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Nathan Hissong 1/23/10 Content: The Worlds Smallest Political Quiz provides five questions concerning personal political issues and five questions about economic issues. Each question is followed my a matrix which includes whether you agree, are not sure, or disagree with the question. When you are finished with the quiz which literally take two minutes you are presented with a chart that shows where you lie on the "political map." Below the chart the site tells you where you are. For instance, mine is Liberal. Under that heading it explains what that political ideology means. The site also out lines the other political ideologies below yours Design: The design is rather modest in aesthetic appeal. However, in my opinion is appealing in the content it provides. The site that provides the quiz also has quotes from The Washington Post and USA Today hailing its legitimacy as a tool to understand the political system. In conclusion its content makes up for bland visuals. Overview: In my opinion, this site is very educational. I plan to use in my classroom. American High School students often have no idea where they stand on the political map. This quiz not only gives you questions to decide where you lie it shows you the other sides and shows you why you lie where you do. It is a good exercise to show how different the ideologies are and how extreme they are in nature. It is a valid teaching tool and is simple enough for complete naves to understand.

Instructional site on making t-charts using x and y values to find plot points to graph on a coordinate plane.

Scott Chanthongthip on January 23, 2010 Overview: National Library of Virtual Manipulatives is a free website offered online to help teachers us visual aids to teach mathematics. The content is from the Utah State University and is edited by the university. Content is easy to navigate and understand because it focuses on students from K-12. Content: The National Teachers Council of Mathematics five content standards are listed vertically in a grid, while the grades for each of the standards are listed across the top of the grid. Navigation based on the content standard and grade level appropriateness is accessible because of this organization. Teachers just need to find the content standard and line it up with the appropriate grade level. Although the site has a version that it offers to schools many of the virtual manipulatives are easy to use as long as one's computer has JAVA capabilities. There are four different language options for the different virtual manipulatives, so it makes it easy to use in bilingual settings (English, Spanish, French, and Chinese). The main reason for this website is to offer teachers with computer technology to teach manipulation of different math areas when the physical manipulatives are not available. Teachers can also use the site to help explain concept clarity of hard to understand math functions. Design: The initial web page offers a grid of math standards and grade levels from K-12. Teachers can click on the appropriate link and it will lead them to more options on different subjects in the content areas. None of the links are broken for the virtual manipulatives. Design of the website is updated often by the USU. NLVM also allows users to select from four different languages.

Kaci Philpot Overview: The purpose of this site is to provide teachers and students with fun, interactive Math manipulatives online, because manipulatives help students to see visual relationships in Math and help to actively engage students. The website has the following standards for math education; numbers and operations, algebra, geometry, measurement, and data analysis & probability. Each standard has four different age groups to choose from: pre-k through 2, 3 through 5, 6 through 8, and 9 through 12. This website is one of the very few educational websites I have found that is free and clear or useless information and clutter. Content Summary: This website content quality is very high; it has an index chart on the homepage with grade levels and math standards. Each box on the chart is linked to a page of full of various virtual Math manipulatives. If you navigate to the credits page you can see who is in charge of creating what, however it does not provide information about or credibility of those individuals. It also does not have revision dates. But the site is well organized and has very rich content. The manipulatives are an excellent way to get students excited about learning math. Total yeses: 19 Total no's: 2 Total N/A: 3 Design Summary: The homepage of this site is very easy to navigate and understand, but it does not have very strong eye appeal at all. But the manipulatives are very useful and all have clear directions if necessary and all internal and external links work properly. It does not appear to have any outdated content, if Mathematics can even be outdated. My favorite link on this website is the link to the Spanish page. This would be very useful for teachers with ESL students; it helps to ease the language barrier. Total yeses: 22 Total no's: 2 Total N/A: 0

Chelsey Lynch 1/31/11 * Overview: This website is for the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives. The intended audience of this site is teachers, and students of all ages. The available resources are a wide array of virtual math manipulatives. This website is extremely useful to teachers because it provides children with a firm grasp on concepts by letting them learn directly through physical objects that enable students to visualize relationships and applications. * Design: This website is attractive and very easy to navigate. The main page of the website contains a large grid system which serves as a menu for the math content area and grade level. All information to contact the sites provider is given, and all the information is current. The instructions for the manipulatives are very easy to follow and the site even provides examples when necessary. This site has adequate graphics, though the music and sounds in games is a little dated and sometimes annoying. * Content: The authors of this site appear to be highly education and experts in this field. The purpose of this site is very clear and the content achieves the intended purpose effectively. This site is extremely interactive, well organized, and easy to navigate. I have personally used this site numerous times and love it. The only things I wish this site contained more of are links to websites that are similar to this or had further information.

Cole Baumann January 24, 2000 The F.A.S.T. reading website is to help teachers and parents see how to best educate their children or students that have dyslexia. The F.A.S.T. reading program was designed by Mr. Tattum from Colorado, who is very well educated in the field of learning disabilities. The program seems to be a phenomenal success and is being looked at more and more throughout America as a way of teaching how to read. This website explains a little bit more on how it works and how effective it is by showing graphs and charts of improved reading and students. I think that the F.A.S.T. learning program should be available in all schools due to its show of massive improvement for any student who was unable to read or had a struggle reading. These students completed the F.A.S.T. program and came out at a much higher reading level and were able to function in everyday life. The design of the website is very easy to navigate and there are no hidden links. Everything is very large and noticeable and the website interacts with the person using it very easily. If you are looking to learn more about F.A.S.T. there is a big button for that or if you want to see how to help kids as an educator with F.A.S.T. there is a large button for that. There are no hidden areas. Also, the website is very pleasing to the eye. It also looks like a very legitimate website and does not look like you should be getting any viruses from this or any other negative vibe from it. There are wonderful pictures and videos in the site that help describe how F.A.S.T. works. Overall, I see this as a great website which features a great program that any dyslexic, ADD, ADHD or anyone with a learning disability should look at and use to enhance their learning in such a way that they can perform functionally in college, everyday life, and in a job. I highly recommend this site to anyone who has a child with dyslexia or a student with dyslexia. This site will really help.

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

Billie Slyman, 9/11/11 Purpose The purpose of this site is to give students a resource to learn about weather and how it affects people. There is enough information to be useful, but it's not overwhelming. There aren't any links to outside sites, which is a drawback. However, I still think this is a valuable site because it has good information, interactive content, and is well designed for students to navigate. Content This site does a good job of achieving its purpose of providing information for students. While there is a good amount of information, it is put in simple language and organized in a way to make it easy for students to understand. Many of the sections have interactive multiple choice questions, where students can click on a button and a text box will pop up and tell them if they are correct. The content seems accurate to me, and the developers (the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, for example) seem qualified to present this information. Design This website has a very nice design. Everything looks interesting for students but is still well organized and not cluttered. It is easy to find the information you want and navigate around the site. Also, the information on each page is split up into sections and has lots of pictures interspersed, so it isn't a huge block of text that could be intimidating to students. The pictures and charts are all relevant and aid in understanding the information given.

Overview Spanish.language&culture is a website aimed the teacher of Spanish. It is a well formatted site and may be suitably adjusted for use in all grade levels. It may also be used individually by students in Junior High and up. It allows the student to "see, hear and say" the language. The format provides activities that the student engages, instant feedback and corrections and study modules that support the ideas of the lesson's text. The modules allow the use of the language in 'real time' and cultural context. Overall, it could be a useful and relevant site for use in the classroom as a technology resource. Content The site contains Announcements, Study Modules, Home resources, Activities and Verb conjugation charts. Each of these links open to other exercises, lessons and information. Design The unassuming design of the site draws the eye to its benefits. It begins with a white background. Centered on this is a white page with a gray outline shadow. the page contains three sections. The Announcements portion tells who and what the site is about. Study Modules are located beneath the Announcements. the study modules are separated by photographic pictures and module contents written in red. The right third of the page is divided by a vertical space bar. To the right of the bar are the links to Home and the Activities site. Across the top of the website is a red ribbon which contains the name of the site and its promoter.

Overview: This site is a free site that makes a lot of everyday teacher tasks easy. It can also help teachers generate games to play with their class. It is something that I would definitely use in my own classroom. Content: This site is easy to navigate and is generally aesthetically pleasing. Some things that the site can help teachers do is make seating charts, make groups, and randomly "draw" names. It also allows a teacher to enter content and generate a game like Jeopardy, Who wants to be a Millionaire, and others. Design: The overall look of the site doesn't really match the content, but it isn't ugly either. The site is easy to navigate and isn't complicated to operate.

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