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Lyle Wiley September 10, 2011 Overview: The Folger Shakespeare Library is an exhaustive site of Shakespeare resources with specific large pages for different audiences including a site for students and one for k-12 educators. While the site has a clear focus on selling published Shakespeare works and resources, there is a good deal of free information and resources available for students and teachers alike. These resources include Shakespeare information and history, lesson plans for teachers, study guides, audio and video embedded helps, space for teachers to interact and share ideas and experiences, and a frequently update blog (called "Making a Scene: Shakespeare in the Classroom"). This rather attractive site has some very helpful and interesting resources for the Shakespeare educator. Content: The basic content and intended audiences of this site is easily discerned upon entry. There are numerous authors of the material available on the site, but for the most part the author's contact and educational information is easy to find. The site appears to be frequently updated, and certainly the blog attached to the educational resources on the site is updated often. The purpose of the site is both business and informational which sometimes colors the available information on the site, but there is a large amount of rather good free information including lesson plans, teaching ideas and tips, audio and visual resources, and access to a creative community. There are few external links, but the information available looks to be very helpful to the Shakespeare educator. Design: The Folger Shakespeare Library loads quickly and has a nice aesthetic appeal. Well organized and heavily indexed, the site has an impressive ease of navigation which is complimented by some nice photo design and occasional embedded multimedia (which is always relevant and helpful). Again, much of the material on the site is up for sale; however, there are a good many quality resource

Overview The Folger Shakespeare Library site is the home page for the Folger Shakespeare Library located in Washington, D.C. The site has any number of features that any good library web site would have: an online catalog, listed hours, ask a librarian. The site is designed for teachers, students, scholars, and the average Joe who is interested in Shakespeare, Renaissance literature, and early modern literature. Areas of the web site of high interest are the Visitors section, Students and Families section, K-12 Teachers section (which includes monthly lesson plans), and a Scholars' section. Content The content included on this site is amazing. The Folger Shakespeare Library has a catalog of over half of the world's books published before 1640, and the catalog is, of course, accessible online. There is a section of Hamnet (the online catalog) for electronic resources as well. The site is interactive-offering a free e-newsletter, social media, a calendar of events, and an active blog. There are podcasts chock full of lectures, poetry readings, etc., digital images, an archived list of lesson plans. There is a six minute YouTube documentary on the First Folio! You could spend many happy days lost in this site. Design The site's design is simple, elegant, and business like. It is a light blue color, which is easy on the eyes. Most of the navigation is at the top or to the left. The site is sometimes difficult to navigate unless one has at least an idea of what he or she is looking for. A site map is made available if one gets distracted or lost though.

Ryan Magrum Sept 15th, 2011 Overview: This site is a tour through the exhibits of a natural history museum. The purpose is to experience the museum without actually going there in person. There are many menu options on the home page for kids and for educational purposes. I like this site personally because for students it's like a field trip without ever having to leave the class room (computer room). The site seems fairly main-stream and appropriate for all ages. Content: This is the basic museum home page on the internet. The site has all the information for the museum (contact info, research and curation, business…). There are many links to other similar sites as well as games for kids and to resources for teachers and to merchandising. There are many pictures to lure the user into the site. In terms of the galleries page, The site is a basic tour with captions for each of the interactive picture of real things in the museum that explain what you are seeing in the picture - what a tour guide will tell you. The pictures are mostly for highlights of the museum geared to getting you to visit in person. There is a plethora of information within that is very easy for students and the public to learn from. Design: The site is easy to navigate. All the pictures and colors make the user feel welcome. At first, getting into the specifics of the site and finding what exactly you are looking for is a little difficult but the ease of navigation allows the user to orient their self in the contents after a little exploring. There is a search box so the user can search the site for specifics contributing even more to the ease of navigation. All the advertisements in the site are relevant to education and/or the museum and appropriate for kids.

Solve basic probability problems.

Aylin Márquez 14 September 2011 Overview: Stattrek.com provides a variety of statistics tools designed for mainly middle and high school students. One of the most useful tools is the probability calculator. It can only calculate the three basic rules of probability. However, this online calculator can still be a very useful tool for students who do not own a scientific calculator. The site also provides the explanation of probability notations that are used to calculate the probability of one event. Content: The basic content of the site can be determined easily. The purpose of this site is to be able to help students calculate their basic probability problems. The online calculator is easy to operate. The site provides an explanation of the rules of probability under the summary report title. The site also includes links to other sites that are designed to improve students' learning. There is no revision date on the site. However, the information seems current, and the calculator works properly. Design: The homepage downloads efficiently and is appealing. The user can navigate around the site easily. The directions on how to use the calculator are clear. If the user puts wrong data on the calculator and clicks on the calculate button, the site has an explanation to guide the user on how to correct his/her data input. The site has advertisements that appear to be appropriate and related to students' needs.

Overview: Purdue OWL (online writing lab) serves as a gold mine of information for formal writing. This website is intended for students or anyone attempting to write a formal paper. It provides the newest and latest information on MLA and APA formatting information, along with a "how-to" guide for formatting your papers and citing your sources correctly. On top of that it also provides links for English as a Second Language learners, parents, and "how-to's" for cover letters and résumés. This website is extremely useful ad helpful for anyone looking for help writing a paper or teachers looking for a good resource to teach their students. I highly recommend Purdue OWL. Content: When you enter Purdue OWL you are immediately able to tell what the site is about. All the content is easily accessible and bookmarked on the home page. Although author information is not immediately available, you are able to see that it is created by a credible source, and you are able to contact the creators. Purdue keeps their information up to date and uses the latest MLA and APA handbooks to create their site. The purpose of the site is obviously informational and educational. It is well organized and the information is complete, easy to understand, and consistent with other similar sources. Design: Purdue OWL is visually appealing along with efficient. The home page is clearly labeled with an index and site sponsor obvious and visible. It is easy to move around, and if you feel lost there is a link for a "site map" in the upper right hand corner that can be used. The links on the page are highly relevant and help the users navigate to more specific cites. It is easily accessed on different browsers. There is a plethora of information readily available for the users so they do not need to visit other sites.  

Mark Hyde www.quizlet.com Overview: This site is for students to study on using on line flash cards that they can make or use some that is already on the site. It can be used for any subject and any age of student preparing for a test. Once you get sick of flashcards you can also put them words and phrases into game settings to have a little more enjoyable time studying. Content: The site has various styles of study guides based on flash card studying. A student can do anything from study math to bodyparts in already save flashcards. If wanting to study their own words they can create flashcards of their own. It also has different kind of activities to do including testing mode and game mode which allows you to find out where you are. Design: Simple design that is easy to use. It is not much of an attention getter, but students can see what they need to do and is straightforward on how to use it. The only problem that may occur is some of the flashcards that are saved on there may have wrong information.

Quizlet is an online vocabulary tool designed to simplify vocabulary learning thru flashcards. It allows users to create and share flashcard sets with anyone on the web via facebook and twitter. Due to its simplicity and multidisciplinary capabilities, I definitely believe this site has a legitimate place in educational settings.

Overview This site deals with public education and its emergence as a Home-school alternative and is aimed at those parents who want a "quality" education for their child. I found it while searching for information related to teaching Spanish to Second graders. It is a well layed out site that answers the basic questions of who, what, when, where, how and why. Content The site contains all the information necessary to understand what the Wyoming Connections Academy is all about and how one may become involved in its academic service. Design The site design begins with an eye appealing tannish tab folder background. Upon this is layered the Academy logo, and a page containing information about the School and its services. Photographs of happy, smiling kids are placed in the top right corner of the page on a gray background. A little boy, happily doing his homework is the largest photo. The tabs at the top of the folder open to other pages. The design format is really easy to follow and keeps the user's interest.

Michelle Jacobsen 9/16/11 Overview: This website really isn't the best for students to use I would say. Some of the games are free but most you have to pay for. For teachers, it is a little more helpful for helping first time teachers teach different parts of math, like the times tables for example. Content: The content of this website is more directed towards helpful tips for teachers in teaching elementary math classes. They give teaching tips and guides as well as strategies to use to help get the point across to kids. Design: This isn't the easiest website to navigate though that I have come across. It's really a boring design and has everything cluttered into the home page. There are also quite a few ads that will also show up on the side of the page. Overall I'm not a huge fan of this site and wouldn't really recommend it.

Adam Matson ITEC 2360 9-14-2011 Website Evaluation: Overview: http://writingcenter.gmu.edu/writing-resources is almost exactly the same as others I've found that are meant to be as a language arts resource. This one however, is a bit more basic and harder to navigate. It includes things like brainstorming ideas and some writing style directions, but does not go as in-depth or give as many examples as other sites visited. For a quick referencing tool I would suggest bookmarking the site, but there are other sites that may be more helpful. Content- The content I found can be useful, such as a printable handout showing various ways to incorporate transitions into your writing, but the overall content seems somewhat lacking. It just does not cover as many areas and subjects of language arts that many other sites do. Again, it could be used as a quick referencing guide when a student needs help. Design- The design is almost exactly like the sites explored earlier, a white background with black and blue text and links. It is somewhat hard to navigate due to wording and the placing of some of the tabs and links. Locations and members of the actual school seem more prominent in the navigation than actual links to language arts resources, which could prove to be frustrating.

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

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

Overview: This site is really geared toward students and not so much for teachers but I liked it because it has a couple games that create real-life scenarios. In these games students had to do calculations that applied high school math. I think the website would appeal to secondary education students in more advanced math classes. It also has link that show students about jobs in the financial field and they can hear from people who currently work in this area, which I think can help students find the area more interesting and they may be able to connect better with the subject that way. Content: Most of the content is definitely for older more advanced students. The games are slightly challenging must are intriguing at the same time. The website has many links to various areas of finance that can help students find jobs in the future if they are thinking about this field. It also shows them that there are people their age running billion dollar companies. Design: The design of the website is geared toward high school students, showing money, nice cars and vacation spots. The links are also very organized and easy to see where stuff is at. The games are set up in an easy to follow manner with guided steps of how to start.

Audrey Stevens 9/20/2011 Overview: Kidsites.com is a site that is directed towards elementary teachers, parents of elementary kids and elementary kids themselves. It is basically used as a guide to find educational websites, as well as some websites with fun activities and games. Resources for this site were nearly limitless. It provides so many useful sites and activities, along with the separate tabs for parents and teachers. Overall, in my opinion, I found this site to be very useful for my information needs and very well designed and easy to use. Content: There were few things that I found that were candidates for the "no" column. One would be that there was no contact information or way of contacting a person if the user has questions. The other would be there was no revision date provided. Other than that I found nothing wrong. All of the links were working properly and led to educational websites or educational activities/games. It was easy to understand how the site was set up and how to navigate through the site, as well as there were no grammatical errors. The provider of this site seems to have known what they were doing and all of the information on kidsites.com seemed legitimate. According to the rating for content evaluation sheet, kidsites.com is very useful for one's informational needs and worth bookmarking for future reference. Design: For the design portion of this site, it only had a few problems such as there was no information for contacting the sponsor of this website. Even after going through and looking through all the tabs and links, I never was able to find any information on, or way of contacting them. No date was provided for when the website had been last updated either. I also went through and looked for this and never had any success. A copyright date was provided but no date of revision. When accessing this site, it is very easy to read, it has a simple, easy to follow design for children and it is incredibly easy to

Billie Slyman, 9/11/11 Purpose The purpose of this site is to provide resources for teachers for teaching weather. It's part of a larger site that has resources about all kinds of topics. There are websites, print-out activity sheet and Power Points. Although there are a lot of links, about half of them don't work, and there isn't any information on the site about how the sites are found and who runs the site. My overall impression is that this site has some good resources that could be helpful to teachers, but the link you want might not work, and there's no guarantee it is a good site. Content There really isn't any information (that I could find, anyway) about who develops or maintains this site, or any indication of when it was made. Although there are a lot of links to other sites, there is nothing about this site. There is a link to "Contact Us", but who is "Us"? However, it is nice that the links are divided into separate themes, like Weather, so it is easy to find the topic you are interested in. Design The site looks pretty plain. It's really just a list of links. However, this does serves the purpose of the site. It doesn't really have much reason to look nice because most people won't be spending a lot of time there; they'll be on the other sites. Although, even though the site is plain, it still manages to feel cluttered. With the links in the middle, navigation menu on the left and ads on the right it can be a little hard to stay focused. But the site is functional, and it can be helpful to have a large amount of sites about the topic all put together.

Randi McInerney September 15, 2011 Overview: The purpose of the Poetry Foundation website is to be a learning resource for anyone interested and to promote poetry in our culture. This site would be great for high school or college students, teachers, or other interested adults. The site offers full poems, biographical information on poets, articles and news relating to poetry, and a "learning lab" that allows you to access annotated poems, poem guides, writing ideas, discussion questions, and tips for teachers. The content and design are very appealing. Content: There is a great amount of information readily available on this site. It is very interactive with everything from places to listen to the poems to places that will direct you to downloadable poetry mobile "apps". The information is very extensive and reliable. If you have questions and comments, the foundation provides various ways to contact them. Design: The website downloads quickly and looks very appealing and organized. The bar across the top makes navigating easy. There are no directions for using or navigating the site, but it is so easy that instructions are really not necessary.

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

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

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

Posted by Mitchell Clark 9/18/09: CliffNotes is a site that provides free summary-type information and helpful tips for just about anything education related. Content: CliffNotes is a site sponsored by Wiley Publishing that covers just about everything that is involved with education. This site provides free information for subjects such as literature, writing, foreign language, math, science, college, test prepping, and more. The articles found under these subjects are easy to cite but may not provide an author. One of the things that set this site apart from similar sites is that it provides information on topics such as getting into college, avoiding scholarship scams, AP test, college entrance exams and grad school entrance exams. Also this site is updated on a regular basis making the information up to date, but as mentioned before there may not be a credible author. This site also offers full length practice test for the SAT, AP Biology, AP English, and AP Chemistry, but these resources are not free. As far as organization goes this site is decent, it is easy to navigate the main subjects such as literature or foreign language but there is so much advertising that it can be both confusing and distracting when reading down the page. Design: Apart from the advertising this site is well designed and easy to navigate. There is a search bar at the top right of the window as well as multiple tabs that link to various subjects of education. The home page is bombarded with ads, but they are mainly advertisements for student travel programs, back to school supplies or the Army ROTC program. The sponsor of the site is clearly stated at the bottom of the page and there is a link to their contact information. This site uses very little graphics aside from their advertising, but the page is still visually attractive due to the well known black and yellow color scheme. Attributes: This site comes from a credible source for review or study purposes. The infor