Group items tagged

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.

Overview: The website PrimaryGames.com is an all purpose website for elementary and middle school aged children. The purpose of this website is to help children understand math, science, social studies, and language arts in a fun way. The website offers many different types of games and puzzles, along with games to further the education of elementary and middle school aged children. Content: The content of the website PrimaryGames.com is very 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 different types of games or subject areas without any problems. The website FunBrain.com would be a great tool for teachers or parents to use in the classroom or in the home setting. The website PrimaryGames.com can further the math, science, social studies, and language arts skills of the grades K-8 and the children can have a great time in using this website as well. Design: The website PrimaryGames.com is a well designed website with many different colors that grab your attention. This website also has a tool that can be used to find the desired subject areas that the teacher or parent can use with their children. 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 and at times can be a little too busy for children and they might get distracted. This website also offers a teachers section that offers many different tools like print zone of different activities and worksheets. Overall this website can be a great tool to use in the future.

Overview This is another good site to send home with parents. It is simplistic and easy to use without too many hassles. It also has many games that children can enjoy playing. It is appropriate for many grade levels so it will transfer well to different classrooms and students. The variety of games give students many options. Content The content is nicely organized and easy to see as well as to decide what to do. The content is appropriate for all most elementary student and have a way to review. There is a variety of different games for students to play that use math in different creative ways. Design The design of this site is wonderful. They use colors to highlight sections and show different ideas. All of the colors are bright and stand out very nicely. The site is well organized offering many different categories for games. The games are not sorted by grade level of idea but they are easy to find because there isn't tons of games to sort through. The level of the games vary and most seem appropriate for students to play. The bright colors continue throughout the site.

-Overview: This website is very visually appealing and child friendly. There are lots of colors and graphics on the homepage and lots of different things that children would be excited to click on and see. The website is mainly made for children to play educational computer games and learn new things. It is centered on primary grade levels and their educational experiences. There are different resources for children to learn new things and the backgrounds are based on the seasons and holidays. -Content: On this website there is a ton of different games under each subcategory and has various types of games under each subject. They are all tailored to primary level children and are easy for them to play and learn. There are things for the students to print out and various puzzles and other games that the students can access on this website. I am not sure of the content of all the games if they are all educational, but just having the matching and certain aspects of not academic games is still important for a child's development. -Design: This website has a lot of colors, large print, and pictures. It is tailored for young children so they are able to navigate the page on their own and can learn to recognize the colors and words. The website divides the games up by subject and then lists them after you click on the subject which is good so that parents and teachers can help the students focus on things that they need to work on even if it is through a game like this. It also makes it easy for teachers and parents to see the different things that are offered to the child to play and it is good for the child to learn to recognize and read these words. They all have pictures or clip art with them so that even if the child cannot read the word they can tell what it is by looking at the pictures.

2-5-12 Overview This website was designed by the Okaloosa School District in FL. It has sections for the administrators, parents/community, students and teachers to be involved in fun learning. The student resources have many sections such as Brain teaser, Student games, Principal's Club (more games and activities) and Practice activities. The student games are organized by subject and by age level. Activities are easy to find and easy to use. Overall, this website is a good source for students and others in the community to find games, activities and other resources for learning. Content This site has a lot of information for a wide variety of audiences. In student games, there are sections that are then broken down further into different skills in the subject. Overall categories include math, language arts, science, social studies, technology, games for fun, research and homework resources, search engines and preschool games. Once you choose a topic within the subject then links to games in this subject come up. For example, when you choose Number Basics within Math there are 13 different links to games. Each link has a description of what the game teaches or practices. There are a lot of information and fun activities on this site. Design This website is very organized. The whole website is broken down by who will make the most out of the resources. Once in a section such as student's games, it is broken down further and further to really find a game or activity that fits what you want the students to practice. It is not too complicated to get to, it is simply systematized. This makes navigating the website very easy and allows you to spend more time doing the activity you were looking for instead of searching for it or sorting through games that don't fully match the topic. I really like the organization of this website and how easy it is to use.

Monique Koller Jan. 24 2010 Cool math games is a website that has games, lessons and interactive ways to learn to enjoy Math. Content: The site has some fun games that I can see the educational value in, but not all of them, nor do I see where Math is a part of all of them. For the most part it seems like a worthwhile site I would allow my kids and maybe students to play on. Design: It looks like a fun site from the get go and I enjoyed exploring it. It is pretty easy to navigate around. There are some good lessons and the games are pretty amusing. I could easily find most of the stuff I needed. Overview: The purpose of this site is to be an aid while a student is learning math. This site is definitely directed towards kids. The authors are also hoping that there is adult supervision so that the kids can interact and get help. The games are good most of the time and have good content I think this could be a valuable site to visit.

Purpose The purpose of Cool Math Games is to help integrate math into a more fun environment. This site is geared for young grade school kids. There are different games that are aimed at tackling different types of skills that are needed in math. There are also different lessons that specialize on other skills. These are targeted at a much higher audience, with lessons like algebra and pre-calculus. This site has a lot of good information that could be used, I am just not sure if it is very helpful to students. Content This site contains a ton of materials. It has games and activities for such a wide range of math skills. The entire site seems to be working, however, it doesn't seem like it all is up to date as it could or should be. The games have good skills to be learned, but they are not up to date with as good of programming as possible. It is also not always apparent who the game or activity is accredited to. It is also not too accessible to contact them with as much ease as I would like. Design The design of the page seems to be a little crammed. They have a lot of link and titles, however, it is not done so in a way that is too pleasing. The color scheme is also very scattered and does not seem to blend well together. The pictures also do not seem to add as much to the page as needed. There also seems to be little order to how the games and activities are put up. This site has a great plan, I do not however feel like they completely got it all correct.

This site is used for elementary students to learn and expand their understanding of math in a more fun way than just the textbook. The intended audience is upper elementary students because a teacher can pick a game that will enforce what they have learned, but it will challenge them to think a little bit harder than they might have doing a word problem. The children also don't see this as boring learning; they see it as a fun game. There are various math games that are specifically targeted for a certain math levels throughout the website. For example, there are games for the upper elementary to work on multiplication, fractions, percentages, and negative numbers. Based on the first two questions that the evaluation for content asks, the answers are: yes, I can identify the purpose of the site, and no, the age group is not explicitly stated, but the intention and vernacular leads us to believe that age of the intended audience. At the bottom of the page it is easy to identify who the creators of this website are and how you can be in contact with them. If the sponsors are the advertisers, then they have clear demonstration of their sponsorship in four distinct locations. We can know that his site was last updated in 2015. We don't know how often it is updated, but we know that everything works according to plan. We know that the intentions of this site is to be a fun learning experience that is organized in a way that children can easily locate anything that they may possibly need. Everything on this site looks professional, but it still appeals to a younger audience. This website provides great opportunities for children to grow in their learning of math as well as play fun games. Everything in terms of logistics measures up to what it should be. The design of the overall lay out is kid friendly, and functions properly as long as the updated version of the flash drive is installed. They have specific animations and sounds that correspond with certain games

Content: This website contains lots and lots of stuff. It is set up like a classroom and has a reading link, a math link, a playground link, and an arcade link. I think this is more of a game site than an educational one. There are also lots of links to other help sites, but the majority of the links are for advertiser's webpage's, distracting visitors. Design: After looking at it for awhile, I started to feel lost and uninterested because of all the advertisements and the lack of visuals. There are thousands of links for kids to go to, and the actual site doesn't really support a good learning environment. As said above, it's mostly games with reading sections that really looks fun, but if you have to look through the games to get to that section, students will probably never get there on their own. The visual part of this website is interesting. The homepage is pretty boring and filled with links, but the reading and games tabs are designed for younger students. Attribution: The purpose of this site is probably intended to promote learning is fun, but becomes easily more of a distraction with all of the advertisements. I don't think I would promote this site in my classroom without adult supervision because students could so easily be distracted by toys and games.

Overview The purpose of this website is to help kids interact with math and reading. The intended audience is K-8. My overall impression of the website is that is very beneficial and a good free website for students to practice math and reading, whereas with other websites you have to pay to use the website. Content The only thing that I would critique on this website is having other links that would be appropriate and have to do with reading and math. But other than that, I would highly recommend this website. Design I think that everything is up to date but there is no for sure way to tell on the website, there is the copy right that does say 2013 but there is no one hundred percent way to tell if it has all been updated. So this is one thing that I would change on the design for the website.

Trevor Montgomery For this resource, we see another website that in a way, tricks students into thinking they are just playing games by giving them subject related activities. With the subjects of math and reading, students having interactive games, books and comics and even more fun links, without thinking they are doing much work. Through the "Funbrain" arcade, students can also complete activities and must pass obstacles to get through an interactive game board. If they do not successfully complete an activity, they will not be able to get past their current location, but will feel challenged to get through each activity and will most likely attempt multiple times until mastery of the activity. The great thing about this website is that students can also use codes to pick up where they left off on the game board so that they do not have to start over each time they log on (with their parents' permission of course). From grades 1st through 8th, there is a great variability from subjects, and students who are feeling extra brave might even try a level of difficulty higher than their current grade level. As someone who used this website in school when he was in elementary school, I can say that this resource is extremely effective and I think that students will come back to it time and time again. Navigating the website is easy enough. If you type in www.funbrain.com in the url box, you will be directed to the site. From here, you can choose to use the math arcade, reading, fun arcade, playground, and all games tabs, as well as books & comics and more fun activities. This website is specifically directed towards the audience of students in grades 1st through 8th, so as a teacher you can trust it to be safe and student-friendly.

David May 1/23/11 Fun website full of games for all ages. Captures attention right away with the bright colors and clickable items. Overview: This site promises to make learning fun and it sure succeeds. Many games are at the user's disposal of learning and having a bit of fun. The games have a game part to learn and then another option of taking a quiz to prove that information is actually learned. The science games are fun and have animations which help show the user what is being learned. The history game is more of a pop quiz that has some interesting things that not that would know. The website has testimonials of users explaining how much they enjoy the site. The entire website has many things for children all the way up to adults and college students. The website has some questionable content in the history quiz portion asking about facts of playboy the magazine which isn't so good if taken by younger children. Content: The user is easily able to discern what the content is. The audience is younger children with the colorful pictures and animals all over. An email is provided with easy access to the email through the contact link. The author is listed as well as everyone involved with the website is listed in the about link. The author is listed with credentials and with the amount of patents he currently has. The website doesn't display any kind of updating date nor a copyright date. The website claims that the sole purpose is for educational purposes. On closer inspection one can see that the purpose is to sell software games to schools, teachers, and parents. The site gains loyalty and then sells software. The site keeps the attention focused and doesn't lack in entertainment with all the games. Any type of game is easily found by category. Some games have to been dug for with multiple clicks. The games do provoke learning, but none of the information is listed where it came from. Design: The website has good appeal with the bright color

Kaci Philpot Overview: The intended purpose of this website is to provide elementary level students with fun and engaging games that build different skills and knowledge. Teachers can use some of the games for supplementing lessons such as; "volcano explorer", "chill the spill", and many more. Even games that don't seem like they would be educational are full of facts about various subjects and environmental awareness. Content Summary: For "First Look" I could not highlight the information because it was not in a text format, but the audience and basic content of the site are very clear. There were no specific authors listed for the games or information. The credibility of the authors is evident though because at the bottom near the copyright statement, it states that the company/sponsor is #1 in non-fiction media. It also has a very clear link for any questions about the site that works properly. I found it hard to find the latest revision date, most likely because the website mostly has games, but the content must be updated frequently because it has games that are up-to-date with the environmental issues today. All links to other sites work properly. In the "Information Quality" section of the evaluation, the website received all yeses. There are biases. However, they are clear when glancing through the content of the games. There was not any further information related to my purposes, but I did not really need any because I was only looking for games and activities to supplement lessons. Total yeses: 18 Total no's: 2 Total N/A: 1 Design Summary: The homepage uploaded very quickly and received all yeses. It has very strong eye appeal, it's clear what website you are visiting, and the copyright date is clearly stated at the bottom of the homepage along with the sponsor/provider. The navigation is easy and instructions for games and such are very clear and easy to follow. All internal and external links work properly. And internal links a

Overview: This site had many games involving addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. It could be used for all grade levels because you can adjust the level of difficulty on each game. There were daily puzzles, word games, math games, and printable activities. The site is meant to make math fun and it uses creative games to do that. The ability to adjust the difficulty level makes it great for a classroom because you can make the activities grow as the student's understanding grows. Content: This website loads quickly and has an eye appealing front page. There are suggestions of popular math games but there is also a website index at the top of the page. The index was organized into understandable categories. The games uploaded and played without pause to load. The brain teasers and games were correct to the best of my knowledge. There were also links to math trick videos and other game ideas. This website could be used in the classroom as a fun reward for students who finish their in class homework early. Design: The homepage downloads efficiently. The site sponsor, contact information, and date of last revision are not easily accessible. The website also does not run as well in other browsers. I was using Google Chrome. The list of links are very well organized and easy to use. Each link had a description of the game before you click on it to see what it is. The instructions for the games were easy to follow and very logical and concise.

This website provides educational games, daily puzzles, word games, and math games.

Aylin Márquez 13 September 2011 Overview: The Problem Site.com provides educational games, daily puzzles, word, and math games designed for teachers and Pre-K-12th grade students. Reference and printables tabs provide a free educational source for teachers. The site provides mathematical problems from previous years with their solutions included that influence students' analytical thinking. Interactive games are also designed to improve students' memorization. Content: Although the basic content of the site is easily determined, the user needs to check internal links to determine the intended audience of the site. If the audience is young children, they may need adult assistance to navigate within the site since the site has advertisements that can be considered inappropriate (games, dating sites, and etc.). The site has an overview that explains how the site was started and what it is about. A contact person and address are also available for users to ask questions. Both the site overview and contact information are located at the bottom of the site. Overall, the purpose of the site is clear, and the information appears to be accurate. Design: The homepage is designed well and downloads efficiently. It is appealing for mainly high school students and teachers. The user is able to navigate easily. The internal links work properly and are helpful and appropriate. However, there are advertisements that may not be appropriate for young children. The graphics and animations serve a clear purpose. A list of links is well organized, clearly labeled, and easy to use. The site also includes a search area where users can look for other educational sources.

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

Katie Hertel 1-23-2010 Overview: PBS educational games, videos and activities is an educational website for younger early childhood children. It teaches through many of the popular kids education television shows such as Barney, Author, Sesame Street, Dragon Tales, etc. There are available resources to parents and teachers to make sure this website is teaching their children in an effective way. Overall, my impression of this website was that it is an easy effective way to entertain your children through educational ways that are fun and entertaining. Content: As I explored on the website I found that it was easy to navigate. There are links formed as circles that have a picture of the educational animated television shows that kids today are familiar with. When clicking on these links it pulls up that shows official website which has clippings of the show, fun activities, and games related to that specific show that help younger children grow familiar with what they are learning outside of just the game. The information that is taught can be a reliable way to help teach children. Along with reliable material it has supported detail of the sites publication information. Design: This site is well designed and easy to understand how to access what kind of educational experience you want. It is very appealing, especially to a child's eye. Not very many irrelevant advertisement interruptions appear to be a problem. Although a lot of sources on this website prove to be a safe and reliable way of helping children learn, it is also obvious that it is for money purposes as well.

This website is an educational game site for kids. It is mainly based on PBS kids television series but it provides games in all different subject areas and has links for parents and teachers on "how to raise spectacular children". There are not a lot of outside links on this site to access other information, but the authors or the Public Broadcasting Systems seem like reliable authors and the content is great! I don't think a lack of outside sources takes away from the site at all. The content of this site is very educational and informational for students and would be easy to incorporate into lesson plans for an interactive way for students to test their knowledge. One thing that may be a set back is that the games are mainly based off of PBS kids TV series so it may be distracting to the students to have their favorite episodes one click away. The site is sponsered by PBS though so no extra ads or additional distractions are present! The site also has the terms of use and privacy conditions easily accessible and provide log-ins for students so that they can save their work and progress for later which is great! Each game also provides easy step by step instructions as well that can be read or heard so students can get the most out of their gaming experiences. The design of the website is great as well. The home page not only includes interactive links that move when you hold your mouse over the top of them, but it also has audio as well to bring students in. The games are very interactive and there are so many that every student should be able to find something that they enjoy doing! The colors are bright and the navigation is incredibly easy which makes students want to come back for more. Any questions that they may have are answered within the games which also helps subdue any frustrations that may arise. Overall, a great site for kids that would be easy to incorporate into lessons!

Aylin Márquez 13 September 2011 Overview: Math-Play.com provides a variety of games designed for mainly elementary and middle grades. The games are categorized based on the grade level, subject and type of games. The site has a list of games for teachers and students that is designed to improve students learning skills while they have fun. Content: Math-Play.com offers easy-to-play games. The site includes classroom games that teachers can add to their lesson plans to make learning interactive and fun. The site also shares links to other math games. Even though the date of the last revision is not clearly labeled, the copyright is 2010 dated, and the sponsor of the site is under Doina Popovici name. Design: The homepage downloads efficiently, and the games are readily available. However, elementary or middle grade students may not find this website appealing based on the design of the homepage. The top of the homepage has only one image and lots of text until the user scrolls down on the page. The games are labeled, organized, and ready to use with ease. The graphics, animations, sounds clips serve a clear purpose, and they are appropriate.

Meghan Frank The purpose of this website is to provide math games of different skill levels and different grades to students. The intended audience are students in almost any grade level. This website is intended for students to use to not only get more math practice but to also have fun learning math. My overall impression of this website is that it would be a good website to use to practice math. It meets almost all the criteria of the cyber guide ratings and would be a good resource for students to use in and out of the classroom. This website meets most of the content criteria of the cyber guide ratings. At first glance you are able to determine what the content and the intended audience is of this website. The author of the site is identified, we do not know any other information about the author or whether or not they are qualified to present information on this topic. The sponsor and revision date is also not provided. However, the website seems up to date and all the links work to the different games. The content of the website is clear and it achieves its intended purpose. It is also well organized and easy to understand. The website does better with the web design criteria. The homepage loads fast and is eye catching. You know where you are immediately and there is an index of all the games on the website and age groups. The site is easy to navigate and directions are provided and easy to follow. The links to other pages work and are appropriate to the webpage. Use of multimedia serves its correct purpose and relate to the math on the website. There is plenty of information and games that make this site worth visiting and using. All the information is clear and organized and consistent throughout the site. There is no revision date but all the information looks up to date. Over all it seems like a good website to use even though not all the criteria are met.

Ryan Magrum Sept. 15th, 2011 Overview: The site is an online game site known as Armorgames.com consisting mostly flash games aimed at wasting time. However, there is a game Armorgames offers called CellCraft. While CellCraft is fundamentally a game, there are many aspects of it that are very educational. The goal of the game is to command a cell to grow and function as an animal and/or plant cell would and utilize all the functions and organelles as would an actual cell. The game explains all of the functions of the organelles you control and gives some information on the different parts of the cell, how the cell utilizes energy, and reproduces and fights off attack. The instruction in the game is similar to a high school biology class. Content: The game has multiple levels. Each level has a specific goal for the cell which the user controls. Each level also give some explanation of the new organelles available for use as well as the intentions of the antagonistic elements that an average cell has to deal with on a regular basis like infection and replication. The game has instruction for both plant and animal cells and all the included features of cells. It focuses on teaching the user how a cell operates and how to create a strategy to help the cell survive. The effects of the game are very close to reality - neglecting the very fine details. Design: It's a game. It comes with instructions. The game goes chronologically, so to speak, beginning from a time where the user can only move the cell around, to growing and fighting off infection, then to exploring new worlds and avoiding extinction. Just like in a biology class room, the student is expected to learn the basics and then think critically about problems using the basic knowledge to solve the problem, so does CellCraft. The game takes the user, educates the user on how a cell works (and I mean just about everything one would learn in a general biology class), and sends the user off to ke

Posted by Riley Kallhoff on 1/25/2010 Overview: Funschool.kaboose.com is a site for teachers and students. It is a place where teachers can find educational games for students. This site has a lot of stuff going on in it. There are a lot of advertisements and just unneeded things in the website. The purpose of the site is to make life easier on teachers and help them in the classroom. The website is a little out of control and I would think this makes it hard to navigate. I had some problems figuring it out at first so I think students would struggle as well. Content: This is a website that is a little overwhelming when you first come in. There is a ton going on and you really don't know where to start. I would say it's a little hard to determine what exactly this website is used for at first. It's hard to tell if it's a teacher or a student website. The authors of the site are hard to find and the site is hard to navigate in its own right. You will click on one thing and it will take you on a little bit of a wild goose chase to find what you want if you ever do find what you are looking for. The links on the site work fine, but there are very few of them and most of them are distracting advertisements. I'm still not sure if this is supposed to be an educational site or if it is suppose to be for games. This site is hard to understand and I'm not sure this is a good site to send students to. Design: The website comes up very quickly, and is a fast site as far as downloading goes. However, when you get to the homepage you are confused from the start and you are overwhelmed with chaos. There is far too much on the homepage and it is like to much stimulus to know what to do next. I found it hard to navigate my way through the site. There are advertisements and it takes way too long to get to your desired destination. I think the graphics and animations are very hard to follow and take away from the site instead of enhancing it. The informa

David May 1/23/11 Fun site of games and entertainment. Educational to younger children. Overview: The website is filled with games and fun quizzes for younger children. The games look interesting, but they aren't filled with meaningful information for anyone with a mild understanding of history. The history information quiz is very basic such as who was the first president of the U.S. There are links to crafts and home activities. The website is for children and parents because the home activities and advertisements. Content: The audience is younger children which is clear by the bright colors and the fun game link pictures. Another hidden audience is the parents of the children that will be playing games on this website. This is shown through with the home craft projects and the advertisements for sandwich meats and other child oriented products. The website has a large copyrighted page and a large page of contact information with phone numbers as well as email addresses. Helping children learn is what the supposed site goal is with many advertisements of things that children would want. The clear owner of the site is Disney because the ads and the many links to other Disney sites and online stores on the links areas of the website. The site is very well put together to gain the attention of child and does a good job of entertaining them while hiding a bit of learning with it. Design: The site has wonderful appeal even older than grade school students get caught by this site. Everything is where it says it will be with wonderful smoothness and ease of use. Any type of additional information regarding the copyright, other links, and sponsor (which is Disney) is clearly identified with an entire page or more devoted to it. The site is very well put together and that is easily seen. The games and animations work very well and are quick to load. The games and animations will keep eyes locked on the screen for hours.

Game Zone Overview This site has a variety of games available for a variety of ages. The games focus on different types of English grammar functions. There are many games to choose from which makes it easy to find what you are looking for. There isn't really much information in this site besides the games. It is the primary focus of this site. Content The content is very basic. There are many games to choose from that deal with a variety of different English concepts. The games are specified into elementary, intermediate, and advanced. This allows you to choose the content that is the best for your grade level. The games are where the all of the content is. Each game has a specific focus depending on what you are looking for. This site lacks any other information beside what is in the games. Design The design of the site is very simple and straightforward. There is a lot of white space. The nice part about the design is when you drag your cursor over the quiz names it gives you a short overview of the game and it also tells you what it's focus is and what grade level it pertains to. The site is easy to navigate and the games have specific directions. It's easy to play the games and they are very creative in their design also. The games are very animated and graphic.

Vocabulary games for all grades. There is a special section for high school students.

Overview When first opened this site is colorful and bright. It has a lot of links and information. All grade levels from kindergarten to 12th grade are represented on this site. It's a huge website with many different things for enhancing learning. It's a great way to build vocabulary skills with appropriate leveled games for each grade. I focused on the high school games which were very challenging and very useful. This could easily be utilized in a classroom setting for teachers who want to expand their student's vocabulary in a fun and effective way. Content Every grade level is represented which is great because finding effect high school interactive games online is challenging. Each grade level has a variety of different types of games like synonym games, spelling games, and context and definition games for example. They also have games that focus on the SAT's but there is nothing for the ACT's. There is also a section on vocabulary learning resources. There are many useful links within this section that both teachers and students could utilize. For those learning a second language they could use this site to see the vocabulary of the world. The down fall of that part is it is entirely in the language you chose. Design The design is very bright and lively. It is extremely easy to use. You just have to pick the subject you desire and the games that are available show up and they are categorized for easy use. You can find exactly what you are looking for and if you can't find it then it is probably not available on this site. The design may seem a little childish for high school students but the games are effective. The games also provide detailed instructions on how the game is to be played.

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

Sara Scribner 1/22/10 Overview: This website is intended for students and teachers in Elementary Education. It includes interactive games ranging in difficulty from grades kindergarten through 5th. Although some games are less educational than others, this site offers some helpful, fun tools in teaching most subjects. Overall, this website is very credible and well suited for Elementary Education. Content: At first glance, the audience and basic content for this site are easily determined. Located at the bottom of the homepage are links to find information about the author, the site sponsor, contact information, and a note to parents and teachers with more information about the site. A copyright date was available, but a revision date was not provided. However, the site seems to be current. As I navigated through this website, all links were working. ABCya! is well organized, easy to understand when learning a new game, and provides accurate (content-wise and spelling/grammar-wise) information. Although this site offers games for all subjects, it seems primarily focused on student math skills, for majority of its games are math related. Also, it is clear this site is commercial because of the many ads that litter the pages. Despite the multitude of ads, I believe the content is accurate and useful in the classroom. Design: This quickly downloaded website is visually appealing to me and to young children. Although the rainbow of colors makes the page seem busy, it is very organized and the content is easy to locate and use. Links to other websites are not given, but there is so much information provided one could most likely find what he is looking for. Fun sounds accompany most games one plays adding excitement. For Kindergarteners, all games have sounds and the instructions are read aloud. I would however caution students using this site unsupervised because of the many advertisements.

Hannah Streeter 2/1/2011 Overview- This website is colorful and fun. It has lots of games based on literary skills driven toward elementary school students. Its a little silly, and easy to use. There is also a really great teacher/parent link on the home page. Content- The content of this website is literary games with fun characters like monsters, animals, dwarfs, and other fun characters. The content is based on auditory explanations, uses simple words to explain the games, and then expounds into more complex concepts to help teach things like Poetry and the alphabet, depending on which category you pick from. The games are super fun, even for a big kid like me. Design- The design is bright and colorful. The games load quickly and the sound is clear. There are many different games and animations for all elementary grades. there are links to the home page, and other games to play and learn from. All in all, a really great site!

Literary Learning