Group items tagged

Overview: The purpose of the site is to create a connection of running to health. The intended audience is interested in a long term relationshiop by adding running to a health lifestyle. I liked that the emphasis was more on overall health than overwhelming you with the running, thus puttting running in it's place. Content: The resources provided defining and describing the activity, proper mechanics, advice for beginners, a site on medical clearance for running, and other related searches doctor-patient, teeens, older adults, mental health). I especially enjoyed the video on form running. The author's bibliography provides insight to background and credibility to the subject. Design: The home page picture welcomes you to an unknown adventure. The resources are set in a methodical approach of one related topic to another. The added searches are easily accessibl;e and seem to have updated information. The sponsor advertisements do not overwhelm the site.

Kerensa Aris 10/10/12 Shotgun's Home of the American Civil War: The purpose of this site is to gain information on the Civil War, most information pertains to the Confederacy. The intended audience is both students and teachers, both can collect useful information from the site and it is appropriate for all audiences. The site contains links to many other sites for available resources. My overall impression is that this is a quality site containing pertinent information. There is some bias since the site is run by a southern college, but upon first looking at the site this fact is very clear.  I assessed the content of this site as worth marking for future reference. The site is run by qualified individuals from LSU, and information is useful and trustworthy. The site is revised frequently but new information is not routinely added because it is a Civil War site. The site is well organized and all external links are in working order.  The design of the website is well done and easy to use. All pages download quickly and site indexes are available. The home page could have more detail to make it more eye catching. There are several different kinds of media such as audio and visual files, and likes to further information and useful sites are available. The site is compatible with other browsers, and the content is presented neatly and is organized. 

Jacqueline Twiford Web Site Review September 20, 2009 http://atozteacherstuff.com/ This website contains a lot of information for educators from Science, Math and reading and all the way from pre-school to high school. This is a great website to find a variety of information including lesson plan ideas. On this website you can also retrieve worksheets to help you in teaching the subject in your classroom. CONTENT When opening this website you can see an organized list of every subject that you will teach to your students. You can also get information for many different age groups from pre-school to high school. This "A-Z Teacher Stuff" is a site that provides you with tips for different activities as well as resources that you can use. You can discuss ideas on this site with other teachers as well as find articles related to the topic of your choice. "A-Z Teacher Stuff", is a great way to search all the topics you are looking for through one site. You can also retrieve lesson plans and activities as well as worksheets. The content provided on this site is in abundance and every teacher could find something on this site to utilize in their classroom. This site will help you find what you are looking for. "A-Z Teacher Stuff", provides a lot of helpful things for a teacher that needs new worksheets or even a lesson plan idea to change up the classroom for the students. DESIGN When I first opened "A-Z Teacher Stuff", the amount of links was a little defeating. After looking through the site a little more thoroughly I realized that it is very organized and loads quickly. This is a great way to search for information provided by teachers as well as the age group that you need. By using this broad search, you will save a lot of time by choosing the subject as well as the age level you plan on teaching it to. As a teacher time is very critical and you do not have much extra time to search through sites in detail to find what you need. By

Overview Paragraph: The purpose of this site is to provide different lesson plans and different activities for different subject areas in different age groups. The audience is teachers because it mostly contains tools for teachers. There are all kinds of different tools such as lesson plans and games along with worksheets and assignments to go with a lesson plan. Overall this site looks like a very good resource for teaching and creating lesson plans. Content Paragraph: The content on this site is mostly run by the public. It's very up to date and there are even forums that you can go and read and post on that is updated every few hours. The site is current according to its' copyright as well. The authors aren't displayed right out in the open because it is run mostly by the public. The sponsors are educational and displayed openly. All of the links are working and operational. The content is easy to use but could be organized a little better. Design Paragraph: The front page is very clear as to what is being displayed but the background is very shocking at first. There aren't very many pictures which hinders the usability of the website. The information is all very viable and easy to understand. The graphics make it kind of hard to focus on the content itself, but still isn't terrible to deal with. There is a link that is available for any further questions that you may have about the website. 

The purpose of the site was to gather information about running. The intended audience was ones interested in running. The only thing that attracted me was the title. After that everything else was not "cool." The content format was scattered. You had to bounce around looking for information. Overabundance of content topics requiring a fee. Way too much advertisement. The websit was crammed. Too much of nothing.

Overview: This website is directed toward preschool and childcare professionals. Its purpose is to teach these professionals more about play based learning and how to bring these elements into the classroom. Content: The content of this site is reliable and professional. The creator of the site posts her entire background of working in childcare facilities. Her seminars are posted for viewing and the information given has resources to back it. The site also provides different links to sites that use this play based learning approach, and you can browse their sites for more information on how they run their programs. Design: The design of this website is good. The pages load quickly and all the URLs are correctly linked and are available. The pictures used are relevant and tie to the material. Navigating this site is also very direct and easy to follow.

Overview: This website is intended for teachers and provides lesson plans and videos from grades Pre-K to Post Secondary. It offers free information in the subjects of Art, English, Math, Science, Social Studies and Health/Physical Education. This website would be wonderful for teachers who are looking for a new lesson plan on any subject or for any grade. If the teacher creates a free account, they have the chance to find and share any information and also have the privilege of seeing the standards that are required for the school they are teaching in. Overall, this website would be a very useful tool for teachers to plan and share lesson plans, video, other websites and interactive games. Content: After reviewing the content of this website, I have found that most people would not have any trouble navigating and finding information on this page. The homepage is a great place to start because it allows users to login to their account, search the webpage or click on the subject that they would like to further explore. One problem I encountered with this website is that it is hard to tell who the intended audience is. By the websites name one would think that the site was just for teachers, but when creating a free account you are able to select from students, parents, teachers, school administrators and librarians even though teachers would probably benefit the most from this site. All of the lesson plans seem to be up to date, but some of the videos are out of date. The links on the site are active and running and provide great information and resources. Design: While exploring this website, I was very disappointed to find that the graphic design did not have strong eye appeal, but the layout of the site was easy to move around. One of the best attributes of this site is the external links, which are helpful in finding more information in that topic and they were all working properly. There is also a lot of information available to anyone and after

Like wordle but runs without java and provides more funtionality

Content: The first look at the content of this website really gives the user a lot of information. It is very easy to determine the basic content of the website and the intended audience. There is a paragraph stating exactly what the website is about, providing science related resources, and who it is intended for, K-12 educators. The information providers are easy to find by simply clicking on the "About SNL" link. It states the staff members who work on the website; although there is no information presented about any of them which makes it difficult to determine their qualifications. There is contact information through e-mail to contact the staff if the user has questions or to verify information. The sponsors are displayed at the bottom of the page. They are the AAAS and the Verizon Thinkfinity Program. The information seems to be relatively current. It appears that it was last updated 7/10 and none of the information is older than 1999. Some of the older information might be out of date, but there is plenty of information that has been contributed over the last two or three years. Also the links are all working and lead the user to sites that are up and running. I believe the information provided on the website is very high quality. There is a large amount of information that is very well organized and easy to work with. There appears to be no bias and the information is accurate. It also provides information that meets my exact purpose. There are tons of places for find further information. There are links to other resources as well as the science benchmarks for grades K-12.

Rebecca Gardner Jan. 24, 2010 The content of this website is based on lesson plans for grades kindergarten to 12th grade. This was easy to determine. It was also easy to determine that this website was intended for teachers. The authors and sponsors were easy to identify and they seemed qualified to present information on the topics. I could not find when the website was last revised, but the ads were current. The links to other websites were current and working properly. The purpose of this website was clear and informative. The content was well organized and offers sufficient information for my needs. I didn't see any bias, but I believe that there could be, because the website is presented by Discovery. The website provides interactivity that increases its value. The links provided are worthwhile and appropriate. The design of this website is effective and it down loaded efficiently. The homepage is attractive, but did have a lot of ads. You can tell where you are immediately and the title, description and image captions are clear. The sites sponsors and copyright date were established and easy to determine. The user is able to navigate around the website with ease. The directions are clear and easy to follow. The internal and external links were working properly and there were no dead ends. Each of the graphics, video files, audio files ect.. serve a clear purpose and make a significant contribution to the site. There is sufficient information that makes this website worth visiting. The information is clearly labeled and easy to find. The contact information is provided and easy to find and the links to other websites are provide and some are useful while others are ads. My over view of this website is that it can be useful for grade levels. They provide free lesson plans that could come in handy. This website is associated with the Discovery channel so you may run into a lot of ads and maybe even some biases. I would recommend this

Rebecca Gardner Jan. 24, 2010 The content of this website offers a lot of different sources and links. It is a little hard to determine what this website is offering, because there is so much going on. It also is intended for a wide audience. There are links at the top of the page that will take you to the different sources, but then navigating though them can be a little tricky. Information about the author of the website is available and so is there contact information. The latest revision date was not provided, but the sites copy right dates were current, and the links were up to date. The purpose of this site is informational. They did however have some entertainment under the kids area tab. The links to other sites were related and appropriate to my needs The design of the website is to give you information on education, study abroad programs, and international jobs. It also offers information on career training and learning different languages. The tabs at the top of the page are easy to navigate though. The links to other pages were useful and appropriate. I didn't run into in dead ends when using the links. There was little to no multimedia except for ads. The website was very effective with a variety of browsers. There is a lot of sufficient information if you are researching topics that they have high lighted. The same basic format is used though out the website and it is fairly easy to find other links. My overview of this website is that I would highly recommend it to students that are learning another language or teachers who teach different languages, and also if you are interested in teaching or studying abroad. There is a lot of information and that to me was over whelming. But the over all content and design was helpful and appropriate.

Emily Hastings Reviewed: 2/5/12 Kbears.com Purpose: The purpose of this website is to provide students with a fun educational environment. Intended Audience: This site is intended for Kindergarten through fifth grade. Available Resources: This site has its information on it with no need for links to other sites, but it does offer a link for a KBparent site. Overall Review: This website would be fun for students to use during their free time or as a reward for achieving a goal or some other assignment. It is a fun site for students, and could also be used in a classroom as a class or at home. It isn't very broad of a site, it only has a limited number of things to do, which may be hard to use at times and also could get boring. It is hard to navigate around unless you have sound and are able to listen to what each of the avatars are saying. Overall I think this site is more for fun and education at home, or on students own time, but is a fun site for them. Overview: This site offers information in many subjects. It has a lot of reading, so students need to be able to read. It is animated with many characters that talk and videos that are fun for students. It consists of many different things to do and learn about. Content: The content of this website is informative for students and fun. It has unusual ideas and activities, rather than your normal site. After a while on this site you might run out of things to do though, which may become a problem. Design: The design of this website is eye catching, but not very welcoming. It definitely interests you with the characters on the homepage, but is set up as if you were on a ship or something. Unless you're able to use sound this site is going to be quite useless for you, which could be a problem. It is harder to navigate around and the homepage isn't set up very simply so it could be a waste of time until you got the hang of it. Overall the design area is "cute" but unorgan

Shelley Limegrover January 22, 2011 OVERVIEW The second site I evaluated was phet.colorado.edu. This site contains interactive simulations of math and natural science concepts relevant to all grade levels including college. This site is intended primarily for Teachers. Besides science simulations, the site contains suggested classroom activities and lesson plans corresponding to the simulations. All content can be downloaded or run directly from the site. CONTENT The content and intended audience of the site is made immediately clear on the first page. More detailed information about the intent of the site as well as about the authors and sponsors is made available via a list of links at the bottom of the homepage. The information on the site is not immediately easy to understand. However, this is remedied by instructions and suggested uses of all the content on the page. The site also offers dates for teacher workshops so that they may learn how to apply the material. As I mentioned in the overview, this site is primarily for teachers. A student would not be able to navigate through the material effectively without guidance. DESIGN The homepage downloads quickly and is clear of distraction. A simple navigation bar is provided at the bottom of the page. No scrolling is necessary to see it. The copyright date is clearly identified though dates of last revision are not. There are no broken links and all material appears to be up-to-date. The format of all pages is consistent and a navigation bar is always present. The site was compatible with all three browsers that I had available to test. The simulations are neatly presented on a single page, searchable by subject matter or grade level. There are no unnecessary graphics or video files on other pages of the site.

Sean Wilde January 2011 Flotrack.org Content This site right off the bat expresses exactly what it represents. And it is for those that are researching or wanted to be in the circle of what is going on in the Track & field world. The sites author is not on the main page but can be found almost in any page particularly the home page. Information about the authors, is also readily available, in the interviews that they do, as well as in their bio pages. Content is updated on a daily basis, and a easy contact email is also available. Since some of the information is received from another site links to other webpages are used and work. This site is for news, but since it does have the type of designers it has, it can have some entertainment. Flotrack has opened the eyes for those who thought they knew the world of Track and Field and brought it into the 21st century. The quickness of the information it gives lets others know that the broadcasting ability for this sport is growing and demanded. Design This site has a great opening and it is very appearant where you are at and how well the site is managed. The site runs smoothly and is updated daily. Seeing as there is data added on a daily basis. It works effectively on all three browsers I use (Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome). The videos are of good quality and it really has any glitches with sound or videos not working. Although recently when they did a mass update to the site it no longer looked as clean on my phone and Playstation 3. Overview This site is great for the student who is trying to find what they really want to do. Because, the site shows you that even though you may be an athlete, someone who is great with computers, or is just great at asking questions anyone can survive in the new age of the world. Also the fact that it is a .org site and not a .com shows it actually has a lot more legitamacy then most other sites.

Gary Allen Jan. 23, 2011 Overview: This site is great for educators, students, and really just the general public as well. It contains a database of thousands of works by hundreds of different authors that are easily searchable and also easy to find in the index. Content: Countless pieces of literature are contained on this website as well as forums for discussion and even the option for teacher accounts for use in the classroom. Numerous sources contribute to the huge amounts of information on this site which is run through third party company. Design: Another site with a simple yet effective design, The Literature Network is very easy to navigate through and the links are very clearly marked. With an author index as well as a search box and separate links for special categories such as Shakespeare, the Bible, quotes and forums, the site takes no time to get around and the pages all load very quickly so you can spend your time reading instead of waiting. 

Elise Verley September 9, 2011 http://www.artpoints.net Overview: At first this site seems like it might be a valuable resource for art teachers to use, but after spending time on the site it has the feeling of not being maintained. The logo says "for artists, art educators, and art lovers" since the site is offering resources for so many people it is overextending its reach. Content: It has ideas for lessons, but since it didn't seem to be regularly updated the content may run out. It had a calendar of art shows and other art related opportunities, which it advertises as "most complete on the web". Navigating the site I repeatedly notice articles that were posted in 2010 or earlier. This site has a promising premise but falls short on execution. Hopefully in the future they will gain the resources to keep the site up to date. Design: The site has a nice design with a welcoming earthy palette. Articles have no dates of publication so there was no way to tell how long ago they were posted. There is not a search function for the site, but it is easy to navigate around the site. It has spammy ads on the sides.

Overview: The intended audience for this site is prospective special education teachers. The purpose of the site is to inform teachers about issues that can arise in special education classrooms as well as possible solutions to these problems. The website includes types of problems, possible solutions, significance, and ways to help identify people with special needs.

Overview: This site is really geared toward students and not so much for teachers but I liked it because it has a couple games that create real-life scenarios. In these games students had to do calculations that applied high school math. I think the website would appeal to secondary education students in more advanced math classes. It also has link that show students about jobs in the financial field and they can hear from people who currently work in this area, which I think can help students find the area more interesting and they may be able to connect better with the subject that way. Content: Most of the content is definitely for older more advanced students. The games are slightly challenging must are intriguing at the same time. The website has many links to various areas of finance that can help students find jobs in the future if they are thinking about this field. It also shows them that there are people their age running billion dollar companies. Design: The design of the website is geared toward high school students, showing money, nice cars and vacation spots. The links are also very organized and easy to see where stuff is at. The games are set up in an easy to follow manner with guided steps of how to start.

Billie Slyman, 9/11/11 Purpose The purpose of this site is to provide resources for teachers for teaching weather. It's part of a larger site that has resources about all kinds of topics. There are websites, print-out activity sheet and Power Points. Although there are a lot of links, about half of them don't work, and there isn't any information on the site about how the sites are found and who runs the site. My overall impression is that this site has some good resources that could be helpful to teachers, but the link you want might not work, and there's no guarantee it is a good site. Content There really isn't any information (that I could find, anyway) about who develops or maintains this site, or any indication of when it was made. Although there are a lot of links to other sites, there is nothing about this site. There is a link to "Contact Us", but who is "Us"? However, it is nice that the links are divided into separate themes, like Weather, so it is easy to find the topic you are interested in. Design The site looks pretty plain. It's really just a list of links. However, this does serves the purpose of the site. It doesn't really have much reason to look nice because most people won't be spending a lot of time there; they'll be on the other sites. Although, even though the site is plain, it still manages to feel cluttered. With the links in the middle, navigation menu on the left and ads on the right it can be a little hard to stay focused. But the site is functional, and it can be helpful to have a large amount of sites about the topic all put together.

Katharine Johnson September 19, 2009 Georgia Agriculture Education Introduction: This website is from the Georgia Department of Education and is there to help teachers in effectively teaching their classes. It has different power points and lesson plans. Content Evaluation: First Look: When I first looked at this site it was inviting. It is well organized and easy to navigate. Information Providers: The authors of the site are listed at the bottom of the homepage. It just talks about who they are and gives their job titles. There is contact information if you have any questions. Information Currency: It just says that it was last updated in 2009. From looking at the information it looks as though the site is maintained regularly. The other site links are updated and in working order. Information Quality: I think the information that this site provides could be extremely helpful to a new teacher. It gives power points with information that could be used and also has lesson plans that could help. Not only this but there is information for other organizations and other aspects of agriculture in the class room. However I did run into some problems opening a couple of the folders, but other than that everything is functional. 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. Use of multimedia: All the graphics and other medias used are effective. Browser compatibility: Only tested Internet Explorer. Content Presentation: All this information could be really helpful in the classroom.

Posted by Allie Parrott 09/17/09: Homework spot is a site that simplifies the search for popular homework topics assigned to students K-12. It can also be used by parents and teachers. Content: This site covers a variety of topics. There are even virtual field trips. Other benefits this site provides are SAT tips, current events, and how to write a great book report. Students can find almost anything they need here. The site was last updated today. The incoming information is always fresh and relevant to what students are learning today. There are not only articles from their own authors, but also links to articles that may provide better information for the student. Information is presented in a clear manner. The sight is sponsored by a bigger company StartSpot Media Works Incorporated. HomeworkSpot would help any child navigate their way around the internet. It is also beneficial because the sites that are recommended are credible well researched sites. Design: The most helpful part of the design is that is separates the topics in to age groups. There are a number of links under the heading "Elementary" and the same goes for the headings "Middle" and "High School". This way there is no time wasted, looking but information that is above a child's head, or below their level. The only flaw in the design is that the user has to click at least links to find what they are looking for. However, once they find it the information is most likely exactly what they are looking for. There are Google ads, however advertising is only on the homepage and is kept to a minimum. Attributions: The most helpful link for this is the "About this Site" link. It gives the user all the necessary information about what the site is about and who is running it. It makes the purpose very clear. This would be another site I would recommend due to its fairly obvious credibility. \n