Group items tagged

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.

TeacherTube is an educational resource found at teachertube.com. It is a filtered, child-safe video website based off of the popular video site called YouTube. The site, geared towards teachers and students, was initiated by a superintendent from Texas named Jason Smith and is maintained through uploaded user content. TeacherTube is a fantastic source of videos to supplement lessons of all subjects in an elementary classroom. All content on this educational website is current, and its copyright has been updated as of 2015. All video links are informational and relevant, and some information about the people who uploaded each of the videos is available; however, no contact information is provided for the website. Also, the audience and subject matter of the videos are easily determined. The site's credibility is improved by its associations with the American Institute for History Education, Glogster EDU, NASA Ares, and other highly esteemed educational online resources. Over all, TeacherTube provides reliable, audience-appropriate, educational content to students and teachers alike, making it an excellent tool to use in a flipped-design classroom or to supplement any lesson in an elementary classroom. The website's design allows users to easily navigate TeacherTube's videos. The homepage displays a sample of educational videos and organizes them into rows by audience and then by subject matter: teachers, parents, students, and then math, science, and history. Each video shows appropriate content according to the subject and audience it is labeled. Additionally, users can search video channels or specific usernames of people who upload videos. This simplistic format of the homepage is consistent with all other pages, making navigation easy for users of many ages and ensuring efficient loading on any web browser. Clearly, TeacherTube is a well-designed, user-friendly, educational resource for teachers, parents, and students to find credible and informational

A free community for sharing instructional videos and content for teachers and students. We are an education focused, safe venue for teachers, schools, and home learners.

Emily Lewis 4/15/15 This website is called the National Security Agency and is a government website that provides lesson plans for teachers.  The website's purpose is to cater to the association and provide lessons to them as well people who are prospectors. The lessons I found are about fractions and are great for anyone to use and can be used by most teachers. The lesson plans are intended for the association but it has very thorough lesson plans as well as activities corresponding to them.   The content of the lesson plans is thorough and helpful. There are different lessons like "fractions on a number line" and within the lessons there is an overview, engagement ideas, worksheets, and much more. It is helpful for a teacher looking for ideas because there are a lot of different lessons about fractions. The links are under the year that they were used which is also great to know what is current and what is not. The website is a government website and the lessons refer to the NCTM standards and principles so it is a credible site. The age range varies between second and fifth grade. The design of the website is slightly hard to navigate because it is not only a website for teachers. It is the national security agency, which is based on military and government actions. The only way I could find the page that consisted of the links to lesson plans was through my Google search. After I navigated around the website, I wasn't able to get back to the lesson plan page. The page that consists of the lesson plans is easy to navigate but the rest of the website is difficult.

Morgan Kuchta September 1, 2010 Blackboard.com Overview Blackboard (Bb) is a company with a website (Blackboard.com) that is similar to eCompanion used here on the UW campus. It provides an online domain for teachers to post assignments, announcements, proctor tests, host chats and discussions, and post grades. It is an interactive site for teachers and students to communicate and use as a resource. Bb is obviously aimed at the education audience and has different tools for everything from kindergarten to college. I have used Bb in the past in high school and it was always a very effective tool. It was dependable and very user friendly. I would highly recommend this site to all educators wishing to use an online forum. Content Summary At first look, Blackboard is an extremely well organized website, it gives its purpose on the home page and all major pages for the site have tabs clearly labeled at the top. The author information is not available, however blackboard is a company that provides an online forum for teachers and schools to use as a means of communicating with their students and promoting online learning, so it more than likely has more than one author. There is an email address for any support that you need and they also have a frequently asked questions section, broken down by the type of client you might be, i.e. teacher, student, designer, or administrator so you are likely to get your question answered right then and there. The site is very up to date and claims to be adding new features about once every few months so it stays current. The Information quality of this site is great, it is obviously a business and their purpose is clearly stated and easy to understand. It has links to all their concurrent sites that have other tools you can use to make Blackboard more accessible to you and your students i.e. Bb Mobile. Design I had no trouble downloading the home page. Although it is not full of bright colors its appeal states its purpose: efficie

Ramon J. Sandoval September 1, 2010 Website Evaluation 1 Site Title: Enchanted Learning URL: www.enchantedlearning.com Authors of website: Jeananda Col and Mitchell Spector Subject: Elementary Education Content Summary This website is great for teachers looking for curriculum material for elementary school students. It is broken down into categories making it easy for the teacher to navigate the website and obtain subjects specific to their desired projects. The content appears to be complete and is regularly updated. If any problems with the site are experienced the site has a page dedicated to addressing these problems. Design summary The home page of the website downloads fast. The links within the site come up quickly. The information on the pages is easy to understand and navigate through. There is an appendix on the left hand side of the page to help guide you through the site and take you to your desired subject. This site has sufficient information for the teacher to browse through and select what will work best for them. The material is updated regularly and has a link directing you to the newest projects. If any problems occur with the site then a link is provided at the top of the page to deal with any concerns. Overview This is a site I will be put in my favorites. For an elementary school teacher it is a good resource. It has a variety of subjects and suggested projects for them. It has suggestions for early childhood activities to give children a jump start in their education. I would recommend this site to parents that are interested in enhancing their child's education. It is very user friendly.

Overview: The website MathisFun.com is a math website for elementary and middle school aged children. The purpose of this website is to help children understand math in a fun way. In this website there are many different fun learning tools to help the students understand geometry, algebra numbers and measurement better. This website gives links to other helpful websites that have games using base ten blocks adding and subtracting games, and much, much more. Content: The content of the website MathisFun.com is very clear and organized in a very interesting way. This website is fully completed and is used effectively with a well organized and interesting home screen that is easy to understand and helps the child or the teacher find different types math subject areas without any problems. There are other games that have been listed for the higher grades such as 5th grade to help challenge the students in a fun way. The website offers many different types of games and puzzles, along with games to further the education of elementary and middle school aged children. Weather the teacher had the games pulled up on the smart board and then the students could interact with other students and work as a class to figure out the answers. This is a great interactive website for students and for the teachers. Design: The website MathisFun.com is a well designed website that looks like a road with many math stops. This website is full of different colors that grab your attention. The website does not have any ads which is a good thing so the children can focus on just the math subject areas. This website also offers worksheets and a dictionary that the teachers section that offers many different tools like print zone of different activities and work explains different math terms.

Whitney Mills; Website Reviewed: January 24th 2010 Overview: Mathisfun.com immediately draws a person's eye in with a fun, exciting homepage. Anyone can see clearly that the purpose of this website is to help teachers teach their students math. Content: This website has a clear and definite purpose, and that is to help teach children math in a fun and exciting way. The site is very well organized and very well made. I feel like there was much work put into making this site effective for children. The author is very clearly identified, and the links to other websites do work effectively. This website also covers many different areas of math such as; algebra, geometry, data, etc. It is stated on the actual website that the content is updated frequently, which is a huge plus for using this site in a classroom. A person can also check out all the different additions added to the website which could be helpful. Design: The website is very well designed. It is exciting to a child's eye. He/she would be more than happy to learn math using this website. For adults/teachers the website is very organized and clear throughout the entire page. The design is the same throughout the whole site and it seems like a very fun and exciting site to use anytime, anywhere!!

Peggy Hall August 31, 2010 Website Evaluation Overview: I reviewed the website, Reach Every Child which is a website that helps teachers establish lesson plans. I believe the point of this website is to link the viewer to other websites that have information (i.e. lesson plans, facts, and data) about certain subjects. It is mostly a resource for teachers and students looking for information in whatever subject they need to discover more information in. I feel like this website could use some more content in explaining its overall use, but it does have a lot of great links for the viewer. This website needs to be enhanced, but the meaning behind it is good. It took me a little while to completely understand how this website works and the author's credibility and contact information is lacking. Content: As I previously mentioned it was not easy for me to decipher the overall objective of this site, I knew it dealt with lesson plans, but how those lessons plans were presented and used on the site was a little confusing at first. It is known on the webpage that Horace Mann developed it and that it is founded by educators for educators, but it does not have a bibliography page or link describing who Horace Mann Company is. It addresses in its disclaimer that if there are any questions to email them, but there is not an email address. This website does have over 5,000 resources and different links which I do find beneficial. However, it does also mention that you could hit a dead end and to not be discouraged. It is not apparent how current the information is that is being displayed on the webpage. This site does have some organization, but lacks a clear homepage. There are a lot of links which do not clearly explain where they will be taking you next. Design: The design is lacking. It did not catch my eye appeal when I first looked at it. It is all one color and has a simple font. Nothing really stands out to me or makes me want to visit this site. In fact the desig

Overview: Education world is a web site for educators to find up-to-date resources such as lesson plans. It's really easy to use. It provides users with valuable information or material that teachers can use for their benefit. It's free for all to use and provides other helpful links. Content: This site provides lesson plans, web resources, tools and templates, technology information, infomation for new teachers, professional development, etc. It provides tips for teachers to meet the common core standards. Teachers can look up site reviews and see which sites education world thinks are good sites for them to look at to get more information. Design: The design of this web site is fairly easy to use. It is well organized. It can be a little intimidating because there are a lot of links with information, but it's easy to navigate through if you're looking for specific content. It's got good graphics and easy to view.

Educaiton World has so many resources. A teacher could look for hours for find lesson plans, subjects, and worksheets that could fit in with their lessons. The content is excellent, but it is a little it overwhelming when you look at it. Just take your time. The design is okay. It may take you longer to go through to find what you are looking for.

Kacee Von Krosigk 1-24-10 Content The National Writing Project states, "…focuses on the knowledge, expertise, and leadership of our nation's educators on sustained efforts to improve writing and learning or all learners". They seem to focus on any forms of writing and they want a future that has each and every person as a successful writer and learner. They are anchored at colleges and universities. Teachers from all levels and all subjects use these ideas. They want to improve the teaching of writing and learning in schools and communities. The page that I focused on was, "30 Ideas for Teaching Writing". It has very interesting and fun ideas to use in the classroom. Design The website is very professionally created. The viewer can tell that this is a qualified website to use. There are no distracting pop ups. The bottom of the page says 2010 National Writing Projects which would make the viewer feel comfortable about using the information. There are many links to very useful pages that any teacher would be happy with. Overview As an inspiring teacher, I would be very happy using this website for projects for my students. There are full length articles and updated information. The purpose of this website is to encourage teachers to be more creative and fun in the classroom by using the ideas given.

Olivia Mabie-January 24, 2010 Content: This website has suggestions for games, activities, and lesson plans used to encourage team building among elementary school students. There is a description of the website located near the top of the page, therefore if it does not match what the teacher is looking for then they do not have to waste their time on the website. There are hands on activities for parents and students and for teachers to use in the classroom to get the students to start working together. Once the links are clicked on there are many other interactive activities on those websites also. These links have many subjects incorporated within them, which is nice that the students get to work together and learn about the subjects at the same time. Design: There are no pop-ups or ads on this website which makes it very easy to navigate. One nice thing about this website is under each of the links there is a description about what will be on the website. If a teacher is in a hurry to find a link they are not wasting their time trying to figure out what is on the website. The layout of the website is very neat and organized. Who published the site, when it was published and last updated are all located at the bottom of the page and helps knowing they go through and get rid of the old information and websites which are located on the home page. Overview: This is a great site for teachers to use in order to get their students working together. I liked how this website stated at the bottom of the page that there have not been standard assigned for this source. This site has all the information that needs to be posted on the website such as, who the publisher is, who you can contact if you have any questions, and when it was revised, which means that they have gotten rid of any old information and sites.

Overview: The purpose of this website is for teachers to join the community of teachers that teach Spanish or Portuguese. There are a number of important links for all people to see that are not members of the AATSP. The overall layout and design of this site is Professional and has a sense of prestige. Content: The content of this site is up to date. The contact information and date of copyright is listed at the bottom of the page. Content is organized, helpful, and accurate. The calendar shows upcoming events and there is a link to the monthly Journal. Design: The layout is professional and makes it seem that if a teacher joins, they will be part of an important group of people that will provide great resources. The table of contents is in alphabetical order and the scrolling photos make the website seem relevant to the information it provides. All links work properly and provide very useful information. Due to the amount of links, there seems to be a great resource of information available to people with the AATSP.

Whitney Mills; Website Reviewed: January 24th 2010 Overview: Funlessonplans.com is my favorite site that I have looked at to review simply because it involves lesson plans. I feel that becoming a new teacher, lesson plans would be the hardest thing to try to come up with. This website involves lesson plans for many different subjects which could be a huge help for future teachers. Content: The purpose of this website is to help future teachers with lesson plans. The author is clearly identified and the website is revised often. It is very organized and provides a user with tabs to help navigate throughout the site. There is a contact address to ask questions if needed. The links to the other sites are current and they do work properly. The website is very well made and looks professional. I would use this website in my future often if I was having difficulties with lesson plans. The intended audience of this website is meant for teachers. Design: The design of this website is very clear and easy to follow. The website has the same them throughout the whole site. The homepage downloads efficiently and has a strong eye appeal. I was able to move around the site easily and was overall very happy with the design of this website.

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.

Becky Stewart 1/24/11 Average site Content: The site is a little complicated at first glance, and there are a lot of different options. Without looking into it as much the site looks very complicated, and its difficult to find a starting point for it. Its hard to tell what the exact purpose of the website is, and who it is exactly for. The author(s) are very hard to find on this website, however the site is sponsored by the government which gives it more legitimacy even with missing authors. The website has a lot of extra information about location, phone numbers etc, but there is no simple way to find out when the site was last updated. The site has plenty of good information, as well as many links to bring the user to different areas to look more in depth into anything. This site is probably used more for adults because of how complicated it is. However, The information on the site seems to be very good and a good resource if used correctly. Design: The site had a lot on the homepage, but downloading quickly. There was no significant wait time for everything to load. The home page is very strong and makes the site look very credible. The bottom of the home page has a list of links that the user can go to on the site, and seems to be pretty organized. The links work well and bring the user where it says its going to. The site is well organized and isn't completely overloaded with videos or pictures. Plenty of addresses and phone numbers are located in a link at the bottom of the page. Overview: The site http://www.ed.gov/ is a site designed for teachers a students. There are no advertisements on the page to be distractions, and the site seems very educational. The purpose of this site is to inform teachers and help out students who may have questions or concerns. In some ways it does this for teachers as well. This is a complicated site so it wouldn't be for younger st

Jamie Henry 19 May 2011 Overview: The website Learn.Genetics is a very useful site for teachers and students alike in the science field, especially when it comes to genetics. The intended audience is teachers, but it is also designed for easy student use if teachers wanted to use it as a resource. Based on both the content and design reviews, I found this website highly helpful and effective. It would be an amazing practice tool to use when teaching students about gene transcription and translation. Content: Using the Content Evaluation sheet from Cyberguide, Learn.Genetics proved to be a useful site. In nearly all the criteria I marked "Yes" for Learn.Genetics. The information was easy to use and served clear purposes. There were many interactive games and pages that would make it useful and easy to use for students and teachers. The only thing this website could do would be to give links to other useful sites and one to a person who could be contacted for more information. Design: The design of the Learn.Genetics website was also very good. Not only was the site appealing and easy to navigate, it was recent and each part had a clear purpose. There were no directions for using this website, which may have been helpful to some, but since it is such an easy site to use, directions are not really necessary.

Overview: The purpose of this website is to attract children, grades K-8, with educational activities online. The intended audience is children but the site carries extended links to teacher and parent resources. Thus, this website is for all ages. The available resources go beyond games to include online books, comic books, math activities, arcade games, and many more. There are also links to pages for parents and teachers. My overall impression was positive about this site. It was very appealing and allows for children to experience the internet while learning. I also felt that the teacher and parent resources led to some potentially important websites filled with a lot of information. Although this site was very educational, it seemed to be a lot less personalized than previous websites. Content: The content of this website was sufficient for the needs of any teacher. It is organized in a way that allows children to search for games that interest them but also has a teacher's guide. In this guide, the teacher can locate specific features that are appropriate for their lesson plans. There is an identified sponsor along with contact information. It is an updated site with a copyright from 2011 but no recorded last revision date. This site has the purpose to entertain, be informative, and also has some advertisements for upcoming literature events. This site was well organized and complete. It was easy to understand and very user friendly. The interactivity of this site does make it a lot of fun and easy to visit. The information provided, to my knowledge, was pretty similar to outside sources. The website was edited well and provided links to relative outside sources. However, this site did not provide much information on the actual authors of the content. Overall, I would rate this as a highly relevant website. Design: The overall design of this website was very affective. The home page loaded efficiently and was very appealing to the eye. The home page

Overview: This website is intended for Preschool teachers who would like lesson, ideas, and printouts. Within each subheading there is background information of the subject for the teachers, as well as activities and printouts for the students. There are up to date materials that relate well to students, and are easily accessible by teachers. This is a wonderful, one that I will be using once I graduate and start a Preschool. Content: When the website is first opened it is easy to determine the purpose and audience that was intended. There are no authors available but the sponsor is at the bottom of the website, with a link to give feedback. This was last updated in 2010, which is very current considering the type of material; material for little kids do not change all that much within a year. There is a ton of information available on this site. There are themes as well as activities. Within each of these there is a little info about the subject for the teacher and resources, activities and printouts for the students. There is also a links that leads to what they call their sister sites, which provide more ideas. Design: This site is pleasing to the eye. There are colors that go well together, but are not over-powering. The information is well organized and clearly defined. Each link works and leads to where is desired. There is a link to many others links that are helpful and along the same subjects.

Sydney Fancher Thinkfinity Overview: This website is intended to help teachers with finding new lesson plans. It is helpful because it has lesson plans pertaining to such a wide variety of subjects, most teachers could find something they find helpful. It is difficult to determine how often new lesson plans are added but the course appears to updated frequently. In general, this website is a good resource for teachers to have when they are looking for a change up to their normal lesson plans. Content: Thinkfinity is a website that is designed for teachers. Specifically it is to help with new ideas for lesson plans that can be used at any grade level and content area. The site it's self is mainly just a tool to link you with lesson plans. The lesson plans that it has chosen to show you are all highly original and have enough information with them that it makes it easy for the teacher to use them in their own classroom. They often times even include lesson plans for grading. The only criticism I have is that it is unclear how often new lesson plans are added to the site so the site may become less effective for a teacher over time, but, generally, it seems to be incredibly helpful. Design: The design is based largely around the site sponsor: Verizon. Therefore, the design is appealing, but seems very commercial. The actual layout of the site, though, is extremely user- friendly. All of the links are working and helpful. Also, the site allows for you to search for lesson plans that are grade and content area specific. Then, once the teacher has found lesson plans that are appropriate for the students they are teaching, the search can be narrowed even further into specific subjects, such as a specific book or vocabulary. This feature, among others, is what makes this site effective for a large number of teachers.

Whitney Lindt Purpose: The purpose of this website is for teachers to go to in order to get ideas about what they could do in their classrooms. Not only would this website be useful for just teachers but there are some links off the home page that would be fun for the students as well. Overview: This site would be great for teachers to get different ideas of ways to teach language arts and math to their students. Not only could teachers learn from this website but their students could also learn from this webstie because there are several links between these two subjects that students could play games from and learn at the same time. This website would keep the students engaged with what the teacher is trying to get across because when a teacher can teach with games students can learn more because they are actually involved in the learning process. Content: The content of this website I think does a great job providing links that teach the students in math and language arts. In the language arts section it goes from grammar, to phonics, to reading; meaning that it basically covers everything that students learn as first graders in the class room when it comes to language arts. In the math section of this website it covers mathematical processes, numbers and operations, algebra, geometry and measurement, and data analysis. Some of these math processes might be a little advanced for first graders but it would still be good for them to look at so they are not completely unfamiliar with them as they go higher up in school. Design: What I really like about this website is that it is extremely easy to navigate. It splits up the information into different grade levels and then from there it goes into the different subjects. I think this website was mostly designed for the teachers to use because it is not appealing to the eye if a first grader were to use it. That is the only thing that I do not like about this website is that it is not really that appealing to the eye b

Mark Hyde www.studentsfriend.com Overview: A history site more for teachers than students. It has a lot of information on why history is important and why we study history. Not the greatest site to look up, but still could be used for teachers who want to teach using students friend information. Content: The home page opens up and has in site links that go to purpose, teaching and learning, teacher tools, and a concise world history called students friend. Open any of those up and you will find information on history and geography. Design: Design is pretty boring and it seems a bit hard to actually get to the information although the design is simple. Not much eye appeal and is more for teachers than students even though it is called studentsfriend.com.

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.