Group items tagged

Derek Peil 10/7/2012 Overview The Purpose of the website Six Minutes Speaking and Presentation Skills is to provide definitions and historical background to Aristotle's three main argument types: Logos, Pathos, and Ethos. Targeting students and public speaking enthusiasts, this website gives first-hand knowledge from award winning public speaker Andrew Dlugan, as well as a wide range of informational book resources. Overall, my content and design guides convince me that this source is authentic, appealing, and applicable for an educational setting. Content This site contains accurate and well organized information. All of the links work properly and load just as efficiently as the home page itself. Upon arriving at the site, the purpose of the site is clearly noted by the titles, headings, and sub-headings. The author visibly identifies himself immediately at the top of the page. The author's credentials and contact information are also given. External sources granted by this site appear sound. One of the only weaknesses to this site is that is last update was January 24th, 2010. Given the didactic mission of this website however, such a disparity in revision is acceptable as the knowledge of Aristotle's argument types is common and highly referenced. Design Appealing to the eye, this website strongly reflects the positive aspects of the design evaluation form. The site loads quickly with no glitches in displaying graphics or text. All of the sites webpages are outlined along the top of the homepage, allowing for easy navigation throughout. Appropriate pictures are used to convey meaning and bring the site to life. For example, on the Delivery Techniques page, the website shows a picture of a speaker covering his face with a mask to convey that section's topic of conquering the emotional fear of public speaking. Throughout the site, links are helpfully placed within the text to further benefit the user in navigating to other useful sites and

Design Evaluation: When a viewer arrives at this site they are greeted by a well-organized and appealing homepage. You can clearly tell what site you are on. The topics on this site are organized in a table of contents. A viewer can easily navigate through the site and the pages load easily. The sponsor and copyright are easy to locate. The same basic format is followed throughout the pages. The information appears to be updated regularly. The information and links on this site are relevant and worthwhile. Content Evaluation: When a viewer arrives at the site they can quickly determine the audience and purpose of this site; the audience includes teachers and parents of children with learning disabilities and the purpose of the site is informational. The information on this site includes basic facts about learning disabilities, links to financial assistance resources, and news about learning disabilities. All the information seems up date and accurate. This site gives information about the authors featured and lists of valuable links that viewers may find interesting. The content of this site is extremely relevant and meets the needs of visitors. Overview: LD.org is intended for teachers and parents of the children with disabilities. This site provides viewers with a wide range of resources including grants for education and the basic facts about learning disabilities. In my opinion this site is a wonderful resource. I can see referring this site to parents who need financial assistance for the children as well as using this site as a resource and guide to making lesson plans or filling out an IEP. This site has relevant information and links. I would strongly recommend this site to others.

The purpose of the National Art Education Association website is to help with the growth of the art educators' profession, to help adapt to change and new information, as well as leadership. The website specifically has written that its mission is to advance the visual arts education to fulfill human potential and promote global understanding. The intended audience for this website is more specifically for Art Educator, but anyone involved in the visual arts would find it helpful. It provides resources such as mentoring, networking, conference information, lesson plans, important art world news, and developing and sharing art education resources. I think it is a very successful website based on the content and design review guidelines.

The mission of the website of the National Art Education Association (NAEA) is to create a "dynamic community of practice where visual arts teachers, scholars, researchers and professors, students, administrators, and art museum educators, and artists can come together around a shared belief in the power of the arts in developing human potential." The website contains news surrounding art education along with events that are happening. It also contains lesson plans, access to the art education community, advocacy resources, research and knowledge of art education, grants and various opportunities, and careers available. This website seems to be an easily navigable, one-stop location where you can gather a lot of information about art education.

Scott Chanthongthip on January 23, 2010 Overview: The National Science Foundation (NSF) website offers diverse areas of science studies. Many of the research articles are conducted by educational institutions, which the NSF provides grants or funding to. The homepage offers an update on the most recent research released in the press. NSF website can be useful for students that may want to look into topics of interests. I would recommend this more for teachers to grasp a subject matter better, so teachers may choose age-appropriate science knowledge for students. Content: The website was last updated on November 5th, 2009, but it has updated press releases related to science from the past few days. The NSF funded research studies posted on the web site. The search tool bar at the top right of the home page offers an easy way to look for a scientific topic of interest. Each search renders multiple links that relate to the search query, and none of the links is broken. The pages on the website have a lot of content and to many people that use it, the conglomeration of links and words can be overwhelming. The purpose of this site is clear, because it states it at the bottom, "Celebrating 60 Years of Discovery." The NSF research posts are credible because most of the information is tested through research from higher educational institutions. Teachers for K-12 can click on the link "classroom resources", under "site features" on the right side of the home page. I found this part to be helpful in finding interesting ways to teach science in the classroom. When teachers choose "classroom resources" links, site re-direction may proceed to help teach subjects of interest. There are also educational grants and science funding for teachers for K-12 and for classrooms from K-12. Design: The design of the website has so much information and links that it may be intimidating to try to navigate. Once one spends a little time at the site they

Shelley Limegrover January 22, 2011 OVERALL The third site I evaluated is the Physics 2000 site. The site explains general physics concepts in a dialog format using an imaginary cast of physics professors and students. One or more interactive simulations accompany all dialogs. The site is intended as a resource for high school and non-science college students that presents otherwise abstract material in a more comprehensible format. I found the presentation of material to be very creative, although the site itself seemed visually "busy" and awkward to navigate. CONTENT The authors of the site are clearly identified and include a physics professor, various science advisors as well as a high school physics advisor. The credentials of all authors and advisors are not provided, but the site claims to be funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, giving it some credibility. The dates of copyright and last revision are not readily apparent. However, the main page states that they are looking for sponsors to support continued operation. Recommendations for supported browsers are a few years out of date. The content itself does not seem adversely affected by lack of updates. All content links are functional as are all interactive applets that I tried at random. DESIGN Some pages of the site are designed better than others. The choice of colors and layout do not make information immediately visible. The navigation is not consistent across pages. The relevant content, however, is presented nicely once I get to it. This makes it worth a visit to the page. Interactive applets are provided wherever they are beneficial.

Overview: This website is fun and informational providing many items on common questions and articles. There is an updated homepage with photos articles polls, quizzes, and videos. This site aims to explain everything from DNA coding to car transmission problems in simple articles and videos. This site's intended audience is for adults due to the article and links provided. Content: This website provides up to date headings and topics on anything and everything you may want to know. It has tabs for adventure, animals, auto, communication, computer, electronics, entertainment, food, geography, health, history, home and garden, money, people, and science. When you access the site is easy to determine the content and intended audience. There is available information and the authors and researches for the different articles. The information is always constantly being updated and revised so nothing is out of date. The links also are easy to use and work properly. The information and content presented is not biased. All the articles also are valid and have an intended purpose to entertain or inform. Design: The design of howstuffworks.com is easy to use, organized and attractive. The homepage provides many interesting headings, photos, and videos. It is easy to read and very understandable and accessible. The website downloads efficiently and the site is appealing and grabs tor attention. The sites also provide copyright informational the provider is clearly identified. The links are clear and helpful and all the information including the photos videos and articles serve a clear purpose to the site.

Overview The first website that I evaluated was howstuffworks.com. This is an educational website aimed at all age groups that can answer questions about how many different things work. The website offers a variety of different resources. An example of the resources would be how the site teaches skills that everyone should have on topics such as money. Overall, I thought this website was great. It's easy to navigate, and offers many different types of educational materials. Content Not only is this website educational, but it is fun as well. You can come to the website to find out something serious, but you can also come to find out something that's entertaining and fun. The content of the website is easy to understand for any age. Things are explained simply so that you can actually learn at your own pace. It's also easy to find out about the website by clicking on the "about us" link at the bottom of the page. There you can find who sponsors the site and where the content comes from. Design The website is very easy to navigate through. As soon as you get to the homepage you are faced with many different tabs and also a search bar so you can find exactly what you are looking for. In addition to the tabs, there are resources such as videos and blogs that you can get access to through the site.

Overview: This websites main focus is to breakdown simple mechanics of almost anything from how a toaster works to economic policies of the year 2011. This is a source to explore the world around us and understand the things that we encounter and use daily, as well as providing a guide for users ion new endeavors into of learning. Concept: The classification of materials found within this writing is more vast than an encyclopedia. It includes multi-media and interaction presentations to gain the attention of the reader and create a better understanding. The material can become more complex and technical, but can be a resource for any researcher. I would recommend for teachers seeking to better explain concepts or to satisfy the curiosity of a learner. Design: Clean, simple, and precise. This website has a rather challenging searching process, but a pursuing researcher can use the search tool to peruses topics that coincides. The clean layout of the material and explanations make the learning process something to be a part of. As well as a social network application installed to share the knowledge of "how stuff works".

Becky Stewart 1/24/11 Average site Content: The site is a little complicated at first glance, and there are a lot of different options. Without looking into it as much the site looks very complicated, and its difficult to find a starting point for it. Its hard to tell what the exact purpose of the website is, and who it is exactly for. The author(s) are very hard to find on this website, however the site is sponsored by the government which gives it more legitimacy even with missing authors. The website has a lot of extra information about location, phone numbers etc, but there is no simple way to find out when the site was last updated. The site has plenty of good information, as well as many links to bring the user to different areas to look more in depth into anything. This site is probably used more for adults because of how complicated it is. However, The information on the site seems to be very good and a good resource if used correctly. Design: The site had a lot on the homepage, but downloading quickly. There was no significant wait time for everything to load. The home page is very strong and makes the site look very credible. The bottom of the home page has a list of links that the user can go to on the site, and seems to be pretty organized. The links work well and bring the user where it says its going to. The site is well organized and isn't completely overloaded with videos or pictures. Plenty of addresses and phone numbers are located in a link at the bottom of the page. Overview: The site http://www.ed.gov/ is a site designed for teachers a students. There are no advertisements on the page to be distractions, and the site seems very educational. The purpose of this site is to inform teachers and help out students who may have questions or concerns. In some ways it does this for teachers as well. This is a complicated site so it wouldn't be for younger st