Group items tagged

This site provides resources, including educational games, stories, and ideas related to inventions. Its purpose is to help individuals learn through exploration and play about the creation process and the role of inventors.

James Gee (a Linguist by trade) discusses the use of games, particularly video games, to teach difficult subjects like Chemistry.

Katharine Johnson September 19, 2009 Ag in the Classroom Introduction: This website focuses on agriculture in the classroom. It has a variety of information and links for both educators and students. Content Evaluation: First Look: When I first looked at the site honestly I didn't think it would be much but it is easy to navigate and easy to understand. Information Providers: The website has been endorsed by the Americans Association for the Advancement of Sciences. Also it has been sponsored by the USDA Agriculture in the Classroom program and is manages through an agreement with Utah State University. Information Currency: The site is not clear about when it was last updated. But most of the events are current so that leads me to believe it has been update recently. The other site links are updated and in working order. The only one that I had problems with was the questions tab. It said the site was unavailable. Information Quality: This site offers a wide variety of information that I believe could be helpful to new teachers. Also I believe it could help students learn more about agriculture. Design Evaluation: Speed: Most of the pages opened quickly and effectively. Home Page: The homepage is attractive and eye appealing. All the information is clear and organized and easy to find what you are looking for. Ease of Navigation: The site is easy to navigate. All the information is clear and organized and helps you find what you are looking for easily. Having the main points larger and bold helps navigate through the site. Use of multimedia: All the graphics and other media's used are effective. Browser compatibility: Only tested Internet Explorer. Content Presentation: All this information could be really helpful in the classroom for both teacher and students.

This website provides more insite into the world of art through the study of art history. Content: This website has an art history timeline on its homepage that can show students the main movements and periods in art history and when they occured. The website also has a side bar complete with all major movements and artists that the veiwer can click on and learn more about. Upon clicking on an artist featured in the sidebar, one can see some of the artists work, a biography of the artists life and what style, medium and country their work was done in. The same goes for clicking on a style of art, the veiwer is given a detailed description of the art style, shown examples of work done in that style and artists that practiced it. This is a great website for older students to find out more about art, so they can better their own work and write papers

Love this site! Simple... go on, pick a song or a genre of music that you like, put it in... then, boom! So much music that you like just coming up one after another. It is just such a great way to really listen to music you like and learn about other artist sound like some of your favorites. It is free too! After awhile, it may ask you to enter your e-mail and some information, but hassle free... and free!

Allison Lindgren September 21, 2009 Website Review http://www.bestedsites.com/ "Best Educational Sites" is a collection of educational games for all areas of learning. Its fun layout with bright colors and bouncing graphics make it most appealing to young children. I think it would be very useful for teachers looking to integrate learning games into their curriculum. There is also basic information on everything from astronomy to engineering. Content Summary: This website has a lot of information in it, but there are no citations. Most of the links work well, but a few are dead ends. The website tells when it was last updated, which was recently, and who it was updated by. The purpose of the site is clear, though. The fun graphics and bright colors would appeal to children, and all the links are geared towards elementary to middle school aged children. There are no obvious spelling or grammatical errors. Design Summary: There are no problems downloading the pages except for the few broken links. The homepage is attractive to young children but the bright colors could be an eyesore if looked at for an extended period of time. The person who last updated the site gives a contact email. The information is well organized into several links provided on the home page and every page has a link to the home page, which makes this site very easy to navigate. The graphics and animations make the site fun and appealing for children, and each page displays a theme common to the information being presented.

Shea Mangold August 31, 2010 This website is used to connect you to different websites like a map or navigation page and it's great for that. This is also aimed for more of a elementary teacher audience it seems like. The owner is Janice Berthiaume, MEd and she has a MEd so I would guess she is qualified and the information is good, but she doesn't have any background information except there is a place with her email to contact her. There are also a bunch of different sponsors and even a place to make donations. It is very well updated, it was last updated August 26, 2010. All of the links worked pretty well except it took forever to load and some led me to a internet is not working page, and took along time loading after that. But when I got to the pages I was very pleased, there's so much information and lessons to choose from. The content was great but in saying that, the design is awful. On the hope page it looks as though someone just threw it together in a hurry, tried to be cute, and then added some cheesy clip art pictures and then threw in some very annoying bouncing books to distract you the entire time. Also, at the bottom of the page all of the sponsors, donations, author information is very bunched together; it does not look very professional. The other pages it links too are pretty simple, bright colored background with links in a different bright color. Everything is on it that needs to be just not great looking. I would have to give this an A for content but a C or D for design

Mike Wilson Site review September 18, 2009 Science Buddies Free Science Fair Project Ideas, Answers, & Tools for Serious Students Introduction This is a very detailed and comprehensive site to facilitate student science fair projects. It can be used by the casual science fair student though the stated target student is the serious science student. Detailed information is provided for students and teachers K-12. The site is supported by 30 major science and technology corporations and is run by a staff of 18 not including the Seagate IT people. Anything to do with a school science project, this is your stop. Google ranking is 6/10 with 321 backward links. Content Evaluation First Look The home page and site are by no means fancy. Simple and clear what the information is and where to go on the site. The depth of the site is extensive. As you start your information search you can easily select your target grade level. Information Providers The purpose of the site, sponsors and fact there are real scientists involved is clear. Information Currency Site is fully operational and current. No daily revision date is given but 2009 Copyright is in place. Extensive links to other sites from each specific science project page for additional information. Information Quality Content is extensive, selectable for grade level. Very well organized and effective science fair development and projects for students, teachers and parents. Massive resources on the site itself with additional links out as needed. Design Evaluation Speed Science Buddies is very well designed to be a quality information site. Fast loads. Very text oriented, limited and simple graphics with properly sized thumbnails to keep page loads quick. Home Page & Ease of Navigation 9 tabs across home page top or easily 9 home pages. Actual home page is 85% above the fold. Very easy and quick to move around the site. The 'Topic Selection Wizard' is very functional, grade, gender, subject

Katharine Johnson September 19, 2009 National FFA Organization Introduction: The National FFA Organization website is a great insight to what is going on in the organization. It gives you events that are going on throughout the nation. Not only that but it has separate lings that can help you find careers associated with the organization. For FFA members it can help them find scholarships and learn about the many opportunities associated with the organization. Content Evaluation: First Look: The homepage is inviting. All the main components are bold and the site is easy to navigate through. It is obvious that the intended audience is for sure high school FFA members and also can be used by Agriculture teachers. Information Providers: The authors of the materials are not clearly identified. However knowing the FFA organization I know that the National FFA officer team has a lot to do with the sight along with the advisors and the employees of the organization. The site sponsors are sighted with a ling on the left hand side. Information Currency: It does not say exactly when the site was last updated. Even though the site does not say when it was last updated it is obvious that it frequently gets updated in order to keep up with all the events. All the links to other sites are current and in working order. Information Quality: The purpose of this site is informational in nature. The content of this site is effective in doing this. It informs the audience of all the news and updates that are happening. The site is also well organized. The main ideas are bold and eye catching while the information and links are all under titles. Design Evaluation: Speed: All pages and graphics load very quickly. Home Page: The homepage is attractive and eye appealing. All the information is clear and organized. Ease of Navigation: The site is easy to navigate. All the information is clear and organized and helps you find what you are looking for easily.

This is a great website to go to in order to read about finding the positives to learning how to read or making reading less challenging.

Content: The content of this website is very straight forward. However, at the same time it's well organized and puts off the feeling of professionalism. The main purpose of this site is to express the overall goal for every child, which is to make them into life long readers. Yet, with that goal they need to have guided instruction and engaging materials to make them efficient ones. So with that, this site gives a list of areas teachers can focus on to make that goal achievable (literature, reading comprehension, vocabulary, writing, ECT...). Since the primary focus is dealing with 2nd graders, teachers need to be able to present this material in a way that actively engages the students. Once that's accomplished hopefully they will begin to develop a real joy of reading and to read a wide variety of materials. Some might think this site is only for those who are educators but active parents can help guide their children by reading to them and helping with their homework. Design: Personally I believe that this site is designed very well. The colors they use are very appealing to the eyes and it is also presented in a manner that is easily understandable. When accessing this site it downloaded efficiently while also allowing the user to move around the site with ease. The information that is provided is very helpful, if teachers don't already have the basic knowledge of what is expected this site will give a brief insight on what is to be anticipated from each student. Attribution: This site seems to be a very established and projects information that is not only useful to teachers but allows children's development levels to be ranged all over the map. Meaning, this site is designed to help children that are struggling as well as the ones who are already progressively succeeding in this area of learning.

Find out what your fifth-grader is learning when it comes to mathematics.

This is a site mostly used by teachers for lesson plans within the art department. It is specific to the high school students but leaves much to be altered and adapted to other grade levels. The content on this page is very "short and to the point" plans for teaching students things like drawing hands, experimenting with other artists processes, and much more. The thing I liked about the content was the way you can adapt, alter, and integrate your own creativity and required learning into these lesson plans but that this gives you the foundation to build on. The design of the page leaves much be be desired though. General outlines of critiria, supplies, and objective with sparse thumbnail photo references of artist work or the process to be done with visual aid. None the less, this is a legitimate site updated regularly and used by teachers, adults, and even students since 1994. The lesson plans are also teacher submitted from working teachers from Florida and elsewhere.

Dole / Superkids Posted by: Jeni Waring 9/20/2009 This is an interactive site for both children and teachers to use for information about nutrition and fitness. The site includes games, music and a comic book for children to learn about nutrition and fitness. Teachers can use this site for lesson planning in nutrition along with other subjects. There are many lesson plans with a variety of planning ideas in many subjects all with nutrition as the starting point. This site is easy to navigate but it is easy to get to parts of the site that are not specifically for children. The website is a part of the Dole corporation so the information is a little biased but the fruit and vegetable information is well researched and accurate. The site tends to slow down a bit when going to different pages.

This web site provides games and tools a teacher and student can use to learn mathematical skills such as decimals, fractions, and other systems used throughout history.

Cody The purpose of this site is to teach Spanish to students in many different ways. It has different forms of relaying the information to students such as PowerPoint, handouts, listening activities, quizzes and vocabulary. The intended audience for this site is that of Spanish teachers. Overall I feel that the site is pretty friendly, but needs work to make the site more appealing. A large majority of the site is in English and makes it easier to navigate. There are advertisements on the right side of the site, but not too distracting or problematic. The content of the site is pretty useful. It gives you many options to teach students. They have a variety so that it can appeal to different kinds of students. It is easy to find on the front page and access. They give you suggestions on how to present different kinds of information like grammar, spelling and reading comprehension. It doesn't cover every single aspect but it does a great job of helping teach students at a high school level. They give you the opportunity to look at their culture as well. It is pretty effective for helping kids learn a language. There are many resources you can use to be an effective teacher.

Tyler Igo The purpose of this resource is to aid students in learning fractions. There are games available for grades 1-4. The intended audience is students in grades 1-4. This site looks pretty fun and interactive. I would use this site to help teach my students fractions. Content of my website. The user easily identifies the content. The sponsor of the site is clearly presented. The content achieves its purpose pretty well. There are links to other math games. Design of my website. The homepage downloads very quickly and is covered in color and big icons to click on. The title is large and right in the middle of the page so it is easy to see where you are at. There are some links to other games which are not relevant to my purpose. The interactive portions of the game are easy to follow and complete. The content is presented with the same layout each time and is easy to move along. The material cannot really be outdated considering it is teaching fractions. The presentation of the game does seem up to date.

Kayla Bowie 13 October 2014 Overview: Preschooleducation.com is a site for preschool teachers. It isn't very professional looking but all of the content on it is useful. There are links for theme days, calendar time, games (inside and outside), and holidays. If you're in need for a quick idea, this is a good site to use. Content: There is a lot to go through on this site. If you knew a topic of interest, it would be pretty easy to search for something. Because there is so much on here, it can be a little slow find things though. Design: It is pretty organized with about twenty tabs on the side to narrow down searches. However, there is an add that will pop up whenever you go to a new page which makes it a little irritating to look around on the site.

Kayla Bowie 13 October 2014 Overview: Starfall.com is a site for teachers, parents, and students for preschool. It goes over back concepts like ABC's, reading, math, calendars and holidays. It has instructional links for parents as well as games for students. There are also links to the starfall store where you can purchase curriculum activities for kindergarten phonics. Content: The links are working and it is easy to navigate around the site. The content is current and accurate and will still be useful for years to come. Design: The design is very well done. At first sight it is kind of in your face with colors, but other than that is very easy to navigate. With a little help, younger children could easily use it.

This website is for both students and teachers. Grade levels from K-8 were posted with activities and lesson plans for each grade. There are games for students to play as well as lesson plans and activities for teachers. The purpose of the website is to make math more fun. I feel like this site is awesome because both teachers and students can benefit from the materials posted. There are worksheets for free on this site so it is a good resource for new teachers. The owner of this site is Jumpstart. They have been in business for over 20 years. This website had a current 2014 copyright date. Therefore I would consider this site to be up to date in all aspects. The games and lesson plans are based off of the Common Core standards and they try to push the students to learn the next step. This website was harder to navigate around. There were way too many links and buttons. This also is good because there is a lot of information, but it can get a little tricky to navigate. The design is very appealing to kids. They have a lot of cartoon characters and bright colors. The section for kids is easy to navigate so I would recommend it as a good resource for students. The teacher's section is the most challenging to navigate because there is so much going on. Overall there are parts that are better set up than others, but as a majority there is just way too much going on as far as the design goes.

This site is probably not a site that I would use, by looking at the title this looks like a fantastic website to use to teach about the culture of the Grapes of Wrath. By looking a little closer the title may say read me, but the articles following say "I am off topic". There is no clearly identified audience, the website jumps around a lot. One link the class would be looking at Oklahoma culture and the next link you are the University of Oklahoma's home page. There is not an identified purpose for this url. I think this was a very mediocre site. I was not easily able to find identify the audience nor the purpose of this site. This was a reliable site, the author and copyright date were easily accessible, this was also a university site. This URL might have been made by a student. This website was last updated in 2007, therefore this would put up a red flag because the author hasn't made any changes to it for 7 years. It seems a little outdated. All of the links to other sites are working properly, although the only other link is to the university home page. This site is not accurate, it has no related topics to other sites that I went to. Nor does it have information related to my topic. The information in this site is not organized nor is it easy to understand. There are no spelling or grammar issues, although a bias opinion is easily detectable. The links are what kills this site. There is no need to have a link to your University search page on one of the main links on your webpage. The design in this website is one positive thing about this site, the home page downloads successfully and with no problems. The home page is aesthetically pleasing and draws the audience in. The title is very catchy and serves as a learning experience. The copyright date is easily accessible, although outdated. There is a table of contents although they all run together, all of the links seem to be the same. Navigation throughout this site does not go smoot