Group items tagged

Mandy Schumacher 1-24-10 Overview: World Digital Library (www.wdl.org) is a very informational site that can be accessed by anyone. This site could be a very useful tool in the classroom. It is a huge collection of documents that teach about places from all around the world and from all different times in history. All of this information is presented in a well organized easy navigable way. Content: The purpose of this site is purely informational. Historical information from 8000 BC to 2010 AD is available on World Digital Library. The user can also pick anywhere on the globe that he/she wishes to learn more about. The information on this site seems to be legitimate and the sponsor is clearly represented at the bottom of the page. Further information about the site, help, and contact information is all included at links at the bottom of the page as well. This website is extremely useful and educational. Design: World Digital Library loaded very quickly and the homepage has very strong eye appeal. The user is able to choose which era they would like to learn more about. They can then choose any part of the world. Content can also be found by browsing a specific place, time, or topic. The user just has to click on which part of the world they wish to learn more about. This website is extremely easy to use and involves simple navigation.

* Jessica A. Wilhelmsen Reviewed August 31, 2010 o International Children's Digital Library Overview The purpose of this site is to provide accessibility to children's literature that spans multiple languages and cultures. Its audience is geared toward ages 3 to 13 as well as for librarians, educators, parents and researchers. The site is a collection of currently over 4400 children's books in 54 languages, with the goal of adding and translating even more. This site provides a plethora of resources for children and adults keeping with current technology as well as current research. Users are able to navigate easily through this site finding information as well as activities that makes it engaging and easy for ever user. Younger children will need some assistance when looking for specific books but will be able to turn the pages as well as make the print bigger or smaller. The overall feel from community postings and twitter, gives this site great reviews. Content The content of the Children's Library allows the user to quickly determine the point and use of the site. It provides a site map that is visible, allowing material on the site to be easily identified. Identification tabs with sub menus are located at the top for quick reference. Children accessing the site, interested just in reading would be able to identify the "read a book" button which is centrally located on the page. The content is free of biases and provides users with multiple opportunities to be interactive. This site is educationally based and updates are provided frequently. It is also, well organized providing information on its mission as well as its sponsors. Design The esthetics of the Children's Library is appealing. It uses mostly primary to pastel colors giving an ease to the feel of the website. The links are also helpful as well as appropriate. When navigators access the "read a book" button the format changes to a more interactive coloring b

Mandy Schumacher 1-24-10 Overview: World Digital Library (www.wdl.org) is a very informational site that can be accessed by anyone. This site could be a very useful tool in the classroom. It is a huge collection of documents that teach about places from all around the world and from all different times in history. All of this information is presented in a well organized easy navigable way. Content: The purpose of this site is purely informational. Historical information from 8000 BC to 2010 AD is available on World Digital Library. The user can also pick anywhere on the globe that he/she wishes to learn more about. The information on this site seems to be legitimate and the sponsor is clearly represented at the bottom of the page. Further information about the site, help, and contact information is all included at links at the bottom of the page as well. This website is extremely useful and educational. Design: World Digital Library loaded very quickly and the homepage has very strong eye appeal. The user is able to choose which era they would like to learn more about. They can then choose any part of the world. Content can also be found by browsing a specific place, time, or topic. The user just has to click on which part of the world they wish to learn more about. This website is extremely easy to use and involves simple navigation.

Danielle Walter 9/5/11 Storyplace: The Chldren's Digital Library Overview: The Storyplace.org website is a great educational website for both English speaking students and Spanish speaking students. Or it also can be used for helping a child learn English or Spanish. The website has activities for pre-school age children and also for elementary age children. It offers an online reading, an activity, a take home activity and also a reading list so children can explore other books. The website is a great resource for teachers and parents to help children be excited about reading. Content: The Storyplace.org website is easy to navigate for children and adults. It is also set up nicely. It has the grade levels on the left side and when you click on one it comes up with a menu of the reading and activities. This is a great website for helping children learn how to read and to become excited about reading, but it is also great for teaching children how to navigate the web and to show them how useful it can be in learning. Design: The Storyplace.org website has very bold colors that are eye catching. It's also easy to navigate. It is a .org website so I would trust it to be a good website for my children or students to be on. It also contains the copyright on the page so it is even more trusted.

Eileen Andrews: September 9/11/11 Overview: As the title suggests, this site helps students and teachers access history digitally. This site includes links to primary sources, lesson plans and other help tools for teachers, and interactive learning such as timelines. This site would be useful for both teachers and students. Content: This site covers a wide variety of topics in American History from the American Revolution to present day. The site seems to be well kept since the last revised date is 9/11/11. Although some links don't work, many others due, and the ones that don't work can be search in for in other resources. Design: The site is easily navigated and includes a site map and search option to make finding specific content easier. This site provides pictures, videos, and timelines. The site can seem boring at times, but the pictures do help liven it up. The site is organized very well in the sidebar and site map.

Ideas for creating content related digital stories.

match analog with digital clocks

Jaymes Talkington January 23, 2010 http://www.gilderlehrman.org/ Content This is a great American history site. It is full of historical documents, maps, and podcasts of historians by era. This site also contains curriculum models and quizzes for history teachers to use in class. It also has a lot to offer for students as well. Most of the information is either talked about by a historian, or comes from digital copy of a historical document so it is cited and creditable. The content of the site seems to be updated daily. Design The website is pretty user friendly and simple to use. The headings are noticeable and specific. There is a search box instead of an index. The site loaded regularly with no delays as did the podcasts. There is no unnecessary advertising on the site. All the links I tried seemed to be sufficient. The browser capability works for Internet Explorer. There doesn't seem to be any 'out of date' material on the site. Overview The web site seems to be mostly for the use of teachers; however I think it has a lot of information that can be used by students. The historical documents, maps, and podcasts are primarily for students, but can also be used by teachers. Its main purpose is to educate, and aid teachers with American history. I think this site would be very useful for teaching an American history class or even writing a paper on a certain event in American history. I was impressed with the amount of information the site contained.

Lynnsey Patterson January 23, 2011 Overview: The purpose of this site is to give artists of all ages and media the opportunity to showcase their work on their very own website. I believe this could be a great site for high school art students in giving them the opportunity to put together a digital portfolio that can be viewed by anyone, anywhere in the world. Content: The content of this site is well organized with a header containing all the links one needs including examples of other user's portfolios and an about section. There is also a side bar with information about how many images they currently have displayed as well as portfolios and users. Design: At first glance this site looks very unprofessional. The background of the site is contains images of unicorns, clouds, and other fantastical creatures. However, the portfolios the site hosts are very beautiful and professional looking. All the links work very well and the entire site including the portfolios are easy to navigate.

Lyle Wiley September 10, 2011 Overview: The Folger Shakespeare Library is an exhaustive site of Shakespeare resources with specific large pages for different audiences including a site for students and one for k-12 educators. While the site has a clear focus on selling published Shakespeare works and resources, there is a good deal of free information and resources available for students and teachers alike. These resources include Shakespeare information and history, lesson plans for teachers, study guides, audio and video embedded helps, space for teachers to interact and share ideas and experiences, and a frequently update blog (called "Making a Scene: Shakespeare in the Classroom"). This rather attractive site has some very helpful and interesting resources for the Shakespeare educator. Content: The basic content and intended audiences of this site is easily discerned upon entry. There are numerous authors of the material available on the site, but for the most part the author's contact and educational information is easy to find. The site appears to be frequently updated, and certainly the blog attached to the educational resources on the site is updated often. The purpose of the site is both business and informational which sometimes colors the available information on the site, but there is a large amount of rather good free information including lesson plans, teaching ideas and tips, audio and visual resources, and access to a creative community. There are few external links, but the information available looks to be very helpful to the Shakespeare educator. Design: The Folger Shakespeare Library loads quickly and has a nice aesthetic appeal. Well organized and heavily indexed, the site has an impressive ease of navigation which is complimented by some nice photo design and occasional embedded multimedia (which is always relevant and helpful). Again, much of the material on the site is up for sale; however, there are a good many quality resource

Overview The Folger Shakespeare Library site is the home page for the Folger Shakespeare Library located in Washington, D.C. The site has any number of features that any good library web site would have: an online catalog, listed hours, ask a librarian. The site is designed for teachers, students, scholars, and the average Joe who is interested in Shakespeare, Renaissance literature, and early modern literature. Areas of the web site of high interest are the Visitors section, Students and Families section, K-12 Teachers section (which includes monthly lesson plans), and a Scholars' section. Content The content included on this site is amazing. The Folger Shakespeare Library has a catalog of over half of the world's books published before 1640, and the catalog is, of course, accessible online. There is a section of Hamnet (the online catalog) for electronic resources as well. The site is interactive-offering a free e-newsletter, social media, a calendar of events, and an active blog. There are podcasts chock full of lectures, poetry readings, etc., digital images, an archived list of lesson plans. There is a six minute YouTube documentary on the First Folio! You could spend many happy days lost in this site. Design The site's design is simple, elegant, and business like. It is a light blue color, which is easy on the eyes. Most of the navigation is at the top or to the left. The site is sometimes difficult to navigate unless one has at least an idea of what he or she is looking for. A site map is made available if one gets distracted or lost though.

Tyler Skinner, Aug 31 2010 The purpose of this website to to help give tips and ideas for history educators. From elementary to high school, this can be used for all different grade levels. Overview This website has all sorts of nifty tools. There are separate links for different education levels, helping instructors on what works best with each grade. Along with that, there are also videos on introductory subjects to help with lectures. Content Ranging from the Revolution to the Iraq War, Ancient times to the Present, there are all sorts of awesome tools to use in lectures. They help give more input and teaching techniques to make the lessons go more smoothly. Design The organization of this website is very clear. With links to the side for separate grade levels, its easy to locate what your looking for. Video clips and materials are right on the home page, and with a little click of the mouse information just bursts out everywhere. All in all, this website is a great resource to help out history teachers.

Amy Andreen 9-14-11 Overview: This site has great resources for those teaching history to elementary students all the way through high school students. There are activities, documents to review, lesson plans available to view, and picture to look at. It is a great resource to history and Social Studies Teachers to help with content and classroom ideas. Content: teachinghistory.org has an inexhaustible amount of resources available to the viewers. There is a section devoted to English Language Learners that I found to be extremely interesting and useful. There is also a section that allows you to ask questions to other teachers, historians, and digital historians. I also really like that it has areas of history that often go untouched and unexplored. Design: For the most part, this site was really easy to navigate. Everything was pretty well laid out. However, one issue I faced was that I wasn't always aware of where I was at within the site. This became slightly confusing at times. The information included was very important but not easily accessed. I did like that there were different areas for different topics like "Reviews", "Beyond the Textbook", a "Weekly History Quiz", and "National Resources".

Jessica Chandler January 24th, 2011 *Overview: This is a website for students to practice different types of skills. There are different tabs to choose such as: History, Religion, Calculus, Biology, Algebra, and etc. These skills I found to be very useful and definitely help the students to have a better understanding of what is going on. Once the desired subject is selected, another list appears. This list shows the different topics that can be taught. Some are informational, while others are games. It is a simple and fast paced website to be using.: *Content: There are different subjects for a student to learn about through this website. I really liked this site because it was simple and clear. It made it much easier to deal with. The majority of the links are to assist student learning. It is demonstrated that students use this website to have fun, yet still learn through the selected subject. *Design: The design doesn't have much color besides brown and white. This isn't very amusing, and does not draw the readers' eye, but it is very helpful with the problems that one is having. The games are related to the certain topic and are educational. I feel that the design could be more attention seeking, but once this sight is discovered, the content should catch the eye.

Overview: This is the best site I was able to visit. It is the website for the History Channel and it combines all the tools useful for teaching to the digital generation of students now occupying classrooms. Design: The website design is excellent and obviously expensive. It is well organized and broad in its media: combining videos, interactive maps, role playing games, and quizzes. Content: The content is wide ranging and corresponds with cable channel's viewing. The information seems to come from reliable information and it is portrayed in an entertaining and expert manner. The role playing and action games have limited educational value but using these games to get students interested in history may get them to branch out into the more educational areas of the website.

government library, primary sources

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

This webstie allows students to research primary sources.

This site provides resources for getting a digital story started. It includes writing guides, tips, voice, pacing, etc.

Monique Koller Jan. 24 2010 These Stories in These Pictures is an interesting site that gives people a way to break through a writing block they may be encountering. Content: The content of this website is interesting however once you've read through the information on the pages there seems little reason to return to the site. I enjoyed reading the ideas given to break through a writing block and create a creative and interesting story. The ideas were useful and could be used in your classroom when directing your students in a new direction. Design: This website was very easy to navigate. You are given an apple and a couple of tabs. The site is mostly text so everything loaded pretty quickly. It had a few resources that linked you to the stories the author referenced or used examples from. Overview: This site is mostly for professional writers however it can be used by teachers as ideas on getting their students to make creative pieces. This site is worth a visit but I doubt a person would return after reading the content.

Emily E. KrabbenhoftJanuary 22, 2011Overview: This website, created by Discovery Communications, is an excellent resource for parents, students, and teachers. For parents it provides ways to help motivate their children and ways to help with homework. For students it all gives homework help and other ways for students to further their knowledge or to practice what they already know. For teachers there is interactive projects, lesson plans, and puzzle makers. Content: The content of this website, the information providers, and the quality is well presented to users. While the information is provided by a company to further their products, it offers a lot of free resources for everyone. It also does not push its products on the user, for example no pop-ups or constant nagging to purchase things.Design: This website has a great design. You do not get lost when you are navigating the website because it has great descriptions and titles of the pages. All of the links work properly and direct you to the appropriate websites or links. 

Hannah Clucas. October 10, 2012. Overview: This website is a giant database for schools. It has something for administrators, teachers, students, and even parents. There are a lot of available resources. The website is amazing and helpful for all facets of learning. Content: For administrators, there are curriculum options, helpful assessments of resources schools are currently using, and a host of other useful things. For teachers there are lesson plans, puzzle makers, additional resources, and even information on student travel. For parents there is a section on ways they can motivate their students and give them help in homework. The student section has a homework help section as well as links to contests they can join and clipart. There are also videos that parents, teachers, and administrators can use. The website is probably more helpful to teachers and administrators. Lesson plans are divided into two grade level groups, k-8 and 9-12, making it easy to find lesson plans for intended grade levels. Some of the links on the website are not useful, such as the link to downloading Google Chrome. But none of the links are inappropriate. Design: The design of the website is logical and flows well. There is a section for administrators, teachers, parents, and students at the top and bottom of the home page. It is colorful and fun to get your attention, but not to the point that it is overwhelming. Its use of media is appropriate and helpful.

Lorena Garcia Evaluation date: 10/13/14 The site I chose to evaluate was Discovery Education located at www.dicoveryeducation.com. The purpose of this site is to provide free education resources. The intended audience of this site is teachers, students, and Parents. This site provides some downloadable lessons. It offers lessons plans for the various school grades. I feel this site could be a great resource for new and veteran educators. I found that this page is quickly to determine the content because there are links about who they are, what they offer, also they have links for students, parents, and Teachers who are the intended audience. In fact there is contact information for anybody who has questions or verify information about it. Anybody can contact them by phone, (1 800 ), Twetter, and Face book, and e-mail. It is clear that this page is to provide Educational information with the different options of downloadable lesson plans. It is worth visiting this page, specially Educators. They can find a lot information and great ideas for lessons. The information is clearly labeled and organized school year. These links are very well organized and easy to find. I did have some trouble finding my way back to the original page. However, overall I would most definitely recommend and use this website.