforcing what the teachers are teaching. Overview: I think that this site would be great for teachers to use in their classrooms for several reasons. One of them being that if they give the proper direction to their students they would actually be able to have the students use it in the classroom, this is important because they need to become computer savvy as they continue on in school. The other reason that this website is a good one to use would be because it covers more than one subject so teachers could use it for several of the subjects they are teaching instead of trying to find a new subject with each subject they teach. Content: The content of this site is really well organized and it is easy to look through and find what one is looking for. The nice thing about this site is that even though it is all learning material it is presented in games which is really nice especially for younger students. It has learning material on math, English, animals, printing, and typing. These are all essential as one moves up in school. One thing a really like about this website is that is has a how to print area and a typing area which most of the other websites don't seem to have and with the technological world that we live in today the younger the children start these activities the better. All of the links on this website work really well and open quickly which is also good to keep the children's attention. Design: I do not think that this website is appealing enough to the eye especially for young grade school students. Like there are some playful things in the background but I just don't think that there are enough colors to get the attention that the site is looking for. The other thing I like about this site is that it is split into different grade levels so that i

Whitney Lindt Purpose: I think that the purpose of this website is to make a website available that teachers could send their younger students to. This website makes it a fun way for students to learn and it also gives them time on the computer which they need to move up in school. Overview: This site has great links that teachers can use in their classroom and with some direction could actually send their students to and students could probably easily navigate this sight. There are many activities for the children that would make learning fun and keep the younger students' interest while the teacher is teaching them how to navigate a computer or just about any subject because this website goes over almost every subject in some way. Content: The content of this site is very useful especially with the younger students in grade school because it is easy to navigate through and teachers would be able to tell their students where to go and the students would be able to do it themselves. The other thing that I really like about this website is it has links to sites that could help students learn and then it has sites that students could just go for fun such as coloring pages. All of the links off of the homepage of the website would serve great use in the classroom and just for parents to send their kids to without having to worry about the safety of the internet. Design: This site is easy to navigate because the table of contents is in alphabetical order. All of the links from the home page work extremely well and one can navigate through this site quickly.

Overview: This site holds a plethora of quizzes from a wide range of topics. It allows you to keep track of your lifetime score using a free username and password. This site could be used by teachers as extra credit. They could get 10 points EC for every 100,000 fun trivia points. The idea is that students learn on accident. Design: The website design seems lacking, with boring colors and somewhat haphazard organization of the different quizzes. It does label quizzes as easy, medium, hard and very difficult which would supply classes of different grade levels. Content: The content is great for its wide base that spans multiple disciplines. The major downfall of the site is its Wikipedia-like setup. The users of the site are also the authors of the thousands of quizzes. This makes quality control difficult, although using my own knowledge while taking numerous quizzes I saw no mistakes. The reliability issue makes this site inappropriate as an addition to a core curriculum but it does have a place as extra credit to pique a student's interest.

Overview: The purpose of this site is to serve as a professional development aid for teachers as well as a classroom tool. It covers all grade levels and all subjects which makes it useful for the whole school or a whole school district. Design: The design is kind of all over the place. There doesn't seem to be any unifying theme or color scheme. The home page is boring to look at and has too much coming at the viewer all at once. It was also difficult to figure out what the primary purpose of the site was. Content: The content is actually pretty good but the site is really more of an educational catalog rather than a free aid for individual teachers. This site then only becomes truly useful if a school pays for it. The "interactive" history section was dreadfully disappointing as there was nothing interactive about it. Overall I would not use this site in the future but it still has uses for some school systems.

Overview: This site is mainly for teachers to help improve their skills and knowledge and by providing information that is useful for them to view for free or purchase. Although this site can be helpful, I think it needs some additional work. It provides videos and workshops for teachers which can be beneficial. Content: The content is clear and easy to navigate although I had a little trouble finding the lessons for students or teachers. One problem I noticed was I couldn't find other links to web sites. The authors weren't clearly identified and there was no information on them. This site is also for others to use. There are lessons that students can learn from on their own at home. It covers Arts, Foreign Language, Literature and Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies and History. Teachers and students of all ages can find lessons or material to learn from. Design: The design of the web site is good. The homepage is organized. Other than the homepage, I didn't notice many graphics; however, there are videos of workshops that teachers can view from their own home. The other pages could use more interesting graphics and this site needs to provide other links to other sites.

Overview: This website is targeted for students and is proken up into categorys these category's are ages 4-11, 11-16, and 16+. This website offers educational tools for subjects such as: geography, literature, science, math, music, numeracy etc. Content: Since I am focusing on math once you click the math tab a list of activity comes up (depending on which grade level you chose) under some of the activities there are sections where parents or teachers can have lesson plans, worksheets in order to help your student or child. Design: The design is fairly easy, if you were going to allow your students to use it in class you might need a fast tutorial so they are comfortable but all in all it is very easy. The site uses fun and bright colors so its appealing to students. Each activity has a description so once the student has read through each description they can decide what activity is most appealing to them.

Overview: This site is very fun and inviting for chiildren of all ages. It grabs your attention immediately with bright colors and pictures. It allows kids to learn new things and ideas from math to reading and writing with fun games and lessons. Content: The content for this site is very well organized. There are icons that are listed for all categories and it is easy to find what you are looking for. You can tell right away that this site is intended for the elementary school-aged child. The author is known on this site as well as the sponsor which is Pearson Learning. There is contact information and a place to ask questions as well. The website is updated yearly with 2011 being the most recent. The links for other pages on the site work correctly and takes you directly were you want to go. Design: The homepage is inviting for young children and has a very strong eye appeal. You can tell where you are immediately as the site is layed out very well with links to go to different sites. The information is organized and is understandable for kids.

Adam Matson ITEC 2360 9-14-2011 Website Evaluation: Overview- http://powa.org/ is a site designed to help teachers and students with any aspect of language arts. It includes things such as starting the writing process, revising essays, starting and supporting thesis', etc. The site is easy to navigate and has links too many sponsors, all tied in to language arts. I would recommend this site to anyone who needs any help with any English assignment. Content- All pages in this site are labeled plainly and have great instruction on whatever section chosen. Each section has detailed steps and is described with easy to read directions. Examples are given throughout to help enhance the directions given before. Design- This site design is somewhat plain, but easy to follow. The color scheme stays the same throughout, a basic white and blue, and lacks interactive tools. Navigation through the site is very easy, each tab at the top giving specific points of the site and you can usually find what you need in one or two clicks. All sponsors are placed at the bottom of the pages, also including the site developer and date written or updated.

Overview This site has a variety of different content that is geared toward elementary students. Overall the site is rather complete offering different options for students with a pleasing variety of games. It has different links for teachers to follow that allow them to choose games for students and monitor how they do. It has a variety of games and lets you pick first by subject and then by grade level. There are suggestion boxes that all people to post suggestions for games, which is something unique that I have seen to this site. I think that is a good site to use in the classroom and a wonderful tool to enhance children's learning. Content The content of this site is fantastic. They have wonderful games that are simple to use and a joy to play. The games are age appropriate and on a variety of subjects. The content is organized well and it is easy to find what one is looking for. There are suggestions for how to incorporate this into the classroom even mention smart boards and various other technology. Design The design of this page is childish with bright primary colors and fun cartoon characters. An added touch is the titles and headlines look like someone wrote them instead of just typing. It is a site that is very enjoyable as well as simple and has a nice look as well as in interesting.

Audrey Stevens 9/20/2011 Kinderteacher Overview: Kinderteacher is a great site for both parents and teachers. This site provides all kinds of creative, fun, and educational project ideas for the classroom or at home. There were endless resources and overall it was very useful for information needs, worth bookmarking for future reference and well designed and easy to use. Content: On this site I could not find a date of revision, but other than that, everything was great. The user was able to figure out the purpose of the site immediately, the author was a previous kindergarten teacher who had retired but wanted to still stay involved. She offered a few paragraphs about herself and contact information. The content was well organized and the user was experienced so the sites information was definitely accurate and useful. It was also worth bookmarking for future reference. Design: The site was very colorful, fun and welcoming. It downloaded with no problems and there were no problems with any of the links as well. It was well organized, easy to use and had many cute graphics that contributed to the site. Off of the design evaluation sheet, I would give it a very well designed and easy to use checkmark.

Great for incorporating History and Technology in the classroom

Amy Andreen 9-14-11 Overview: thwt.org is intended for the use of History and Social Studies Educators. It is a great resource for finding ways to incorporate technology and the various content areas in the classroom. There are various links to other sites as well as links to other pages within the site that would help Social Studies Teachers to devise lesson plans that incorporate technology. This site can also be used to help brainstorm for project assignments to use in the classroom. There are explanations as to why it is important to include certain aspects of technology in the classroom and what ways we as educators can utilize the resources we have. Content: The content on this site ranges from external sites for historical information to internal resources within the site to help in teaching with technology in the content area of history. There are videos, podcast, articles, chats, and many different ideas about how we can bring all the technology around us into a content area that many student find boring. Design: thwt.org has a very "sleek" design. It is very simple as far as design goes, but so easy to navigate. It was easy to find the tabs that I wanted. Also, the color scheme used wasn't overwhelming and made it even easier to travel around the site. The contacts page was so easy to find and very accessible with questions.

Amy Andreen 9-14-11 Overview: This site is based out of the UK but it has great historical content. The greater part of the emphasis is on European history which is very interesting to look into. It will obviously have a bias that leans toward the British, but I find that to be beneficial in researching topics and content for the classroom. It's a site that would be useful to both Social Studies teachers as well as High School Students. Content: A wide variety of the site focuses on the historical events that took place on European soil. However, it is not limited to this. There are primary accounts from both World Wars as well as other events throughout history. There are podcasts that allow students and teachers alike to have a more interactive experience on the site. The list of topics within the site is almost endless. As far as content goes, this site is a great resource. Design: The Historical Associations' site is beautiful when it comes to content; however, I found the site very boring to look at. It isn't hard to navigate which is great, but in my opinion it lacks in inviting colors that should add interest to the viewers. There are many different tabs that allow one to explore the site very easily and enjoy all of the content offered. Once the researcher or viewer makes it past the layout, this site has fabulous material that can be very useful to teachers and their students.

This Painted Art is a reflection of the ability of Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn as an artist and the observer is treated to a display of perfection in figure formation, body language and incorporation of colors.

Overview: TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. Simple devoted to spreading ideas. That mission continues to make the brilliant ideas of today easily accessible. Content: This website is a media based outlet to share riveting "talks" from remarkable people, free to the world. What I love the most about this website that it includes so many different subjects from pure education, design, sciences. The speeches are sometimes complex and take some critical thinking, but this is an accurate source to be sending student of upper school to really challenge them, and create a different perspective not only by using media, but through connecting us to speakers that are normally incredibly riveting to get to hear. This is a breeding place for the newest ideas and inventions that will that expands people's capacity to understand what is possible. Design: This is an incredibly put together website. With simple colors that refocus you to what you are looking for, as well as genres of interest located in plain view including listing of new topics. This website is very accessible and readily available for any edger learner.

Overview: This is a daily blog for all ages; it provides random facts about the world around us with simple illustrations. Content: The information found within this site will baffle you. This is not a source for research or subjects, but gives an opportunity to interact with things you would have no interest in. For example "Kissing causes Tooth Decay" to "George W. Bush was a school cheerleader". With humorous illustration this provides education that I believe would lighten the mood in classrooms and begin to engage students getting them ready to anticipate the random fact they may learn tomorrow. Design: This website is simple to access. The new fact appears daily on the homepage, and archived facts are easily accessible. The design of the site is using simple colors to make it easy to navigate, as well as the illustration are humors depictions of the fact displayed using better understand the information.

Posted by Mitchell Clark 9/18/09: Lesson Planet is a search engine designed to save the effort of designing various lesson plans by providing over 150,000 teacher approved lesson plans and over 75,000 worksheets. This site provides material for all subjects in grades K-12 and also includes state standards. Content: This Education World sponsored site has an incredible amount of information that has been provided by many teachers in various fields. It has lesson plans for all grade levels and all subjects including math, science and technology, language arts, education, social studies, health, art and music, and it also includes research resources. Each lesson plan includes the author and date that the lesson plan was posted. Also every lesson plan is rated on a scale of 1-5 by other teachers so you don't waste your time searching through inadequate lessons. Another great feature about this site is that because teachers can post their own lesson plans, there are always new and relevant lesson plans. These plans are easy to access due to multiple links which are designated to different fields of education i.e. science or math. There is also a search bar at the top of the web page that allows the user to search specific lesson plans as well as narrow their search results to grade level and rating (1-5). Overall this is a well organized site that provides a wealth of knowledge. The only thing to keep in mind is that these plans are posted by individual teachers which could contribute to a partial bias in the lesson plan. Another thing to consider is that there is $40 dollar membership fee for this site which is an inconvenience, but this fee also discourages the submission of junk lesson plans and worksheets by other internet users. Design: This site is well designed and very easy to navigate. There are no advertisements or links to unrelated material. The sponsor of the site and contact information is clearly displayed at the bottom of the page as well as t

-Overview: Lesson Planet is an excellent resource for teachers to find ideas and lesson plans for specific topics and grade levels. They are able to type in exactly what they are looking for and it is just like a Google search engine just for lesson plans. There are other links to related articles and blogs for teachers, and there are places where teachers can access the standards. It is a very good place to create lessons from and gain ideas for teaching successfully in the classroom. -Content: The content is easily accessible from exactly what the teacher types in to find. There are specific tabs and easy instructions to help the teacher find what they are looking for. It is a very helpful resource tool that teachers can use to plan activities for specific subjects, for a specific standard and find worksheets and articles that relate to the topic they are teaching. There is a huge amount of content within the website that is easily accessible for anyone who would like to use it. On each page there are tabs to things that relate to the topic as well as a list of subtopics that are easily accessible as well. -Design: The creators are in the process of creating a new design that may be more visually appealing, but currently the design is very simple and professional. It has enough color and visual recognition tools to help you locate specific things quickly and find what you are looking for without creating distractions and taking away from the content. The search portion is big and centered on the top of the homepage so it is easy to type in and find exactly what you need right off the home page.

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