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10-11-12 Step up to Writing is a website designed to show students how to write a well-structured paragraph using the step up method.  The Step up method is simple and compares writing to an everyday concept. The intended audience is for all students but would be best used for students between 3rd and 5th grade. Other than the links to the different paragraph sections no other resources are presented. If you want a good website to teach writing methods this is one to use.  The content on this site is very well organized that you can maneuver is very easily. At first look it provides basic information, the method is simply put until further clicking on each link to further diverge in to the each section. The information is written in a way that children can understand the information.  The website design was good but not perfect. Everything downloads effectively. When looking for the developer you need to go to the link at the bottom; it isn't very easy to find but is still accessible. No other links are on this section of the webpage but on the main homepage many helpful links are presented.  Overall this website need to improve the design a little but presents good information worth investigating. 

Derek Peil 10/7/2012 Overview The informational website tculibrary is designed to set forth a substantial amount of resources for an audience of communication students. Many of these resources are internal and are intended to instruct students on the arts of creating an effective public speech. The external resources guide students to rich websites full of vast databases on rhetoric. With high marks on the evaluation guide, I recommend this site to educators as a source of information on topics related to communication. Content Credible information is strongly used throughout the website, and is indicated via highly organized titles. All of the links load quickly, and are up-to-date. The last revision of the site was on August 27th, 2012, indicating its accuracy and relevance for modern educational settings. Contained within the site are many links to library databases. The website provides lucid instructions on navigating through these databases, making the process of acquiring research extremely hassle free. A single weakness, or rather an inconvenience, is seemingly all the error to be found within this website. When following the link to Opposing Viewpoints, the audience is required to login using Texas Christian University credentials. This limits the usage of this site to TCU audiences only. In light of the overpowering strengths of this site, a small confinement of audience such as this is more than acceptable. Design This website appeals to a modern audience with its clean colors and organized display of information. Copyright and authorship claims are easy to spot at the top and bottom of the sites. Along the top of the homepage, a list of tabs provides simple traversing to and from links. Also, the website is full of external sources that carry the same standard of credibility as the home site. Although the website contains some graphics, it may lack the number to create a completely attractive website. Nonetheless, the pictures the site do

Derek Peil 10/7/2012 Overview Purdue University Press is a substantial source of poetry and literature for educated audiences. The website's purpose is to offer intellectual texts for educators and students to incorporate into their curriculum. Carrying a simple, pleasant tone this website lists suggested poems and literature. Although the website lacks clearly stated dates of revision, it still scores high on the evaluation guides; and I recommend this site to those who are looking for some rich pieces of literary work. Content The University of Purdue's sound reputation of information precision is exemplified throughout the course of the website. This site contains sound organization and easy navigation. With genre listings and a friendly search engine, users can find what they need quickly. This allows for Educators and Students to spend less time searching for the material and more time studying it. In contrast to these strengths, the website is weak in terms of its currency. The site fails to display a revision date. But since the site is always uploaded with new inventories and sales, one can assume the site is fairly current. Design This site's display style is definitely suitable for an educational setting. The modest, yet contrasting colors make the site enjoyable to navigate. Also, the pictures of the book covers are very useful in helping to identify one from the others. Waiting for links to load is nonexistent, and this site is multi-browser friendly. Yet, this website lacks external sources from which users can broaden their findings. All of the links are internal. Do to the fact that this site is both education and profit oriented, this weakness is easily overlooked by the benefits of a deep library of texts that this site easily lays out for the user.

Elizabeth Schnell Overveiw: This website is an interavtive website that allows students to learn and get a deeper understanding of the Boston Massacre. It is fun for the student because they aren't stuck reading a website and lots of articles. This also disproves some of the information that is misleading. I think the design is very user friendly to my students. It is not complicated to navigate around. I really like this website and i would not be afraid to use it in a classroom setting it is very informational. Context: My students will get an in depth learning about the Boston Massacre without even having much background knowledge. It would be helpful to have a brief knowledge about the revolution before completing this assinment because it disproves some of the rumors that you hear about it. I find it to be very accruate information. Design: This website is very simple to navigste around. It is set up like a secret misson that the students have to complete. It is very user friendly and interesting. It is geared for a middle school student but they also have a teacher resource page to help guide the students.

General Chemistry Online Overview: General Chemistry Online is a website for general chemistry students intented to help students learn general chemistry basics thought FAQ's, featured articles, tutorials, and other tools. The article included are incredibly interesting, from a chemistry standpoint, and can spark interest in chemistry. There is also a Common Compound Library that has over 800 common compound names, formulas, and structures, which could be useful past general chemistry and into organic chemistry. Overall, the site is a very valuable tool.  Content: The site's purpose is easy to determine with a quick look at the home page. The information is liberally cited when necessary, and the author is qualified to be publishing such information. The sponsor is Frostburg University, and that is clearly identifiable. The information is current, as general chemistry does not change frequently or quickly. The content of the site is well organized, and it is easy to find the information you are searching for, as the homepage is somewhat of a table of contents.  Design: The design isn't fancy or even eye-catching, however it does not need to be. The design is simple, and easy to use to find the information desired. It was designed for an older audience learning general chemistry, and bright colors or fancy graphics would get in the way of information and be distracting. All of the internal and external links are working, and each section of the site and each link serves a clear purpose. 

Basic website for the Color Wheel, the primary and secondary colors.

The purpose of this site is to educate young elementary students on the primary, secondary and tertiary colors. The webpage is fairly simple and straight forward and includes pictures for more visual learners. In addition, this website gives other fun activities linked to other topics: Seed Germination, Co2 reactions. Content The content of this webpage was 'worth bookmarking for future reference'. I found the sponsors of the page to be not labeled correctly, or given proper dues.. I couldn't find the contact information of the website author either. Overall this webpage is good for k-6 students in many different subjects. Design: This page was simple in design, and rather easy to understand. All the parts of each page were purposeful in contributing to the topic and making pages interesting. I found the homepage to be a bit bland with only a list for navigation to other pages, it lacked a personal touch. I did like, however, how it was broken up into grade level, then by topics. Quite useful for planning broad spectrum lessons plans. This page showed not date of revision but the 'about us' page says who the admin is. ~A.Rodriquez

Bria Frame Overview: The purpose of this site is to provide an in-depth analysis of The Great Gatsby using ideas that were not commonly discussed. The audience is intended for a college reading level, although advanced English classes could handle the reading. No resources are available on this site because it is an uploaded PDF document and no works cited page is given, although it may have been available in the original journal. Overall, the site is useful, but could be improved. Content: The content of this page is where the value really lies. Although the document hasn't been updated since the 1950s, this does not make the site any less valuable because it is a scholarly essay on a novel. The author is clearly identified and is qualified. The information is clear and well-discussed, although no further reading is given by the author. Design: The site is designed in the same manner that other JSTOR pages are. The PDF is uploaded and put against a simple background. This would have been more useful if solely the text had been uploaded. That said, the text is easily navigated with arrow buttons that advance the PDF. The content is well-displayed, as it is the purpose of the site, and that makes the site worthwhile.

Michelle Hill February 24, 2012 Overview: The purpose of this website is to serve as a resource for instruction for 1st grade internet activities. Therefore, the intended audience is teachers 1st graders and 1st grade teachers. Available on this website are English activities online involving skills such as story listening, letter recognition, literacy activities sight words, and sentence structure and grammar. Also included are Math activities such as number recognition, patterns/shapes, counting, adding/subtracting and much more! There is also unit themes available for teachers of all kinds. Content: The content of the website was rated as very useful for my information needs based on the fact that the total number of "yes" answers outnumbered the "no" answers. Some strengths of this website include the first look, how it was easy to determine the basic content of the site, the information quality, and the further information. The content of the site was well organized and easy to understand. Some weaknesses of this website are that information of the authors is not available, therefore I do not know if the authors are qualified to present information on the topic. Other weaknesses include that the content was not updated frequently, the last time being August 2007 and the fact that one link to another site was not working properly. Overall, there was an abundance of good content that will prove to be useful in 1st grade classrooms. Design: The design of the website was rated as very well designed and easy to use based on the fact that the total number of "yes" answers outnumbered the "no" answers. First, the homepage downloaded efficiently and the website was speedy, which was a good start to the design. Some strengths of the website include that it was well organized, the copyright date was easy to determine, the site is easy to move around, and the content was presented clearly. Some weaknesses include that there were no directions

Shaya Wolf - 2/26/2013 Overview This website is for teachers need ideas on assessments in the math field. They can choose between Algebra 1, Algebra 2, Geometry, and Trigonometry and assessments are given under each subpage. All of the assessments are complete but in need of small changes to fit your needs. It includes many resources, but they are all very similar and lack variety. Overall, this site is worth bookmarking and provides simple assessments organized by subject. Based on the content and design quality of this site, it is worth your time to visit the site if you have the time. Content At first look, you can easily tell that the purpose of this site is to provide assessment ideas for teachers. The information providers section of this website is lacking significantly. The author and sponsor are not clearly identified nor is their contact information provided. The currency of the information is debatable. The site doesn't provide a latest revision date, but at the same time, most of these assessments will ever change. They don't seem to be too outdated. So far the content doesn't sound too good, but the information quality really brings the site back to a site worth bookmarking. All of the information is of quality. The purpose of the site is clear and achieves the intended purpose, which is to provide teachers with assessment ideas. The site is well organized and easy to understand. It is free of bias, accurate, and consistent with similar websites. Design This site loads quickly but lacks a homepage altogether. The site is still easy to navigate, although there isn't necessarily a main title or base to jump off of. The site sponsor and author are not included. It is very easy to navigate throughout the page and all of the links work properly. There are no dead ends or incorrect links. There is a main graphic used under each page, however that is the only multimedia. The graphics enhance the site overall. This site works well with all browser

Chemistry Professor Overview: Chemistry professor is a website that sells DVD's and chemistry notes intended to help a chemistry student. The website was recommended to me by my chemistry teacher from high school if I ever need good, extra material. I used his DVD's to study for the AP exam, and they were extremely valuable. They presented content in a unique way, however free general chemistry information can be just as good, such as the other website evaluation I submitted, General Chemistry Online. Content: The site's purpose is easy to determine, and it's also easy to determine the site is not free. The information is cited in the DVD's themselves, but not on the website. The courses offered by the site are well-organized and it's easy to determine what information will be covered in each course. The information quality is very good, and more in-depth than free informational websites. Somebody could learn enough chemistry to be almost as proficient as through college courses. Design: The site's design is minimal, and uses a simple color palette that makes information easy to see, and the site easy to navigate. Checkout directions are easy to follow, and are secured through PayPal. Information is current and well-presented, and the authors are available for contact through phone or e-mail.

This website is essentially an overview of the important events of the Trojan War. The website is clear and organized in chronological order. If you simply read the page top to bottom you get a clear and basic overview of the most important events of the Trojan War. This was written for basically anyone who wants to learn about the basics of the Trojan War. I read through and I feel that it could be useful for anyone in middle school or older due to the level of vocabulary. I feel that all the necessary content is there, however the design could use some work. Pertaining to content, this website is great. Everything someone would want to learn about the basics of the war is there. This website also brings a unique perspective about the war because of the link "The Women". It's not very often (especially in Greek or Macedonian) society that women's opinions or chronicles were valued at all, let alone saved like these were. Information on this site is very easy to find because the links and headings are clear, making it easy to find what you are looking for. The author's and bibliography section are done well, a background of the authors is present, and all websites are presented in order and correctly formatted. The pages about the important women may be the best of all. They included the original Latin text, and an English translation. They also include descriptions of how that particular woman impacted the war or society. Pertaining to the design, this website could use some design help. While it's nice and simple, there aren't many colors, for instance every page has black font with a white background. The images are useful and pertain to the website, but there aren't many of them on the main pages. The sidebar looks very nice, the top bar does as well, if this theme would have been utilized more throughout the whole website it would certainly add to the attention grabbing aspect of the website.

Overview: This website is intended for teachers or parents to find activities and worksheets for Pre K to 8th grade students. The webpage offers free materials on the core subjects in school along with seasonal activities and themes. I believe that teachers would find this website very useful in finding activities for their classroom or papers that children can take home for extra practice. My overall impression of this site is that it includes useful, updated material that is easy to find and use. Content: Looking at the content of information in this website, I have found that users would be able to quickly determine what information can be found on this site. At the very top of the page it specifically states that the website is an "educator's online resource". I also found that the website was created in 2001 but was recently updated in 2012, so it contains up to date information. The quality of this website is very well organized and is simple to understand. Almost all of the worksheets were easy to download as a PDF document, which would be great for printing. The only setback I found with this site is that information on the authors and sponsors were not readily available. Other than that small detail, I would strongly recommend this website to any elementary school teacher or home school parent; I know I will definitely use this site in the future. Design: I have found that the design of this website is very organized and appealing to the eye. Users should not have any problems moving around the site as the information is easy to find from the home page. From the home page you are able to click on the tab of any subject or grade of information you would like to find. One of the draw backs of this site is that there are no instructions on how to maneuver around the site if someone is lost. The best thing about this website is that there is a sufficient amount of information that is available to the public and organized in an easy to underst

OVERVIEW: The purpose of teachingbooks.net is to give teachers (as well as librarians) good book ideas. One helpful resource the website includes is a search area in which you can type in a book or an author. There is also an area where you can look up different author websites (you do, however, have to be a member of teachingbooks.net). My first impression of this website was fantastic! The book search engine alone would make me want to return to this site. CONTENT: I did not find any problems with the content of Teaching books. There were links to other sites and the content is well organized. It is clear to anyone that the website provides an informational purpose. Teachingbooks.net is also updated daily which can be seen at the bottom of the home page. DESIGN: Like the content of this website, I did not find any problems with the design . Navigation was extremely simple. When a link is clicked the page downloads quickly. The home page has good eye appeal. There is a neat table of contents at the top of the page and the author/title search engine is front and center and easy to see. The information is helpful to anyone aspiring to be an elementary school teacher or librarian which makes the site worth visiting. Overall, teachingbooks.net is a wonderful website that I would recommend to others.

Zachary Donnan 2/5/12 Overview: This website is a free information website for teachers specifically geography teachers. This website has several different types of media and an extensive amount of tips to assist geography teachers with their lesson plans. This website is essentially a blog and resource site for geography teachers. Content: This website contains a huge amount of resources for geography teachers from games to slide shows to general tips for presenting information to students. This website also guides teachers on using technology and technological resources such as google effectively to assist them with teaching. There is also a wide range of free materials to access such as free ebooks, all in all a pretty neat website. Design: The design of this site is pretty simple to navigate, and it has a professional feel to it. This website seems to be extremely helpful to teachers and also has suggestions to guide you to other helpful materials. There is definitely a focus on the use of technology within the classroom on this site, and although there isn't really any contact info I still found it to be a good useful site.

Overview: This website is intended for students and teachers to practice their math skills. It offers free math games for students from grades kindergarten to seventh grade to help them learn and practice their math skills. This math site has tons of high quality interactive activities, ranging from basic skills like shapes, numbers, adding and subtracting to advanced skills like rounding, fractions, multiplying and dividing. I think that teachers would find this website useful for their students to use in or out of the classroom to form a better understanding of simple math. My overall impression of this site is that it is a fun and educational way for students and teachers to learn more about math. Content: The main purpose of this website is to provide a place for students to practice their math skills by playing games and activities. When first coming across this site, I found that it was difficult to see who the intended audience was, but after further observation I found that the site was full of math activities for students. The content of this website is well organized into different categories of math and provides directions on how to play each game. The site also offers an overview on the subject selected that one can view before or after the game they play. From going through this site I found that the external links that are provided are not for math but instead for other basic school subjects, which may be helpful. All in all, children would benefit the most from this website because of its fun and easy way to learn math. Design: The graphic design of this webpage was not as attractive as it could have been. I found that the way information was presented may not be the most appealing to young children and at times was hard to navigate. The graphics were appropriate for the site and the games were presented in a way that children could easily understand. This website is defiantly a fun way to teach math to younger children.

OVERVIEW: The purpose of this website is to provide teachers and librarians with good book ideas. Some of the resources the Children's Literature Network's website provides include recommended authors and new book ideas. There are videos that discuss the general plots of books to help teachers and librarians decide if they should include that book in their class room or library collections. My first impression of this website was that it had a lot of useful information that I would use in my classroom. This was a fantastic and helpful website. CONNTENT: As I filled out the website content evaluation form for the Children's Literature Network, I saw that I hardly marked anything in the "No" or "N/A" columns. It was easy to see who the general audience was for the website and what its purpose was. The content was well organized and the author (Children's Literature Network) is given. The one area that I did not see on the checklist, however, was information on the author. Otherwise, the content of the website was great. DESIGN: The design for the website was wonderful as well. The home page (and all of the other pages) was attractive and there was a clear table of contents at the top of each page. It was simple to navigate between pages. When I clicked on a specific link, I was taken to where I expected i was going to end up (there were no dead ends). The Children's Literature Network also updates its website every day, so you know you are getting current information.

Bailey Stanfield Reviewed 10/12/2014 This resource has a lot of information and resources for not only teachers, but students as well. There are several guides for teachers to use in terms of mostly math and writing integration. The main audience is students and children. The majority of the resources on the website are games for children that helps them to solidify educational ideas that may be covered in the class. I think this website could make a great supplemental resource to be used in the classroom and at home to help students grasp certain topics. The content of the website was rather strong. The only information that was hard to find was the author of the website and who that was. The sponsor was very clear, but the author was hard to find. The other information that was hard to find was the revision date. The website does have a copyright date of 2014. Overall, the content of the website is clear and of quality for the intended purpose. The design of the website was very appealing and easy to see and navigate through. It was simple enough that children will be able to understand and properly use the website effectively. Games consist of appeasing music and images that will intrigue children. Content and content areas are very clearly placed on the website.

Hannah Clucas October 10, 2012. Overview: neoK12 is an educational video website. The whole site is basically a giant database to help teachers with their lesson plans. The main purpose of the website is to offer educational videos that teachers can use in their class. But there are also quizzes on topics of choice, diagrams, pictures on topics of choice, and even an option to create a school presentation. The site is simple but useful, though it is probably more useful for science and history teachers rather than language arts or math teachers. Content: As I said above, neoK12 is a website that allows teachers to find videos to help with their lesson as well as quizzes, pictures, and diagrams. All of the videos are from Youtube and cover a wide variety of age groups. The content was amazing in some areas and not so great in other areas. In regards to the history and science sections for videos, they are amazing. Several of the science videos are from National Geographic and the history videos are well done and cover a wide variety of eras and cultures. Several of the language arts videos were not made very well. They would probably be more useful to teach with if a teacher cannot come to class. It is the same for the math videos. The quizzes are useful and relevant. The ability to create a school presentation is a great tool for students to write about what they have learned or for creating study guides. All of the videos and other functions of the website are relevant and useful. Design: The site is extremely easy to navigate and is well organized. The home page is the list of the main categories of videos and their subcategories. The design is very simple, nothing flashy or amazing. The site does not bombard you with ads or other websites, which is nice and helps insure that students will stay on the website.

This website shows many different links to science videos, games and lessons. This helps the teacher and the student in many ways. It gives the teacher a way to look at other lessons and other perspectives to help them teach the class in different ways. The students also get to look at other ways to learn something, and they get to play games and watch videos to learn content instead of reading. Content: The website has multiple different links that relate to sciences from earth and space science to physical science. Each link that is clicked then shows different activities for different grade levels.

This website shows many different links to science videos, games and lessons. This helps the teacher and the student in many ways. It gives the teacher a way to look at other lessons and other perspectives to help them teach the class in different ways. The students also get to look at other ways to learn something, and they get to play games and watch videos to learn content instead of reading. Content: The website has multiple different links that relate to sciences from earth and space science to physical science. Each link that is clicked then shows different activities for different grade levels.

Content: This website contains lots and lots of stuff. It is set up like a classroom and has a reading link, a math link, a playground link, and an arcade link. I think this is more of a game site than an educational one. There are also lots of links to other help sites, but the majority of the links are for advertiser's webpage's, distracting visitors. Design: After looking at it for awhile, I started to feel lost and uninterested because of all the advertisements and the lack of visuals. There are thousands of links for kids to go to, and the actual site doesn't really support a good learning environment. As said above, it's mostly games with reading sections that really looks fun, but if you have to look through the games to get to that section, students will probably never get there on their own. The visual part of this website is interesting. The homepage is pretty boring and filled with links, but the reading and games tabs are designed for younger students. Attribution: The purpose of this site is probably intended to promote learning is fun, but becomes easily more of a distraction with all of the advertisements. I don't think I would promote this site in my classroom without adult supervision because students could so easily be distracted by toys and games.

Overview The purpose of this website is to help kids interact with math and reading. The intended audience is K-8. My overall impression of the website is that is very beneficial and a good free website for students to practice math and reading, whereas with other websites you have to pay to use the website. Content The only thing that I would critique on this website is having other links that would be appropriate and have to do with reading and math. But other than that, I would highly recommend this website. Design I think that everything is up to date but there is no for sure way to tell on the website, there is the copy right that does say 2013 but there is no one hundred percent way to tell if it has all been updated. So this is one thing that I would change on the design for the website.

Trevor Montgomery For this resource, we see another website that in a way, tricks students into thinking they are just playing games by giving them subject related activities. With the subjects of math and reading, students having interactive games, books and comics and even more fun links, without thinking they are doing much work. Through the "Funbrain" arcade, students can also complete activities and must pass obstacles to get through an interactive game board. If they do not successfully complete an activity, they will not be able to get past their current location, but will feel challenged to get through each activity and will most likely attempt multiple times until mastery of the activity. The great thing about this website is that students can also use codes to pick up where they left off on the game board so that they do not have to start over each time they log on (with their parents' permission of course). From grades 1st through 8th, there is a great variability from subjects, and students who are feeling extra brave might even try a level of difficulty higher than their current grade level. As someone who used this website in school when he was in elementary school, I can say that this resource is extremely effective and I think that students will come back to it time and time again. Navigating the website is easy enough. If you type in www.funbrain.com in the url box, you will be directed to the site. From here, you can choose to use the math arcade, reading, fun arcade, playground, and all games tabs, as well as books & comics and more fun activities. This website is specifically directed towards the audience of students in grades 1st through 8th, so as a teacher you can trust it to be safe and student-friendly.

Overview Code Academy is a website that is used to promote the proper teaching of different computer languages to people of all ages. It is mostly aimed at people who are in computer science classes from middle school through college. The site has a number of corporate sponsors as well as many 'teachers' that donate their time to creating lesson plans for this site. They really advocate the teaching and learning of these computer languages. For being programmers, the site is actually fairly simple and had some glitches on my computer. I will attribute that as much to the computer as much as their programming.