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Lacey Boyles April 15, 2015 This website ran very smoothly. I was able to find what I was looking for and also browse other articles easily. The intended audience is anyone who is interested in early childhood development. The purpose of this site is to give advice to parents/teachers, and also ideas on games/activities/art. Over all this is a very well set up website. This site is set up very well. Things are easy to locate as they have blogs set up in different categories. From what I read through the authors grammar and spelling is all correct. They try and set up two blogs a week, I would say they stay pretty current. I did not have any problem clicking on different blogs/articles, I was able to access all that I clicked on. The only thing I think they could add is links to other websites that relate to what they are talking about in a specific blog/article. When first clicking on this website it is very clear as to where you are. The site is nothing fancy so it does not take away from the content. On the homepage there is not too much going on and is easy to read. There is a variety of different information that would help with many different questions. From what I read through articles seem to be up to date and there is not a lot of very old material. This is a website that I will be returning to in the future.

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. 

Posted by Riley Kallhoff on 1/25/2010 Overview: The purpose of this website is to be a place for both teachers and students. It is a place where educators can prepare, plan, and teach. It is a place where students can read up on some current events or play some educational games. The audience of this site is both teachers and students. The nice thing about this site is that it is very well organized with very little advertisements and unnecessary things. It is very easy to navigate and it has a purpose behind every heading. Content: As soon as you come to the homepage you are able to determine that it is an educational site. You can't tell right away that it has games and reading, but you know it is for education right off the bat. You can also tell that it is for both educators as well as students. The authors of the site are not given right off the bat, but you can tell right away that it is part of the Smithsonian. The content is fairly well up kept you can tell from the copyright date. The purpose of the site is for entertainment in the form of games and it is also educational information. The site is very easy to navigate and has titles to links that work very fast. The site is laid out in a very easy to navigate setting. I would say that this site has educational value and is one that I would recommend. Design: I really like the design of the homepage and the whole website. The site moves at a fast pace and doesn't lead you to things that you don't want. The homepage is set up in a very clear cut manor and sets up the website in a very good way. You can tell right away what the website has to offer and all of the titles lay this out. There is a copyright date at the bottom of the page. There is no table of contents, but you know what the site has to offer from the links and titles on the homepage. Another great thing about this site is that it is very easy to navigate, and it takes you exactly where you want to go right away. The gr

Amy Andreen ITEC 2360 (TR) Overview: While searching for websites that would aid in teaching History to High School students, I found many great sources. It is no surprise that the Smithsonian has amazing resources to use. The site I found was entitled smithsonianeducation.org. Not only does it have great information for history teachers but for Art, Science, and Language Arts as well. Once narrowed down to the link entitled "History and Culture", I found that I could also choose between "Educators", "Families", and "Students". It has lesson plan ideas and information that can be used for many different areas throughout history. Content: The content included in this site is all up to date as far as I can tell. The last revisions were made in 2010. There are resources for different age groups that include different activities to utilize within the classroom. Also, the content ranges from Japanese interment in the United States to African History. The areas I found were very complete and useful, however, I found that the list of content is not as large as it probably could be or that I hoped it to be. Design: The Smithsonian site is really easy to navigate and very well laid out. I had no problems with searching for different eras, materials, or even different content areas. Everything downloads quickly and the attachments were very easy to find and download as well.

This website provides many different ideas for a teacher to use. There are lesson plans, gives you a place to search other topics and gives you a standards search as well. I feel the content is good. There are many resources to choose from. The design drew me in to keep looking at the website for interesting lessons-not even related to to my subject area.

Ivey Barnes 10/13/2014 OVERVIEW This website is an interactive math help website. It provides sample problems for many different topics from Pre-K skills all the way up to High School level materials. If a student enters in an incorrect answer, then the site provides a brief explanation on why the answer is wrong and how to fix it. Overall, I think that the website is a good resource to help students master math concepts either in the classroom or at home.   CONTENT The copy right is up to date by the current year and it is even stated that new topics are constantly being added. The source of all the information on the site is from a technology company whose goal is to create products to solve problems in education. This site is actually one of the products to help teachers and students. The only disadvantage to this website it that to get unlimited practice you have to pay and register to the site. The good part about registering is that they have different payment options for both parents and teachers.  DESIGN The IXL site is easy to navigate; it is broken up by tabs for each grade level and then the links are organized by subject from there. Each of the tabs are color coded and a preview of the content in each of the links is given before you click on the link. 

Ramon J. Sandoval September 1, 2010 Website Evaluation Site Title: Ask Kids URL: www.askkids.com Authors of website: Ask Kids Subject: Elementary Education Content Summary When I first went to the web site it was unclear what the website was intended to do. The website does not have easy access to the author identity. It never gives you a name of someone to contact. There is not any information about the author or when the site was last updated. This site is a search engine for children age's six to twelve and claims to be safe. The links to the website are easy to navigate through but unclear to me where to go next. Design Summary The home page downloads quickly and when clicking on the links there is not a waiting period. The home page is kind of bland but it does allow the user to dress it up with stamps and drawing on the front. I did not find a clear set of direction. I had to just click the links to see where and what was under the tabs. The same basic format is used throughout the website. There is a copyright date on the website but it is unclear how often the site is updated. This site does have games but the one I played did not give me an extra knowledge. Overview When the website first came up it was not very inviting. With the lack of computer experience I have it would not have enticed me to proceed. The subjects on the left side did not have me wanting to find out more about it. When I typed in a question the first thing to pop up was the advertisements. It does have some good aspects and content in it but I don't think it was easily accessible. This web site is designed for kids to ask common questions in the search engine. It is much like google but without the risk of finding something bad. I think with more time and experience on the computer the w

Overview: The purpose of this website is to be a resource for Teachers and Students alike in English as a Second Language (ESL). There are links to lesson plans, quizzes, and more. It's a very simple website but the links are helpful and up to date. Content: The content of this site is relatively up to date. Towards the bottom it tells the viewer when the last revision was made. There is a lot of information in this site that can take a while to go through, but all of it is helpful. The information is well organized with headings and titles. You can register for free and gain access to even more information. Design: The layout is simple and there aren't a lot of advertisements. The information is divided into sections and has main links listed, but when one selects the main heading another page comes up with a ton more information. This design is easy for anyone to use.

Rebecca Gardner Jan. 24, 2010 The content of this website is based around math. It has links for students from kindergarten to 12th grade. It is very clear from the start what the website has to offer. The author of the website was not clear identified, but there was a link to e-mail them. The sponsor of the website was also not available. The last time the website was revised was May 21, 2008. So the information may be out dated. However the links were for fun math lessons and they still are very relevant to today's teaching methods.. The links to the other sites were working properly. The purpose of this site was clear and very helpful for finding math lessons and games. The content of the website is well organized and easy to navigate though. Grammar and spelling are correct and the content was free of bias. The links on the website were worthwhile and appropriate to my needs. The design of the webpage was attractive and very easy to read. The website down loaded efficiently and so did the links. There is a clear title and description of the webpage. Even though the website has not been up dated in awhile all the links were still appropriate and I ran into no dead ends. On the home page there was little multimedia, nut the links had a lot and they made a significant contribution to the site. The browser was effective with a variety of browsers. The information provided from this site is worth visiting and is very organized, and a basic format is used though out. I do believe however that the website needs to be updated, because there is a lot more links that can be added. However, the links that are provided are up to date. My over view for this website is that I found it very useful. The links were interesting and appropriate. I will defiantly visit it again for ideas on math lessons. The only thing I didn't like was that the website hasn't been up dated in a while. The information is still of good use and I would recommended it to a friend.

Nathan Hissong 1/23/10 Content: An important part of any government class is debating current issues in America. In fact POLS2000 is a class devoted to just debating the issues. Opposing Viewpoints is an excellent resource to research issues. When you search of click on an issue you get a list of articles from repeatable authors who either agree or disagree with an issue. A new addition to the site is that you can debate over message boards (which requires you to sign up). Now like message boards one cannot put a rating on the experience. In high school a student and either be censored or be understanding that some language is inappropriate. Being that the site I a beta site it is put up with the help of advertising. Personally, I find this annoying but it is a necessary evil in this instance. Design: Opposing viewpoints is a very eye-appealing site. I has a variety of issues you can look up. However, in the top tabs they are organized into menus that make it easy to fine a recent topic. This site is made for the ipod generation. It feels like social networking site with purpose. It is one of my favorites Overview: This site is a good research tool. It can also be used to implement the CRAAP test because it does have some questionable content. It is a good teaching tool telling students to fin a current issue to present and then debate it in class. Again a site I use quite a bit.

Keenan Zimmerman 2/1/2011 Review of: http://www.busyteacherscafe.com/ Overview: Busyteachercafe is a site designed to help K-6 teachers come up with ideas. There are printables, strategies, themes, email sections and a store where I'm not sure what exactly you can buy. Most of the sections have useful ideas a teacher can use. The website is very colorful and looks like it is geared more toward 1-3 graders rather than on up to 4th 5th and 6th grade. It is not a very good website both in content and design. It has potential but at the moment it is not a very good site. Content: The content of the website seems very useful but it is very limited. There are few actual lessons or printables in each section. If the website is brand new than in a couple months I might say the website is very good content wise but at the moment the content is rather poor, another strike because we have no idea how old the site or information within the site are. The author of the material is nowhere to be found and even the e-mail section gives no clues as to who you are writing to. Design: The design is the worst part of the website. Although it has easy directions and it is rather easy to find what you are looking for, the site is littered with adds which are annoying and the search option is horrible finding almost nothing on the site when I used it. The search in the store section doesn't seem to come up with anything and because everything on the site is free I'm not sure why a store even exists.

Overview: The Teaching Treasures website is a site created mainly for teachers. If you really wanted to, you could direct your students to this website and have them find an activity to do but the way the website is set up, I think it is targeting the teachers instead of the students. Content: On this website, you can find things such as educational games, broken up into age groups, teaching tools, as well as resources for teachers. They do provide a lot of information and activities for your classroom and seem to know the facts. There are several categories for activities, each broken up into age groups. There seems to be an activity for just about any subject and age group combination you can think of. Design: While this website provides tons of information, the way it is organized and laid out, it can prove to be quite tedious to navigate. There is so much information and categories to browse through; it seems pretty overwhelming at times. While it is difficult to navigate, I think that the layout is pretty basic and typical of a website, which isn't necessarily a good thing. I think that this website could do with a more welcoming and enticing layout to draw it's visitors in.

Mandy Toll 9/11/11 Overview: This website was easy to use. The purpose of the site was clearly notated that the website was for both teachers and parents. The website gives a lesson plan on elections and presidents for first grade students. There were a lot of resources on the webpage to allow you to research more on elections and presidents. My overall impression of the website was that it was easy to use and gave you a lot of ideas for lessons you could use in the classroom. The website also gives other resources like videos and links to further the students' knowledge on presidents and the election process. Content: It was easy to see that the content of this website was about lesson plans on presidents and elections for first graders. The audience is clearly noted for teachers and parents. There was no specific author of the site but the sponsor of the site was shown. The information was up to date and is updated frequently with new information. There are many links on the page for more information which are also up to date. This website was very informational. The website is also well organized and easy to understand. The information appears to be accurate and is consistent with information I have found on other websites. Design: I did not think that the design of the website was very attractive though it is easy to use and navigate. The title of the page tells you what the website is for. The site is clear and easy to follow and the links to other pages on the site are helpful. The links give you more information on presidents if the lesson plan does not. There were no specific graphics and videos on the site but there were some links to others. The information given on the site is organized and easy to find. The site is current and is up to date on the information. It is well designed and easy to use.

Overview: This website is a good website for teachers who need fun and creative ideas for many different activities and lesson for Preschoolers and Kindergarteners. The last time this webpage was updated was in 2010, this is fairly recent, since that is within the last year. There are a variety of activities, games, quizzes, and many printouts. The intended audience is teachers who are looking for ideas. I love this website. It was easy to navigate and gave me a ton of great ideas and printouts I can use. Content: This website is full of links, all of which work, that lead to many different types of content from letters and numbers to animals to coloring pages. Within each of these sub-headings there are many activities and ideas to use for the children in your class. Each section and sub-sections are clearly defined and have pictures that correspond. The last update was last year, this seems to be a while ago, but since material for pre-k does not change drastically in a year, it is still up to date. There is not any information on the author, so that is lacking, but overall the content on this website is up to date and easy to access. Design: The design of this website has all links well defined and organized. There are pictures that also correspond to all of the links and headings. There is easy navigation throughout the whole website and everything is easy to access. Everything is up to date. There are a few varieties of media, mostly in the form of words and images. There is a copyright, also with a description as to how the website can be used for educational purposes.

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: S.O.S Mathematics is a free resource for math help for high school, college and adult math students. The website reviews all different math subjects ranging from Algebra to Differential Equations. You can also get help regarding specific topics rather than the subject as a whole. The website has more than 2,500 math pages that are easy- to- understand and helpful. This website also helps with test preparation and offers 'Cyberboard', which is a help forum used to ask specific math questions. Content: The homepage loads quickly but there is an advertisement pop-up along with an advertisement on the top of the homepage. Above the advertisement is a toolbar with links to each subject of math. There is a wide variety of subjects that are available to the student for help. There is a current copyright date on the website and the content appears up-to-date. At the bottom of the homepage is the company's contact information. When clicking on a subject, lists of sub-topics are included under that subject, which makes navigation on the webpage easier for the student. Design: The content of this webpage may be very helpful to students, but the design of the website is a bit bland and boring. The design does not look very up to date. The design of this website could potentially turn away a student looking for help at first glance because it's not appealing to the student. 

Content: This website is also designed for all kinds of homework help in numerous subjects. They have different kinds of references, tutoring, and levels, although it looks mainly for upper level (high school and college) students, so for elementary children would find some difficulty using. I do feel like there is quite a bit of ad space taking up pages, so visually it becomes overwhelming. Design: The design of this website is good overall, because it looks organized and clear. It is easy for students to look up what they need research on, but any free space given is taken up by ads. I think that getting rid of all these advertisements would sure make this website more efficient in providing a positive and productive learning environment. Attributes: The purpose of this site is to help student's understand what they are bringing home for homework and research. It's a supplement to the textbooks they have and available information student's need. I don't think I would send my student's to this website because there are too many distractions, and it seems like they would get lost in the ample of available information. It's also hard to have online instruction because message boards and chat rooms become off topic without someone there regulating what goes on in those environments.

Morgan Jenkins October 13, 2014 The author of this website wanted to help teachers find resources and lesson plans more easily. This website provides many different resources for preschool and kindergarten planning. It has lesson plans, activities, worksheets, math, and crafts. I personally feel that this site is helpful in many ways because it has a large variety of ideas and lessons. You can find specific lessons for holidays or seasons, but it still has generic lesson plans that can be modified for a specific class. The author of this website, Elaine Engerdahl, is a credible author because she taught Kindergarten for 31 years, therefore an expert by experience. The last copyright was in 2013. I would consider the materials up to date because the lessons all follow common core standards and include up to date technology and methods. There was a contact section that included the email and mailing address of the author along with a phone number. The content is clear and effective because the purpose was to help provide teachers with resources and the site effectively does that. My overall impression of this website was professional and helpful. This website was easy to navigate and had a clean design. There were buttons for lesson plans, activities, crafts and more. When you would click on the links to other websites they seemed to all work. The design of the simple but fun. There were graphics but not too many. The text was easy to read, and the font was not too big or small. Clearly the website was set up well and is easy to use.

Lauren John 1/30/2011 Jumpstart.com Overview: This site was created to help children learn to read through online games set in a fantasy land. It is focusing on making reading enjoyable and imaginative for those students who may have shorter attention spans or read at lower levels than other students. It offers incentives for completing lessons and practice of more school skills than just reading. The audience not only includes those with attention deficits, but also very young children who would be drawn in by the cartoon images and colorful designs. Although cute, the web design was not the easiest to get around. They offered directions verbally on what each place had in store for the child and how to maneuver in each game, but I had to figure out for myself how to move the person and what the buttons meant. Overall it was well designed though and the content was related. The biggest difficulty I ran into was that the player must be a member to take part in almost every one of the games. Content: The content of this website was fairly desirable. It was clearly stated in an upfront manner who and what they site were intended for. Although there is no author information or way to reach them, the sponsors are clearly identified and they are jointed with several other reputable sites. There is no revision date, but the materials are copyrighted through 2010, and I have actually seen the children I babysit play this game, so I know it is trusted by teachers in my school system. This site has many ways to get around it, but I could see how students would have a difficult time at the beginning because there are not clear labels. The site claims to have many ways to learn math, science, and reading, but in the time I spent there, it seemed like only the members were able to access the games that involved those. That made it so I was stonewalled enough times that I got bored with the site and gave up. I would consider using it in my classroom if there weren't

Lacey Boyles April 15, 2015 This website is for parents and children, there is a section for each. There is also a section for teachers. The website is easy to navigate. It focuses on children from ages birth to elementary grades. It seems that you can access this website on computers and also smart phones, iOS and androids for example. From what I looked through this would be a good site to not only visit again but also show to my children. Again this was a very well set up web site. It was easy to get around and they have the parent, children, and teacher sections separate. There are a few things I do not like about this site. There is a lot of adds for games that could draw attention to students if they were to get on here. When clicking on games you have to sign up and possibly pay to play. There is an index which gives you an idea of where you are going. The purpose of this site I would say is not 100% clear as there is information for parents, teachers, and children. The content on this page is really good. It has lots of ideas on activities, which it separates in to categories such as topic subject, age, and grade. There is a contact us page that you could go to if you needed help. I didn't need help so I am not sure how well or quick it works. Over all I did like this site and would go back again for ideas.

Content Summary: The site at first is a little hard to determine the basic content of the site unless you knew about the program before visiting the site. The sponsors for the site are clearly identified on the site and each one had a separate link for them. The site did no have posted anything on the information currency. However, the information on the site is talking about the program therefore; the information does not need to be updated as much. The site met all the information quality standards for the evaluation. The site was well organized and the purpose of the site was clear and easy to understand. Design Summary: The Growing Up Wild web site is very neat and fresh looking. The site and the links on the page downloaded efficiently. All of the text was well organized and easy to read. Navigating around on this site and moving form topic to topic was easy. The few graphics they displayed made a contribution to the site and was the right amount to attract the eye but not take away from the information. There was also availability of further information provided for those who want it. Overview: Growing Up Wild is a site that explains an early childhood education program. This site is for teachers or other educators. This program focuses on having students explore wildlife, nature and the world around them. It also has great activities for students to participate in and learn useful information. The site was very well designed, easy to use, and contained useful information.

This website is a good overview of Alexander The Great (King Alexander III of Macedonia.) It includes everything from his early life, to him claiming the throne, his conquests all the way up to his death. This is a great website because Alexander the Great is one of the most important figures in history and essentially merged Western and Eastern civilization. The website is very well organized and all information is under a specific heading. The vocabulary on this website isn't overly advanced so I believe anyone from middle school and up would gain information from this site. There are a lot of useful images, which really add to the website. Although the website is fairly plain, it's main purpose it to pass along information, and this website does just that.

Kacy BaileyDate reviewed: October 8th, 2012All Weather, all the time web questContent: The content of this website was very helpful, and useful for teachers. It was clear that the content was meant for 2nd grade students trying to learn more about precipitation. It is clear who the author is. Even though it is not clear who the sponsor is, I do not believe that there actually is a sponsor. The website is providing second graders with information that is required to learn. It also has a teachers page making it easy for teachers to have their students complete a web quest like this one.  Design: The design of this web quest makes it stand out from a regular website, but it is not super interesting to look at. I do think that it will get most kids' attention though It could use some more designing. This website is also very easy to navigate. Each link is up to date and useful. The homepage clearly states everything that is needed (title, author, what the website is about, etc.) The only downside to the design of this website is that it may be kind of difficult for second graders to navigate. This is kind of hard to assume though due to the fact that children become more technological every day.  Overall: Overall this website is another great web quest to use for students. Instead of learning on the usual white board and projector, this gives students a more hands on way of learning. And of course students love using technology so a web quest is always a good idea to get them working with it. The website had great information for students to learn, and many links to look up the things that the website may have missed. Overall the website seemed to be a great teaching tool.