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Cole Baumann January 24, 2010 This website helps teachers understand more about learning disabilities such as dyslexia and ADD. This is helpful in today's society as there is a very high probability that there will be a dyslexic student in their classroom and the teacher needs to help him/her learn in a way that the student can understand what is happening and help them retain the information the best way possible. There are stories of success throughout the website and journals from teachers who found a way to help the student who had a learning disability succeed in the class, all of which could help other teachers do the same. This web site feels like it is a large community of teachers coming together and trying to help each other succeed with the students who have learning disabilities. Suggestions abound for helping those students prevail without having to make them standout from the class, all within budget limitations. This website is a little bit more confusing than what I would like initially. But, after you explore it for a while, you start to understand and notice that it is actually quite easy to navigate. This website will help teachers learn more about learning disabilities and how to cope with them without drastically changing the students' learning. The pictures on the website seem old and outdated which makes the reader feel like maybe some of the information is outdated but that is the only downside I can see in this website. On the whole, is seems this site would be very helpful for any teacher This website is specifically for the teacher to help the students. It is not describing what dyslexia is and how to cope with it or what a learning disability is and how to cope with it. This site is saying that if you have the student with this learning disability these are ways to help them and make them successful in your class without making them feel too strange or too different from all the other students. This is very important as children wit

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

Seth Orndorff February 1, 2011 Bad site review Overview This site claims to have cool math, but fails to offer anything that can be considered as beneficial to students working on math. This site did more distracting than helping. The cool math games that are a part of the site do not teach any applicable math skills to kids. This site should not be used in an educational setting. There is no separation of skills and grade levels which means that it is difficult to assign certain activities to certain aged kids. The site is also very limited. Once a game is beat, it is beat and that is it. There are no further applications of what the student was supposed to learn. The site also lacks encouragement. Kids cannot see past results and compare them with new scores to see their improvement. The site is also extremely slow and has advertisements all along the side which do not help students with math. Content Evaluation The content of this website is very poor. When the page is first opened, it looks like a typical game page that is not educational. The name of the site, "cool math" is very deceiving. This site also lacks sufficient information on who created the site and whether or not they have any credentials. The date that the site was last revised is unknown to me. I could not find a date that it had been revised last. The information that it does have has very poor quality. Although it claims to be a math site, it is more of a game site where the games teach more problem solving skills than actual math. This may seem beneficial at first, but each game only has about ten levels. This means that after just a little while, the games are beat on memory rather than figuring out new ways to solve the problem. There is no further information that would lead a student to get more help on math. Design Evaluation The design of this site is just as poor as the content. The page takes a long time to load, and once it is loaded, there is no appeal to the h

Ashli Hunter 2-1-11 Overview: This website is great for elementary students who are struggling with fractions. The purpose of this website is to see where the students struggle and succeed at in fractions. In this website the students are able to identify, compare, add, subtract, mulitiply, and divide fractions and then play games to further their understanding. The overall content and design of this website is basic and very easy to follow along without any broken links. Content: The content for this website is straightforward and brings you to each link that you need without going through a maze. Everything is up-to-date in information and if you should have problems it gives you the author and how to contact him. The content itself is simple and not over the top for elementary students. After each example they explain how to get the correct answer with the correct word terminology. This websit even offers worksheets that teachers can use in the classroom. Design: The design is very simple and you don't feel like you have to search for what you want. Each link brings you to each section with one click and then the student only has to count and type in the number then submit and it gives them a clear answer to the question. This website also has an explain button if the student does not understand what is being asked of him/her. This website can either be used in the classroom or at home.

Seth Orndorff February 1, 2011 Good site review Overview The website, ixl.com is a very useful tool when it comes to math education. The site is kid and parent friendly with effective teaching strategies. If a teacher were to use this site as part of their curriculum, their students would each have their own accounts that keep track of their progress in various math subjects. The site has math questions to answer from kindergarten through eighth grade with different topics in each grade. Students may be assigned to answer ten questions from a certain topic. They would be able to easily navigate the site and find the questions to answer. Once completed, the student receives a score and time which is recorded. It would be advantageous for a teacher to give a pretest on this site at the beginning of the week then give them another quiz on this site to see their improvement. I am very impressed with this site and would definitely recommend it to others and bookmark it. Content summary The content of this particular site would be very useful for my needs and is worth bookmarking. I have several reasons for giving the content of this site such a high review. At first look, it is easy to quickly determine the basic content of the site and the intended audience. The authors and creator of the material is clearly shown and easy to access. There is a tab that gives a full summary of the creators with contact information at the bottom of the page. This makes it extremely easy to get in touch with the authors of the site. The content and information has been revised and has a new copyright for 2011. Along with the outstanding first impression, information on the providers, and information currency, the site has incredible quality when it comes to the information and further information. The sites interactive math problems that include rewards for correct answers are highly motivating for any student doing math from kindergarten through eighth grade. I was also very

A website full of interactive games for math, english, science, etc.

Overview: This site is all about interactive and fun games to help enhance learning for elementary school-aged children. You can sing songs, play games in math, language arts and vocab. It is child friendly so you can easily find what it is you want to play. Content: The author is not very clear but at the bottom lest side of the page shows the sponsor which is Time4Learning, a online home educational program for homeschooling, afterschool and summer learning. There are links to all the different activities the site has to offer from fun interactive learning games to free worksheets to online learning. The content is mainly the focus for elementary aged kids. It provides the needs to teach and help children learn new concepts and refresh old ones. The information is consistent and updated frequently. Design: The design is fun and appealing for kids. There are pictures to go along with the links which make it easy to navigate and know exactly were to go. Everything loaded fine and had extra places to visit for extra help.

Overview: This website provides games for young learners to explore even before they reach classroom age and throughout the early elementary years. The website covers several subject areas including but not limited to Health, Spelling, Animals, Science, Math, Art, Geography, and Literature. The games are fun and challenging. Content: There are games for young learners that are both challenging and entertaining in a wide variety of topics. Each topic has sub topics and then a multitude of game options for that sub topic. There are illustrations of cartoons throughout the site. The author is not clearly identified but the sponsor is. The website links to other young children's websites and cartoon television shows. Design: The amount of subjects and then sub-subjects is outstanding. The entire website is geared towards young children which is not only seen through the illustrations but also through the advertisements. The games are easy to get into the first time but after you have gone into one of them it is difficult to get back out to the website's main menu. While it has links for the subjects it doesn't have links such as home, about, contacts that may be helpful additions. A copyright is not readily available. The directions for the games are clear and concise.

John Pokallus 31 January 2011 Overview: The purpose of the site "Catch me if you can" seems to be a talent agency for aspiring individuals involved in the performing arts. The available resources of this site were literally non-existent and I had much difficulty navigating and finding any useful information whatsoever. This site was so poorly designed that I am still not entirely sure what content it actually provides. Content: Upon first look I was so inundated with visual stimulus that I was dumb-founded for a moment and had absolutely no idea what the purpose of the site was. After randomly searching the site I discovered that the intended audience was for individuals involved in the performing arts, and it seemed that this site was that of a talent agency. As far as information: providers, currency, and quality were all non-existent. The only actually readable text was the "about us" page that advertised their company named "Catch me if you can." There were links to other pages, but the links did not work so I could not tell if they were relevant to performing artists. The only positive thing about this site is that the grammar and spelling seemed to be correct. Design: The homepage took longer to download than it should have. Upon downloading, there were so many visually distracting animations and colors that I could not tell what the site was about. I did find an index to other pages within the site, but each page was equally confusing and distracting. There use of multimedia served no purpose other than to confuse, distract, and cause seizures to individuals susceptible to epilepsy. There were broken links, both internally and externally to the site. I could not find contact information on the site creators, and there was no indication of a discernible date or copyright notice.

Purpose:  This website's purpose is providing educational videos on a wide variety of topics suitable for elementary age students. The topics range from math and science to memory and spelling techniques. There are quiz after the each video over the content. The website is very cluttered and not well organized. The video itself is poorly constructed with cheap animations and the audio is a monotone computer voice. The information in the movies is good for the age that it is geared towards. There are also links to other websites for educational games and more information but these links are not good and have popups or problems associated with the links.Content:The information in the videos just scratches the surface of the subject. The quizzes that follow are fairly difficult for the age group that these videos are aimed towards.  There are sections of the website that are currently not available. There are data bases that are more content focused and these sections are much better designed and informative then the videos and games that are on this website. Design:Maneuvering and finding information is one thing that is good at this website. There is a search engine that will navigate you through the website to find desired information. The main educational website is cluttered with informational video which makes it hard to know what you are looking at, and where you should go to find information. The designs of the videos are very poor and hard to watch and listen to. The animations look like clip art pictures and the audio is a computer voice.

Food labels will be changed to show calories, fat, and sugar content in bold print on the front

Danie Thiel1-23-11The layout of this site is very organized and well thought out. The site gives you a detailed list of steps to making a pinch pot. With in the steps there are highlighted words that lead to links to help the reader better understanding the world. At the end of the nine steps to making a pinch pot there is a warning advisory that provides safety precautions. After that the viewer will find a list of materials to help make the pot more successful. This site correctly tells how to make a pinch pot and would best be used in a high school classroom. This site lacks pictures, which would make the site more successful. The site also offers links to other sites that might be found helpful.           

Chelsey Lynch 1/31/11 * Overview: The purpose of this site is to aid students in higher level math classes with problems they may be having and provide further resources. There is an extremely wide variety of available resources on this site. There is everything from enrichment lessons, games, puzzles, links for graphing paper, and overviews of any math content areas. This website contains a great deal of information, but it is not organized very well. At first glance this site looks like it could be very helpful, but once you spend fifteen minutes trying to find what you are looking for it seems a little useless. * Design: This website is attractive and has an interesting layout upon first glance, but after further examination is clearly not very user friendly. The material on this site is far too broad to all be in one site. There are several topics to select from and once you click on that it takes you to another page where you then have to make another selection to actually get where you want on the page. The copywriter date is current and visible, but there are too many advertisements on this page to focus on anything, much less, mathematics. * Content: The basic content of this site is noticeably math but I find the bullets to select from rather broad. Information about the author cannot be found on the website, though there is a link to e-mail them. This leads me to wonder if this information is relevant or even accurate. The sponsor of this site was also very difficult to locate. This site is meant to be useful for higher level math classes, such as high school classes, but I found the help links difficult to understand. This site does contain links to the right of the page for other math related sites. This links worked, and were much more efficient than this one.

I have used the website www.TheMathWebSite.com in my classroom for the past 6 years. By using the internet technology fully in the math classroom, teachers spend less time in preparation/marking drudgery and more time interacting and helping your students. It is intended to be used to assist math class instructions by providing typical examples and solutions to most high school level math topics. 1)  Begin with Bellwork. Choose some questions from a Quiz or Test Sheet, and give out to the class via paper, blackboard or projector.  Let students mark their own or each others. 2)  Give a Quiz on yesterday's topics for marking.  Students can mark their own, each others, or the teacher can mark.  Everyone can do the same quiz, or a different quiz via paper, blackboard, projector. 3) Present the Class Lesson  using examples from the Quiz or Test Sheets.  Show questions and solution steps on a projector or overhead. Present as many examples as needed. Click on the question and the solution steps appear or disappear. OR Present the Class Lesson  via the Lessonboard using the mouse drag & drop method. The lesson can be created and presented line by line via projector/overhead or blackboard. OR Present the Class Lesson  via the Lesson Sheets. The Lesson Sheets only present one question or example at a time. Click on the question and the solution steps appear or disappear. Present as many different examples as needed. 4)  Give some Practice. Choose examples from the Quiz Sheets which allow immediate student checking of answers from the bottom of the sheets. Tests have answers that can be clicked out. 5)  Present a math Diversion such as a Puzzle, Activity, Game, or Enrichment topic to maintain their interest in math and to put some fun into the class. 6)  Assign the Homework. Show students the source of extra practice sheets on the website if they or their parents wish to get extra

Regene DePiero 9/5/2011 Overview: This site is geared toward students in math courses.  It provides a number of online calculators to help solve anything from equations to derivatives.  Its layout is a little confusing after in depth exploration.  Some links do not work or content listed is not what is actually provided.  Also calculators do not offer step by step explanation which only helps students get an answer, and not learn anything about the process.  From a teacher's perspective, not an ideal tool for actually learning math. Content: There is no clear author or sponsor listed.  Information appears to be correct but many of the calculators do not return answers for many problems attempted.  There are almost no actual math explanations provided, only tables and answers.   There is no revision date listed, merely a copyright date at the bottom of the page.  There are links to other pages on the site but most are actually ads and not specifically sponsored but the site itself.  Several links are broken, however there is a link to contact for more information.   Design: This site is confusing to navigate.  What appear to be links to other pages on the site are actually ads.  Several links either do not work or bring you back to the page you were on.  The calculators seem like helpful interactive tools until put into use.  They are difficult to use and there is not a good explanation as to how to input the problem so that they are solved properly.  Also several calculators don't even return an appropriate answer.  Links to "courses" and "lessons" actually only bring you to pages with tables of equations.

The content for this site is very well put together. It is a site where you can go and start a new language and you can either start a free trial or pay to use it. It might be similar to Rosetta Stone. It has a easy to use box that will start you with the basics of the language you are trying to learn.The design is simple you have the unit and lesson at the top of the square saying what one you are on. On the left had side there are boxes with learn, review, write, and speak. Once you have completed all of those levels you are able to use the skill builder exercises to improve your skill. In the middle of the box is a picture with the word of phrase you are trying to learn. Underneath is a rewind play and fast forward button so you can move back and forth from picture to picture. I think that although this could be done from beginning to end I didn't find a way for someone who already knows some words. I also don't think that the exercises were very fun and one would get bored after a while and either stop paying attention or their motivation would die so they would want to do something else.  I am also not sure who the author is or what date it was updated, the only information it said was copyright in 2011.

Overview: The intended audience is for individuals with a degree in special education that are interested in using their degree within the Peace Corps. The purpose of the site is to explain possible projects the audience could be placed on as well as requirements and career advancements after the program. This site answers almost all questions necessary for the Peace Corps special education program as well as people to contact for any questions not answered.

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

Overview: Math Goodies is a math website that can be used by both the teacher and the student. This website offers lessons and worksheets for the teacher. Games and homework help are provided for the students, making this website even more effective. This website is geared mostly towards grades 5-8 but can be utilized by anybody needing help in the math subjects offered.  Content: When first navigating to the homepage, you'll find lots of information. A downside to the homepage and the website all together is that there are a lot of advertisements. The author of the website is not clearly stated but there is a link to contact information at the top left of the homepage. At the top of the homepage there is a toolbar with links to all the resources offered through this website. The site is easy to navigate through. There is also a math forum on this website. Students age 13 and older are permitted to use this forum for homework help. This forum is effective when enforcing the importance that the students do the math problem on their own before they get help from the forum.  Design: The design of this website could be a bit livelier but overall, it isn't too bad. The advertisements could be a bit distracting to the viewer. The toolbar is helpful but if the links were a different color it would help the viewer to navigate better. They don't stand out against the rest of the content. After finding the toolbar and the links, they website is easy to navigate. 

Overview: This site is informative. It covers a lot of subjects mostly dealing with the subject of English and including grammar and writing. The author is clearly identified and, after searching online about the author, I've determined that the author is exclusive to this site. The site is sort of in a blog format, but organized well enough to maneuver freely without hesitation. The sponsor is clearly displayed on the site and thought the contact information is not readily available, there is access to a contact by email. Content: The content is highly informational and accurate. The author updates the site every day, with new posts and updates for his existing revisions and writings. The material is appropriate for high school students and college level students as well. There are few to no external links displayed, for the reason of exclusivity. The site is well organized which makes it easy to find something specific you are looking for. The information is consistent with similar information in other sources and the grammar and spelling are correct. Design: the page downloads efficiently. Although the author has not made the site flashy or outright colorful, he makes up for it in content. Directions to the site are easy and clear to understand. The categories are visible on the home page and can be easily maneuvered. There are few graphics displayed on the website, but then this site is not geared towards elementary schools. The design is basic and useful. The same basic format is consistent through the full site which makes the information easier to find.

Brianna Gillespie 9/14/11 OVERVIEW: This website's sole purpose is to teach vocabulary words. It uses illustrations and sounds to teach each word. Learning Chocolate can be used by children of any age; you can choose to use English to learn Spanish or vice versa. Chinese and Japanese are also choices. This website is a good tool for teaching pronunciation. CONTENT: The content of this website includes numerous pictures and cliparts to describe the different words. The words are categorized into sixteen different categories. A few examples are body, school, house, and clothing. After clicking on a picture, more pictures appear with sound buttons next to them. Once you click a sound button, you hear a recording of the word. DESIGN: Learning Chocolate uses a variety of colors and pictures to illustrate each vocabulary word. This website is extremely easy for children to use; all they have to do is click on a picture and then the sound button. It is also in alphabetical order which is very convenient.

USDA MyPyramid Posted by: Jeni Waring 9/18/2009 This website is not just for teachers but for anyone who wants to know more about food and nutrition. The site has information about nutrition needs for children through the elderly and advice on eating right and being healthy. There are worksheets and informational posters in both English and Spanish that can be downloaded and used in teaching nutrition. The website is designed to be easily navigated and usable for anyone. It includes a list of links to other sites and a multimedia page that includes podcasts, public service announcements and animations. There is no advertising on the site. The site was last updated three days ago. The only problem that I found with this site is that it is difficult to return to the home page after viewing other pages.

Natasha Tuft Web Site Review September 20, 2009 http://www.mustcreate.org/index.shtml "Music in Schools Today" is a resource for students and educators but my eye was drawn to the largest icon which says "donate now" and another that says "how to help". MuST is a non-profit organization focused on keeping music integrated into students lives in the San Francisco Bay area. CONTENT The site's purpose is discovered after a few minutes of reading. The information providers have a convenient "About Us" link that explains very clearly their purpose and the purpose of the site. The "press" section shows us that there are regular updates to the site as I saw a press release from April of this year. But, as it turns out, "Various resources" actually means "a few". Each area on the site only has a few resources for students and teachers. But perhaps more information is available as you follow the links. DESIGN MuST loads quickly and efficiently, has an attractive homepage, and has a convenient link to contact the sponsors easily. I didn't observe any additional use of multimedia, though that might be very useful for this kind of a site. It was compatible with my browser. The content presentation was well done. A student hoping to become an artist may find several resources through the site. In addition it was current and has plenty of links to provide you with further information.