Group items tagged

Overview: National Geographic always has great information dealing with many different history or social studies events. I really like their website because the 5th grade students can navigate to this website and research a topic. The topics are straight forward and even have pictures to help the students understand what their reading about. I'm sure that if the students wanted to learn more about the topics they could research farther from this website. National Geographic has always been a key leader in what is new and coming up in social studies and other areas. Content: There are so many different topics and articles that the students can read I would highly recommend it to other teachers. You know exactly where the information comes from and if it wasn't true you know National Geographic wouldn't publish it. It is a very trusted source of information. A lot of the information on the website will change with new events. Design: As I was learning about the website I found myself wanting to read some of the articles that they offered. I stopped to read about the tattooed mummy and found it really interesting that it was a female but in the place where the mummy is from there was only male kings. Obviously if they can draw in a 19 year old college student with just a picture and a title the students shouldn't have a hard time finding something their interested in. The website has of course the yellow color scheme but also has other little pictures that offer some intriguing items. I'm probably going to read some more after I'm done with this!

Visual Examples of Organic and Geometric shapes

This website provides examples to students of visual instruction to organic and geometric shapes. This webpage links other students work from outside the classroom and provides inspiration to my students for pieces of their own art. Grades 2-4 would benefit from this page. Content: This page was rated average in content because of how specific a topic it had. I couldn't find things like last revision date. I didn't like how the content was presented since it was mainly pictures with captions. I did like the difference in art between each student and I feel like it would be beneficial to show when on the topic of Shapes in art. This page also links to other artistic topics of drawing, like the 'Great Wave' in Asian art and Egyptian Symbols. Design: Since this is a single blog entry post, I do not favor the site design. I feel it lacks in off-site information and thus is insufficient. I would use it as a supplement tool but not the bases for a whole lesson. The reference page for the teach is quite informational and would provide a good source for any questions. ~A.Rodriquez

Stephanie Mecca 2/5/12 Overview: The purpose of this site it to provide art students from the ages of 4 to 12 years of age with a fun, interactive game site to both play and learn through art. There are a variety of games ranging from drawing different types of pictures to game shows to help students determine different types of sculptures and what they are made of. As students play games they are able to learn some art history and are quizzed and art basics which are helpful resources to the viewer. Overall this is a very interactive site where students can learn as they play. Content: After clicking on the little figure to enter the site the viewer is able to read about the site, what its purpose is and who created the site. If the viewer has all ready read this information they have the option to "skip the intro". Although there aren't any links that allow the viewer to read about the sites authors there is a basic link on the main page so that the viewer can redirect the main Abright-Know Gallery website which provides information about the Gallery, copyright information, and contact information. The quality of the Artgames site is great; the site is well organized and understandable for young viewers to follow. Design: On the main page of the Artgames site the viewer can see that the developer of the site is the Normal Force which used Macromedia flash technology to create the website. Once the viewer enters the interactive site they are greeted by a page that has numerous pictures that are links to different games. These links are easy to follow and are usually pictures of the different games. There are helpful directions to read through before playing the games and the same format is used throughout the site. Although there isn't any place in the site that the viewer can find out when the site was last updated and there are no outside links.

Hailey Dungan April 15, 2015 The intended audience of this article is the critical readers of Shakespeare, individuals who are skeptical that Shakespeare even existed. The purpose of the piece is to highlight the possibility of his nonexistence. It works to disprove this theory, and proposes instead a multitude of flaws in Shakespeare's career. The article was written in 2014 by Robert Gore-Langton. There has been no updates to the piece as of recently. The site itself is clean, Newsweek being a reputable source provides us with a link that brings us to other articles written by the author. This is just one of the links which make this site easy to use and well designed. I am hesitant to use this site as one that is educational. The article provides food for thought and would be an interesting debate topic to approach in an educational setting. The basic content of this site is stated in the name. Newsweek works to inform individuals of the news as well as other information. The audience is adults, or individuals interested in the daily events of the world. The author of this article is stated from the main page. Though there is little information about the author, there is a link which sends you to a page with a collection of his other writings. There is no indicator that this article has been recently updated but the content is clear. The site is informative, tagging subjects to expand your reading experience. Again, I would use this in class to guide discussion, but would not rely solely on this piece. The website is designed well. It provides you with search options in case one were to look for additional information. It is eye catching, the big red letters of Newsweek drawing you in. The links are in working order, and they are well organized. There is no date for the sites last revision, and there may be some out of date information present as the site is a collection of news and information. However I would say that this site is well designed, it

Overview: www.abcya.com is a website for educational gaming. It includes games intended to improve skills in several academic skills including math and language arts. Content: This site is somewhat confusing when you fist open up the home page. It takes a little reading to understand what the site is for, and who its target audience is. There are links that give information on the authors and supply contact information. Recent updates are posted, and links seem to work well, but the games do not seem like they would keep the attention of grade school children. Design: The design is where this site really lacks. There is nothing to catch the intention of the intended audience. They seem to simply rely on bright colors as opposed to animations and pictures. After navigating off the main page, this lack of animation and pictures is even greater. Instead of having links to the games with a picture, they only have text buttons.

I rated this website as very well designed and easy to use as well as very useful for my information needs because it is an excellent site for educational games for elementary aged students. The website breaks up content and games by grade, kindergarten through fifth grade and the audience is mainly students. The website does provide a page dedicated to teachers and parents explaining who the authors of the website are (teachers) and suggesting different ways that you can incorporate the games into lesson planning. The website doesn't provide a lot of outside links to other websites, but there is so much contained in this one site that I didn't feel like the content was lacking because of external links. As far as content does go, I was extremely impressed with this website. There was a page describing terms and uses as well as an entire page discussing student privacy. The content is also updated on a daily basis and each grade level had tons of games in all different content areas that students can play around with. They even have "holiday" and "seasonal" games that change periodically showing that the website owners really do update the content frequently. One thing that could have been a setback about this site is that it is sponsered and paid for by advertisements so there are ads on the tops and sides of all of the pages. This might not be so fantastic for younger students who don't understand they aren't supposed to click on every page that pops up. As far as design goes, this website is great for kids. It is fast and you hardly have to wait for the games to load at all which makes navigation really easy. Each game is separated by grade level and subject so students are able to choose their grade level on the home page and then search for a game that will interest them. The colors are bright and the graphics are great which really draws kids in. I would expect kindergartners to need help, but the website is so easy it would provide a grea

Free kids educational computer games and activities

Overview: In this Mathplayground.com there are many different types are math problems for students K-8. Some of the problems come in an educational game form. Some of the games that this website has to offer are word problems, percentage, and multiplication, finding different angles and even math videos for students to watch. Content: The content of the website MathPlayground.com is very clear to understand. The different types of tools that this website has to offer are all given on the side of the website making it very easy to find the different problems that the students or teachers are looking for. This website even offers logic puzzles that are fun for students to play and not know that they are actually using math in the mean time. This website also offers a teachers section that offers many different tools like flash cards, math worksheets and even math manipulatives. Design: This website is a little more difficult and it would be geared to the older students and not the younger students. And yet again this would be a great tool to use as a reward in the classroom. The website does have a few ads that can distract the eye to look at the ads instead of looking at what the website has to offer. Also this website is kind of boring looking and the students could get lost and not know where to look when asked to find something. Overall this website can be a great tool to use in the future at home or in the classroom.

Chelsea Brunski 10-08-12 Overview The purpose of this website is to allow students to play games that will help them with math. The intended audience for this website would be for children in grades first through sixth. There aren't any outside resources but I think that it is okay for this website. This website has so many interactive games and videos that it doesn't need any other resources. My overall impression of this website is that it is a pretty good website. It is kind of confusing to decide what games teach what concepts but it is very interactive. I think when you are dealing with younger students and a subject like math you need something to keep them intrigued. Content The content on this website is all interactive. Every page that you go to you can find different games to play. All of these games have to deal with different type of math problem. They range from fractions to proportions. You can also practice word problems and watch videos for extra help. All of the games that are provided have a video game feel to them which draws children in. All of the games do serve an educational purpose and are reliable. The author of this website is a math teacher as well so she is a reliable source. Design When you first open this site you are taken to a webpage that is full of color. It has very strong eye appeal which attracts you to stay on this site. Since this site is for younger users I think that the vibrant colors work well for it. There is only a small amount of ads at the top of the page that blend in with how the homepage looks. This is something that could be confusing to a child. It is easy to navigate to all of the different games. Since it is for younger children I think that it is okay that the games are all put together instead of broken up into different subjects. There are also tabs at the top which help organize the site into different content area.

WebQuest website

Chelsea Brunski 10-08-12 Overview The purpose of this site is to provide help to students with math. The website allows student or teachers to create worksheets. They also have an interactive game section and flashcards to help with math subjects. There is also a homework helper section. It is intended for students' k-12. There is a resource that is very helpful which breaks down the entire grade levels. My impression of this website is that it is an okay website but not the best. It has some very useful and neat components to it which I would use often. It doesn't look like much effort was put into making this site. Content This website says that it is intended for k-12 but there isn't ever different sections on this particular site that distinguishes that. The link that is provided is the only site that actually has different levels of content. I do think that the homework helper is a very useful tool for younger age kids. It can only help with basic math skills. If you need help with upper division math then this tool would not be useful to you. The worksheet section is one of the best things that this site has on it. This tool isn't just for students but can be used by teachers. It allows you to create your own worksheet dealing with different subjects in math. The only problem is that this is also for more basic level math. The game section is very small and limited. It only gives you games concerning addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. This wouldn't be for any of the upper grades only for lower grades. Design The website doesn't draw you in at all. You have to read the homepage to really understand what the website is even about. It doesn't look like much effort was put into designing this website. There are different tabs on the left hand side that allow you to navigate the site. These are easy to navigate to. It looks like the website really just wants you to go to the other link that is provided. This link is much more

Jessica Lee 10/21/2013 Overview: The purpose of this site is to help students (elementary and middle school aged) improve their math skills by offering flashcards, online games, a homework helper, and worksheets. However, the overuse of internal links within the introduction makes navigating through the website confusing and distracting. In addition, because it requires Java (which I don't have), it is useless and inoperable. The only decent thing about this website is that it provides an external link to Mathway.com - a website that answers basic math problems. Content: They have decent material as far as helping students improve their math skills; however, because the website is inoperable without the Java, the content is basically nonexistent. Their ideas include having the students work on flashcards, playing content-rich games, providing worksheets, and a basic homework helper that answers their problems. Design: The design of this website is so displeasing, that I knew that I would never use it after first glance. The color scheme is distracting and the layout is unorganized. Some positive points about this site, however, is that the table of contents on the side is useful and tells the viewer what to expect. In my opinion, they should have concealed the internal links in the introduction so that it does not take away from everything else. It's very choppy to the eye rather than being smooth and connected.

Beau Pitt 1/31/2011 mises.org Overview: The Ludwig von Mises Institute is an educational website with a clear bias towards the education of the Austrian School of Economics. Its main purpose is to advance "the scholarship of liberty in the tradition of the Austrian School" of economics in opposition to the commonly taught theories of John Maynard Keynes. The website is generally directed towards more advanced students who are interested in a more practical view of economics and is particularly geared towards those individuals already interested in the subject who wish to further their education. This is a very powerful website that offers updated daily articles, audio and video presentations, blog discussions, various events, and even offers online courses through the Mises Academy. Additionally, there are a variety of links to related social networking sites and information sites that greatly add to the quality of the website. The website further expands on its quality by presenting a well-designed home page with an attractive "coat of arms" style logo that catches the eye and helps to achieve credibility. Content: At the first look, the user of this website is able to determine the basic content and audience of the site simply by reading the title. Authors are clearly identified and information is provided about who they are and it is even possible to e-mail the author about their articles! All information is presented either as daily updated articles or in an archives section with dates provided for when the contents were first published or presented. All links are current and work properly. The site is very well organized and easy to navigate. It is clearly biased in favor of Austrian Economics and more conservative principles, but the information is accurate and well-researched. There are many educational options and activities that aid in furthering the user's understanding, and articles are all reviewed by the operators of the web

Jessica Chandler January 24th, 2011 *Overview: This is a website for students to practice different types of skills. There are different tabs to choose such as: History, Religion, Calculus, Biology, Algebra, and etc. These skills I found to be very useful and definitely help the students to have a better understanding of what is going on. Once the desired subject is selected, another list appears. This list shows the different topics that can be taught. Some are informational, while others are games. It is a simple and fast paced website to be using.: *Content: There are different subjects for a student to learn about through this website. I really liked this site because it was simple and clear. It made it much easier to deal with. The majority of the links are to assist student learning. It is demonstrated that students use this website to have fun, yet still learn through the selected subject. *Design: The design doesn't have much color besides brown and white. This isn't very amusing, and does not draw the readers' eye, but it is very helpful with the problems that one is having. The games are related to the certain topic and are educational. I feel that the design could be more attention seeking, but once this sight is discovered, the content should catch the eye.

Overview- This site is another great find. Overall it is a great research tool for both teachers and students in a closed encyclopedia format. It is a credible source and allows you to see the credentials of all contributors to the site. When you look up content it shows you the information and links to other credible sites with similar content. The only draw back about the content is the fact that it provides little information on mathematics and science. Other than that, it is a great tool for researching information. Content- This site is a great research tool. Every search made brings up relevant information. When you do find what you are looking for, the information is clearly organized, and easy to get main topics. Also, all information is usually backed up by some source, and even gives links to those sites that help contribute information. The site even has a dictionary link that can be used right on the spot. It is an amazing research tool for any teacher and/or student looking for information related to the social sciences. Design- This is a site that has put a lot of work into making searching for information easy. Everything is easy to find, and clearly labeled. It is pretty eye catching. They put a lot of effort in this site and it really does show in its easy to use, functional design.

Ryan Magrum Sept 15th, 2011 Overview: The purpose of this site is to teach student about the frog system through a virtual dissection. The dissection lets the user display the organs of the frog in any combination with or without skin and skeleton without the mess of an actual dissection that many of us have done in high school biology class. The site is strait forward with a big frog picture to click on to start the dissection and various links to other information. Content: The first page has all the bureaucratic business with the contact info, the site creators and developers. There is also a link or two to other pages with more sites like this one and pages with more information. The dissection is a little disappointing. When one highlights an organ or set of organs the organs are sitting there like a real frog on a dissection dish. For a virtual dissection I wanted to see clickable options with descriptions and information (click on the heart and a box with info on the heart of a frog pops up). For a dissection, the pictures accurately depict what an actual frog looks like without the mess of a real dissection. The only other criticism is one can't physically touch the parts of a frog which is one of the benefits of the real life thing that the internet may never have. Design: The website is plain in nature. There are no fancy pictures or visual effect to draw a person into the site. I believe the site is there purely for educational purposes. The title page is white with black print and blue hyperlinks. There are no advertisements. The interactive frog brings the user to the page where the user can play around with the frog parts and view them and how the parts fit together. The art involved is somewhat primitive but the parts are colored and one can tell what they are. This interactive page is plain as well. There is no commercial aspect in this website - it is obviously for educational purposes.

Overview: This site is made to make it easier for high school students to decipher Shakespearian works. It is easy to navigate and applicable to a high school student. It is strictly an informational website, so it lacks an interactive aspect, but that is a minor details. The site is successful in passing accurate information to high school students to help them understand difficult texts they will most likely be required to read. Content: This site is incredibly useful for students to visit before reading a Shakespearian play or poem. The website helps bridge the time gap by explaining to users the language and customs, among other confusing topics, of tat time. The explanations are concise and accurate. Therefore, the website conveys the information it intends to completely without losing the interest of the audience. Design: The design of this website initially draws in its' intended audience very well. The site looks very user- friendly for high school students. Each aspect of Shakespeare that is generally difficult for high school students has a heading with the tips to decipher it underneath. The explanations are concise and applicable to what the students need to know before reading a Shakespeare play. My biggest criticism of the design of the site is that the user must search through pages to find the heading they want. The site could benefit from a heading bar for commonly searched topics.

Overview: This website is intended to pass information about the proper use of grammar in writing. The website does a great job of conveying those grammar rules. It also has online tests to check for comprehension of what the viewer just learned. The site is based off of a book from a very credible author, but because of that there are no links to other sites with similar information. Overall, the website is very plain but passes along the information it intends to successfully but may lose visitors to the site because the design does not draw people in. Content: This website is full of information, and has tips for every grammar rule imaginable. The rules for grammar are incredibly accurate and helpful for writing for high school students. A criticism of the content would be that there is a chance for information overload with all of rules that are listed Along with the rules the website also has online quizzes to test the rules that were just reviewed on the site. That immediate chance to test comprehension is very helpful for students. The information is highly credible and the website does a great job of listing the credentials of the author. However, because the site is based off of one book there are no links on the site for other places to find similar helpful information. Design: The design of this website is extremely plain. Their audience is clearly adults or upper level high school students. The site is easy to navigate. It utilizes bullet points for the different grammar rule the viewer wants to learn about and links to the information without a problem. Then, from there, the viewer can link directly to a quiz pertaining to the rule they just learned. In general, the design of the website is easy to use but unappealing to the eye.

Math.com This website is targeted toward students of all age, as well as teachers. The purpose is to give tutoring and lessons to teachers and students who need help with math, helping them to understand it. The website is easy to understand for the most part, and gives problems relevant to the math students need. Content: The website is fairly easy to understand, and gives math problems and ways to solve math problems. The authors are not clearly presented, and the date is hard to find, and not updated much. The content of the site is user-friendly and appropriate. Design: The website's design is fairly boring, and doesn't draw the audience's attention in. The site's information however, is useful and relevant to the teachers and students that may use the site. There is plenty of info available to make the site useful, but the site is kind of slow and you have to wait for it to load a lot.

Kathryn Slothower September 11, 2011 Overall: The purpose of this website is to help students with math. There is a lot of information on this website about math. Overall I think this is a good math website for students because it gives little mini lessons on each topic that the students can read. One downside of this website is the number of external links that are on the website. The external links are very distracting. This math website can help all different levels of math. Content: The purpose and content of this website can be a little hard to find. Although the purpose to help and guide students in math, because of the external links it makes it look like a math resource store. There are lots of resources on this website for students to use. The website has math lessons, math games, homework help, a calculator, and a math store. All of these tabs are very useful for students. One part of the website that is not the best is the section of math games. These games are not directly math games. I could consider them more math puzzles. The games would not help master a math skill. From the knowledge that I know on these math topics the information presented seems to be correct. The author of this website was hard to find so I am not sure what the author's credentials in math. I could see using this website for math in the future and students could get a lot of help by using this website. Design: The web design that was chosen for this website was very interesting. However, the indexes that the author put on the top of the homepage and on the side of the homepage works very well and makes it very easy to navigate throughout the website. This website has a lot of white spaces so the website is not very attractive and grabbing the viewer's attention. 

Overview: This website is very informative and easy to maneuver. For any student who is having difficulty with any subject concerning math, this site would be the most helpful, in my opinion. Tutoring, practice problems and free calculators are available to those who do not have the same resources available to them as anyone else. Content: This website is not over crowded which makes it easier to find the things they offer. The various games available cover the main points of math and to the best of my knowledge I believe they are accurate. The links that were advertised on the site were up to date and resourceful. Design: Contact information is displayed and easily noticed at the bottom of the web page, and the website has not been updated recently. Even though the site is dated, the sponsor is easily noticed and displayed on the web page.

Jacqueline Twiford Web Site Review September 20, 2009 http://www.abcya.com/first_grade_computers.htm This first grade website allows you to incorporate technology with your students by allowing them to do activities for learning. This webpage has activities for grade levels K-8 which is helpful for bringing technology to all grade levels. On this site it allows students to navigate the web with voice instruction, and has large navigation buttons for easy understanding. CONTENT On the "ABCya" website it allows students in the first grade to play interactive computer games to learn concepts such as the alphabet, drawing, lowercase and uppercase letter matching as well as mouse exploitation. This site has a list of activities that students can use in helping them learn some of the essential concepts they will need to know. DESIGN The design of "ABCya" is a very colorful and organized webpage. Having a large display for navigation buttons and voice instructions makes introducing technology to your young student very easy. The design of this game site is very easy to use and explains in voice as you go. The webpage's load very quickly and easily. Also, if there is something you do not understand, all you have to do is click on the icon for a description of what the icons meaning is. "ABCya" has a design that will allow you to use it in a short class period without having to run from student to student helping. This design is like having an assistant with each student explaining how to operate it. Wonderful for the introduction to technology in the classroom, without the time frame fear (not having enough time) that most teachers have with using technology in the classroom.

Whitney Lindt Purpose: I think that the purpose of this website is to provide parents and teachers a safe website to send their children to. There is so much that one has to worry about on the internet these days it is nice to know that there are safe websites for the younger children out there that they can learn from. Overview: I think that this site would be great for teachers and parents of young students to use. It seems that more often than not students are learning with technology and they think it is fun and it keeps their attention and this website is great for that too because it is so visually attractive. The main focus of this sight is numbers and the alphabet which is perfect for 1st graders because that is the main focus in the classroom. And this website provides links which would help the students not only learn the material but practice what they are being taught. Content: The content of this site is perfect for what 1st graders will be learning in school. As a teacher I would even recommend this website to the parents of my students so that they knew their children were going to safe websites. There are storybooks on this website which would just be fun for the students to go to or for teachers to use in the different subjects they are teaching if they can apply it. Also there are links that can have the students work with spelling and the alphabet and also numbers. This website might also work for younger students than 1st graders because there are some really easy ways of learning numbers and letters on this site. Design: This website is wonderful because as soon as it opens it would have the attention of 1st graders in school and it would keep them attracted to the website. This website is really easy to read even though it has a lot of colors. It is also easy to navigate instead of just a table of contents the different areas and links of the websites are split into different boxes with pictures on them so it makes it easy for a little kid to

Wonderful website for first grade learning games. There are games for letters and numbers

Evonne Raymond September 16th 2009 Content: This website is made to show new things happening in the science world. The audience is definitely for Elementary school students. The authors are dependent upon the article that you access and choose to read, and the site is Society for Science and the PUblic, its a great interactive community that believes in utilizing educational tools to teach more efficiently. It is revised daily as new events are happening in society everyday.Grammar and spelling is appropriate and suprisingly there is a lack of bias in the articles, as many of the new discoveries are not controversial subjects. The site is appropriate for kids. There are several links to other sites, as many articles are located on other sites, the site is current and has great content for teaching science in todays exciting society. Design:The webpage downloads quickly. It is easy to immediatley understand what the website is for as well as to see what link will direct you to what new scientific findeing. There are tons of grpahics and multimedia that do not deter from the web pages but make the links a little more user freindly and interactive.It is compatable with several different servers, so i would definitely utilize this website in my classroom. It is updated daily for new content, and there are some articles that are from years ago, but most are relevant to a recent scientific finding. This website is excellent for kids and adults to use inorder to teach science. Attribution: The purpose of this site is to educate kids about scientific events going on in the world today, real live science in action. This website is interesting in design as wella s in content and I think it is a great way to create some enthusiasm in kids who would be otherwise uninterested in science.

c. Overview: This site was interesting but I felt that for an elementary setting it wasn't the best. It would probably be usable in a fourth grade classroom and up just because there is a lot of reading and if I wanted to read all the article to my second or third grade classroom, it could be fun for them to see the different types of sciences that are out there. There are some really interesting experiments and videos recorded on this site so it could be really useful for students working on projects.

Content: The content for this site consists of science related articles found in magazines as well as made specifically for this site. I chose to look at this site because it could be very useful for students to see that science is not just something that we see in a lab but something that happens all around us. The content is all recent and updated frequently. The authors are those found in the field of science and give detailed accounts of experiments and what scientists are doing in a way that a child could understand. There are a lot of links to sites such as that of NASA and other recognizable science corporations. Some of these links take a longer time to download but there were few that I found that didn't work. The content of this site is also designed for an older audience so about 3rd grade and up. Large words are used and there is a lot of reading for each page. Design: This site was much different in design than that of the other two that I looked at. This sited has a lot more actual photos compared to drawings and all of them were very intriguing. Each picture brought forth curiosity about what the article might be about and a majority of the articles also had videos to go along with them. The site was also fairly easy to move around on. It did require some prior knowledge about what each main topic category was about, but even if I didn't understand them, I could figure it out from the pictures that went along with it. Everything in each category was related to the other as well and so were the links to other pages. This site is set up more for an older classroom setting though due to the large words as well as some of the photos being of complex experiments. When entering the site it looks a lot like that of a website for a newspaper or magazine, which it more or less is.