Group items tagged

Shelby Shatto January 22nd 2011 Overview: Purpose- provides art lesson plans for elementary educators. Attended Audience- Elementary Educators. Available Resources- Support section; provides resources for craft ideas. Overall Impression-I use this site a lot; provides great craft ideas and caters to various levels of education Content Overview: Easily identify content of site; content persuades you to use Crayola products; well organized Design Overview: Very eye-appealing; site is easy to use and gives sufficient amount of info; last revision and copyright not given

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.

Posted by Kendra Jones on 09/06/2011 This website has several math games of children and gives the children the option of creating their own game. Design: The home page of the website is kind of boring but once you click into a game the appearance is much better. Content: This website offers a variety of math games. There are several subjects with in math that they can choose from. They have the option of creating their own game also. Overview: The first appearance of the website seems kind of boring but once you click into things it looks like it could be really fun for a child. The front page could use more color. But overall I think this would be a great website for learning math.

2-5-12 Overview This website was put together by the Oswego City School District in NY. It is an interactive game site for kids. The games that are already on the site are math games for elementary students. However there is also an application to build your own game with matching or terms. This makes the website fun for kids, but also useful for others a resource to build your own game. Overall, I think this is a good website for many audiences to help build and practice skills. Content The content of this website is much less varied. The games on the site already are all focused on elementary math. This is nice if these are the kinds of games you are looking for because you don't have to navigate through the site or sort through other subjects. There are also many levels of the games to improve skills and build on previous information. You also have the option of making your own game including directions to do this. The directions are very full and this application would be very useful to others. I think that this is a very good math website for students and teachers. Design The design of this website is less impressive. It is easy to use the games that are available. The descriptions are very helpful in choosing a game and the directions for playing are very accurate. They are also organized well in an order that makes sense. However, I was not able to make my own game. The directions were very descriptive, but I got confused and was not able to pull the game I created up to play it. I feel like if someone spent a lot of time experimenting, it might have been possible however I did not feel like it was very accessible. The website was organized and useable but could definitely be improved.

Michelle Hill February 24, 2012 Overview: The purpose of this website is to serve as a resource for instruction for teachers. Therefore, the intended audience is teachers of elementary aged students. Avaliable on this website are kindergarten through 1st grade lesson plans involving all subjects, such as math, science, language arts, and more. Also included on this website are lesson plan fillers, integrated projects, graphic organizers, and classroom management tools. My overall impression of the website was that the content was very useful and the site itself was well organized. Content: The content of the website was rated as very useful for my information needs based on the fact that the total number of "yes" answers outnumbered the "no" answers. The first look at the website was good; I was able to determine the intended audience as well as the basic content on the site right away. The strengths of the website include the information providers, information quality, and further resources. Everything in these sections were included and to my belief of great quality. However, the weaknesses of this website were that the latest revision date was not provided and that the latest revision date is appropriate to the material. Another weakness was that the site did not probice interactivity that would increase its value. Overall, the content was good. Design: The design of the website was rated as very well designed and easy to use based on the fact that the total number of "yes" answers outnumbered the "no" answers. First, the homepage of the website downloaded in a speedy manner and efficiently. Strengths of the home page included the clearness of the page, the contents in the site, and more. However a weakness was that the site did not have a very strong eye appeal. The navigation was also a strength of the website, it was easy and clear as to how to move around the site and directions were not needed. Other strengths of the design were

Courtney Lovell February 2, 2012 Overview: The purpose of this site is to provide free lesson plans to teacher in elementary education. It covers subjects such as art, reading, writing, spelling, P.E., math, and health. This is a good tool to use when needing lesson plans for those areas. It is something I am fond of and will use in the future. Content: This site is lacking information on the author and revision dates, but other than those two qualities everything else looked really good. At the first glimpse I could easily determine the basic content and the intended audience. The information quality is great. The site is well organized and the purpose is clear. This site provides sufficient information for me because I will be an elementary educator in the future. Design: The design of this site is very eye appealing. There is a table of contents directly on the homepage which organizes the site efficiently. This site is easy to get around and the speed is adequate. This site is lacking directions for those that may need them. Over all the information given in this site will be very helpful to every elementary educator needing ideas on lesson plans.

The Upshot appears in the NYTimes website. Claire C. Miller writes about the rift between women/girls and science and mathematics. The audience for this article is aimed at elementary teachers. It states that biases can unintentionally affect young women into believing that their math skills are below average or not expected. Historically, science breakthroughs and mathematical theories have been postulated by predominately men. Young women are said to not be encouraged to pursue mathematics and science as a career from a young age. Statistically, Information Technology companies hire upwards of 80% of their workforce from males. Women are severely unrepresented. The article ignores past cultural norms that perpetuated this stigma, yet focuses on encouragement to help lead young women into science and technology. The article places most of the effective encouragement on the teacher, not the parents. The article sites a study from 2002 where teachers graded anonymous papers and the results were such that the girls outscored the boys. When the identities were known by the grader, the results favored the males. I would like to understand more on this experiment. While I agree that young women should be encouraged to enter the math and science world, I am not convinced that grading favors males. The article brings up some good areas of focus and I agree that encouragement is important.

This website is a lot better for kids than Google or other search engines because it is easy to navigate and easy to use! It also has a layout and design that is pleasing to kids.It has fun cartoon images instead of just bulleted lists. It has many great tools to help children succeed in their classes.

The name of this website is Fact Monster. It is a part of the Family Education Network and published by Pearson Education. The purpose of this website is to provide general information about common school subjects - such as math, science, and U.S. history - to children. The website is intended for use by elementary-aged children because the information given is commonly known by most students older than twelve years of age. If I were to approach this site from the viewpoint of a 2nd grader, I could find myself seeing this sight as informative but not extremely interactive. The content is very elementary, so a 7th grader could breeze through the entire sight in under half an hour. That being said, this site can be a great resource for students to use if they need a simple website to help them review certain concepts, such as converting measurements or learning about the presidents of the United States. I found the design of the website to be rather plain and unexciting. It hasn't been updated or changed since I last visited the sight when I was in 6th grade. The authors of the site are not clearly identified and the publisher of the site can be found at the bottom of the webpage in very fine print. All in all, I would not use this sight within my classroom, but merely inform my students that the website exists and can be used to review information that they all (hopefully) learned in previous grades.

Overview: The website ABCya.com is a website for elementary school grades K-5. The purpose of this website is to help children understand math, and language arts in a fun way. The website offers many different types of games, puzzles and tools to further the education of elementary grades K-5. Content: The content of the website ABCya.com is somewhat clear. This website is fully completed and is used effectively with a well organized home screen that is easy to understand and helps the child or the teacher find the correct grade and then from there the child or the teacher can find the grade specific learning tools. The website ABCya.com would be a great reward tool for teachers to us due to the fact that the website is somewhat built for learning but it also is more geared to having fun. The website ABCya.com can be a fun website for grades K-5. Design: The website ABCya.com is a bright website with many different colors that might distract the attention of younger children. This website also has a tool that can be used to find the desired grade level that the teacher or parent can use with their children. The website does have a few ads on the sides of the page that can distract the young child to look at. Also to find the desired grade level the child or the teacher will have to look at the bottom of the page, which might not be good for younger children because they will not know where to look. This website would be great for more of a reward site than an actual learning site.

Mandy Schumacher 1-24-10 Overview: Internet 4 Classrooms is a website with many components. The purpose of this website is to help teachers use the Internet effectively. On the "Home" menu the user can choose to visit any of the seven links posted. Those include: Grade Level Help, Links for K-12, Technology Tutorials, Assessment Assistance, Daily Dose of the Web, On-Site Training, or About Us. This is a free website that is designed to help teachers find free Internet Sources to use in the classroom setting. Content: This site is full of information and consists of many separate components. This site is mainly visited by teachers who are hoping to find a way to integrate the Internet into their classrooms. From the site the user can choose a specific grade level and subject. Once the user has selected a grade level and subject a list of sites that can be used for classroom instruction appear on the screen. For example, if the user chose Language Arts for Elementary Students, sites such as "American Literary Classics" or "Brain Food" would appear and the user would then choose one of those links to instruct their students. These links can take you to anything from a list of good books to read in the classroom, word puzzles to challenge your students, or anything else related to Language Arts for Elementary students. Design: The website is somewhat organized, however, it can be a little confusing to navigate since there are so many separate links on the Home page. There are also several ads which can become distracting. Overall this site provides good information for teacher and students about using the internet as a learning tool.

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.

Overview- This site is intended for older elementary students and well as 7th and 8th grade students. This site communicates civics in a very exciting way. There are selections and choices to pick from on the opening page. These choices range from categories such as quizzes, independence, the constitution, legislative, executive, and judicial braches and well as elections, and citizenship. Following your selection of the topic of your choice, one is given additional categories to explore. Content- I like this website because it is very simplistic, but very informative for educational purposes. It is clear and detailed. As an elementary or middle school child this type of website would be an excellent way of establishing ones first book report or learning about government. It is very easy to access all areas of the site. Design- The design is very colorful and eye catching.

Overview: The Literary Center Education Network is a website created to help children with basic literacy needs in elementary school. There is tons of helpful information for parents and teachers as well as activities for students. This website has several categories of learning that focus on all aspects of elementary level literacy. Content: On this website, you will find a tab titled 'Play and Learn'. In this tab there are several categories that the student is able to choose from including uppercase and lowercase letters, shapes, writing, words, numbers, colors, and keyboard. Once the student enters each category, there is an activity that includes a woman's voice that narrates what the student is to be doing. There is also a 'Parents and Teachers' tab which includes things several additional activities that can be implemented to correspond with the activities the children have already done in the Play and Learn tab. Design: I believe that the design of this website is very user-friendly once the child has entered the Play and Learn tab. There may be some difficulty in getting to this tab, as it is not especially distinctive from the other sections of the website but once they are in the Play and Learn tab, there are several links accompanied by pictures that are easy to navigate even for a child.

I found this to be a high quality educational website for elementary school students. It has online educational games as well as informations for hands on activities.  It provides many activities for students to do on their own or for teachers to do in the classroom. It also provides areas so you can submit the results of your experiments to you can compare to other groups of students.  Content: "The Lawrence Hall of Science: 24/7 Science" website  is up to date, and activities are current and appealing to today's students. Although the "Educator Information" link is not yet available, it provides many activities that would be appropriate to use in a classroom. It also explores a wide variety of scientific subjects that are explored in the classroom today.  Design: This website is very easy to navigate to find certain pages. It is very colorful and appealing to children in elementary school. The displays help to easily determine which games are online and which are activity guides provide for hands on science experiments. 

The content of this site is has Spanish, grammar, math and science. You are able to choose which section that you would like to work on and learn by playing games. The games are based for elementary students but the Spanish versions could help high school students learn as well as have fun playing games.The design is very user friendly. They have toolbars on the top and left had side of the page so that you can easily navigate to where you want to go. There are also pictures that go with the game and a description of what the game entails underneath. There are also bright colors to make the website very aesthetically pleasing. I think that this is a good site because it could easily be utilized by a variety of teacher of different age groups not just elementary as it is intended. If I wanted high school students to use this site they could work on cleaning up their Spanish grammar by picking that certain picture. If one game wasn't working out for one student they could always pick from the others that are available. 

Mitchell Sept. 5, 2011 Overview: Elementary Math Games is a website that has various games for math subjects. It has different activities for all grade levels and you can select the grade level you wish to play games for. It also contains worksheets that can be printed off for each grade. There are flashcards and puzzles as well. Content: There are games and worksheets for grades first through eighth. It contains 3-4 games per grade level and 3-4 worksheets for each grade as well. These worksheets are organized by grade and cover different topics. They are basic worksheets that can easily be printed off. Design: The design of this site is much simpler than the other site I found. It is less colorful but easy to navigate. The pages are organized by the grade levels. The problem is that before seeing the worksheet at all, you have to open it up. You cannot preview them at all. This site has problems with ads being in the middle of the screen again and this distracts from the stuff that is actually found on the website.

Overview: Although the site had many different subjects, I focused on the social studies part of it. The purpose of this site is to provide teaching resources for elementary teachers primarily in the upper grades 4th to 5th grade. I thought the website was a good resource for teachers to use find available assignments and projects to have their students complete. The website was navigator friendly in that all links were available to use but the only problem was that there was not an last updated mentioned or listed on the site so it hard to tell how often updates occur. Content: The content provided informational resources for assignments, homework, notes and projects for teachers of upper elementary grades to use for their classrooms. The information is split up into different links available for projects or assignments for students to work on. The sections include the stock market, constitution and Election Day. Although the resources given for these sites would be very helpful for a student, there is limited amount of topics for the teacher to pick from. Design: The design of the website was easy to follow. Bright colors on the page made it pop out and attention grabbing to the viewer although the color wasn't too much to handle. The background of the site appeared to look like cork board which teachers might find relatable probably having hung stuff up on cork board inside or outside of their classroom. The design made it easy to find the author clearly listed on most of the pages and it had a link to contact the author.

Michelle Hill February 24, 2012 Overview: The purpose of this website is to serve as a resource for furthering education and academics at the elementary school age. Therefore, the intended audience is teachers, students, and even parents. Available resources include games, pintables, apps, and videos for the subjects such as math, English, history and more. These resources are for ages Pre-K to 6th grade, and vary depending on the subject being learned. Overall, my impression of the website was that it was a great website that can aid me throughout my teaching career and will definitely be used in the future. Content: The content of the website was rated as very useful for my information needs based on the fact that the total number of "yes" answers outnumbered the "no" answers. Some strengths of the website included first look, the information providers, information quality, and further information. More strengths include that the site clearly stated the audience and basic contents of the site, information on the authors, the content was complete, information was consistent, and there were other links to other sites included. Some weaknesses of the site included that the information currency was either not provided or not applicable. The latest revision date was not provided, therefore I could not determine if the date was appropriate, so both of these were considered not applicable. Also, I had no way of telling if the content is updated frequently. Overall, the website provided a lot of content that will be useful. Design: The design of the website was rated as very well designed and easy to use based on the fact that the total number of "yes" answers outnumbered the "no" answers. Some strengths of the website design included the speed, home page, ease of navigation, use of multimedia, browser compatibility, content presentation, and availability of further information. It was all very well organized, the contents were clear, every

Allyson Boyer Review date 2/2/12 This website is intended for mostly teachers, but parents could also benefit from this site. It is designed for teachers and parents to find fun arts and craft ideas, as well as educational worksheets. The purpose of this site is for teachers to find free, and fun activates for their students to enjoy. There are plenty of subject areas for educators to explore and find ideas to use in their classrooms. I enjoyed this website because it reminded me of when I was in elementary school and teachers would have fun worksheets for different holidays. We still were learning, but it made more interesting having a light hearted worksheet. There is no specific author for this site, there is a section where people can write reviews and all of them were positive, so it seems to be a good resource for educators and parents. When I was looking over the content of this website I found that most of my evaluations were positive. I did find however, that I did not like the fact that there was no information about the author. I would have liked to be able to read a bit about the author and their views or opinions on the information that they had provided. I also found that there was not a lot of interactivity to increase the value of this website. It would have been nice to be able to experiment a little with the worksheets and pictures, instead of just printing them out. Overall, the rest of the site looked sophisticated and contained good information. The links all worked, the grammar and spelling seemed to be correct, and there was a link to contact the provider of the website. I enjoyed the variety of the worksheets for different subject areas and feel that will be very helpful in the future for my career. When I first navigated to this site I found that it was not very eye catching. I looked over it carefully to realize that the information would be useful. As I browsed through the website I found that there were not many graphics through

Overview: This website is intended for teachers or parents to find activities and worksheets for Pre K to 8th grade students. The webpage offers free materials on the core subjects in school along with seasonal activities and themes. I believe that teachers would find this website very useful in finding activities for their classroom or papers that children can take home for extra practice. My overall impression of this site is that it includes useful, updated material that is easy to find and use. Content: Looking at the content of information in this website, I have found that users would be able to quickly determine what information can be found on this site. At the very top of the page it specifically states that the website is an "educator's online resource". I also found that the website was created in 2001 but was recently updated in 2012, so it contains up to date information. The quality of this website is very well organized and is simple to understand. Almost all of the worksheets were easy to download as a PDF document, which would be great for printing. The only setback I found with this site is that information on the authors and sponsors were not readily available. Other than that small detail, I would strongly recommend this website to any elementary school teacher or home school parent; I know I will definitely use this site in the future. Design: I have found that the design of this website is very organized and appealing to the eye. Users should not have any problems moving around the site as the information is easy to find from the home page. From the home page you are able to click on the tab of any subject or grade of information you would like to find. One of the draw backs of this site is that there are no instructions on how to maneuver around the site if someone is lost. The best thing about this website is that there is a sufficient amount of information that is available to the public and organized in an easy to underst