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Katrina Swanson February 26, 2013 Overview: This website was created by a kindergarten teacher who wanted to share her ideas and lesson plans from inside her own classroom. It is intended for the kindergarten aged level but teacher access only. The teacher looks at the material and then creates her own ideas from it. The site gives tons of lesson plans for every day of the month and even extra fun things to do with kindergarteners. Content: The content of this site is very helpful to kindergarten or early childhood teachers. It is easy to determine what the site contains and also that it is created by a former kindergarten teacher. There is contact info available to contact her if there are any questions or ideas that come up. She provides updated content to the site daily and the links are all working correctly. The site is intended for others to get information as well as entertainment from to use in their classes. Design: The design of the website is very fun and entertaining. It includes lots of visuals of example lesson plans, words, links to different places on the site, videos and even has printables! The pages load efficiently and the links are correctly labeled. The information is organized in a way that everyone is able to view easily. It is a great website for any kindergarten teacher to have to spice up their classrooms!!

Seth Orndorff February 1, 2011 Good site review Overview The website, ixl.com is a very useful tool when it comes to math education. The site is kid and parent friendly with effective teaching strategies. If a teacher were to use this site as part of their curriculum, their students would each have their own accounts that keep track of their progress in various math subjects. The site has math questions to answer from kindergarten through eighth grade with different topics in each grade. Students may be assigned to answer ten questions from a certain topic. They would be able to easily navigate the site and find the questions to answer. Once completed, the student receives a score and time which is recorded. It would be advantageous for a teacher to give a pretest on this site at the beginning of the week then give them another quiz on this site to see their improvement. I am very impressed with this site and would definitely recommend it to others and bookmark it. Content summary The content of this particular site would be very useful for my needs and is worth bookmarking. I have several reasons for giving the content of this site such a high review. At first look, it is easy to quickly determine the basic content of the site and the intended audience. The authors and creator of the material is clearly shown and easy to access. There is a tab that gives a full summary of the creators with contact information at the bottom of the page. This makes it extremely easy to get in touch with the authors of the site. The content and information has been revised and has a new copyright for 2011. Along with the outstanding first impression, information on the providers, and information currency, the site has incredible quality when it comes to the information and further information. The sites interactive math problems that include rewards for correct answers are highly motivating for any student doing math from kindergarten through eighth grade. I was also very

Morgan Jenkins October 13, 2014 The author of this website wanted to help teachers find resources and lesson plans more easily. This website provides many different resources for preschool and kindergarten planning. It has lesson plans, activities, worksheets, math, and crafts. I personally feel that this site is helpful in many ways because it has a large variety of ideas and lessons. You can find specific lessons for holidays or seasons, but it still has generic lesson plans that can be modified for a specific class. The author of this website, Elaine Engerdahl, is a credible author because she taught Kindergarten for 31 years, therefore an expert by experience. The last copyright was in 2013. I would consider the materials up to date because the lessons all follow common core standards and include up to date technology and methods. There was a contact section that included the email and mailing address of the author along with a phone number. The content is clear and effective because the purpose was to help provide teachers with resources and the site effectively does that. My overall impression of this website was professional and helpful. This website was easy to navigate and had a clean design. There were buttons for lesson plans, activities, crafts and more. When you would click on the links to other websites they seemed to all work. The design of the simple but fun. There were graphics but not too many. The text was easy to read, and the font was not too big or small. Clearly the website was set up well and is easy to use.

This is a resource for kindergarten teachers to learn new ways to make kindergarten more fun than the worksheets that they have been giving kindergarteners today. I think this is a great way to get ideas on how to make a lesson more fun, or this is a different approach to some lesson plans. I am not sure that all are entirely possible, but they can always be modified and made into my own. The colors are also fun, and I think the overall home page itself gets the idea of what they want the website to be about across to the audience. I love the idea of trying to make kindergarten more fun, and I think this is a great example for teachers to use. The content displayed in this is clearly identified by viewing the homepage and touring the different tabs that are available on either side of the picture. The author is very present in who he is and what he stands for. He makes all the sponsors of him and his curriculum present as you scroll throughout the website. If the current date of when it was updated is on there, it has not been updated for 7 years, which could make the information irrelevant now, since it may not keep up with the standards. The only complaint about the content is the grammatical errors. Some of the website was cut off a little bit, as you scroll down the homepage, so some of the wording and pictures have been cut off. Otherwise, the purpose is clear and you can contact the author with any further questions to the website, hoping that he is still around. The website has no glitches and can be easily accessed by anyone and everyone. The design and navigation are organized in a way that the person can pick what they want to know more about. All of the links open easily and don't seem to buffer or take long. The site has some useful information, but it is not updated and probably won't fit to the content standards any more; however, this is a great website for teachers to get ideas and then adapt to the content standards that now stand. The overal

Overview This website is my favorite, even though it does not look very professional. It has links to other sites that are easy to navigate through and it has different classroom activities that are described and are to be used in kindergarten classrooms which is the age group that I intend to teach. I am able to find an author and author information as well as a recent "last updated" date and current links on the homepage to lead me to further information. The site lacks color and graphics, but the content and information makes up for it. Content I am able to clearly see that the purpose of this website is to inform teachers of many different classroom activities that can be used as well as a description of each. The author of the site seems qualified to be giving out this information and there is further information given so that you can find out more about the author and her credibility. The site was last revised in December 2009 so the information is very recent. The content of the site achieves the purpose which is to inform. The site appears to be unbiased, organized, accurate, and consistent. Design The homepage downloaded quickly and efficiently as well as its links and contact information. The home page is not attractive however because it lacks graphics or even color. I can clearly tell where I am once I get to this page and can easily find the table of contents and its links. The author, sponsor, and copyright information are easy to find at the bottom of the homepage. It was easy to move through the site and navigate each of its links and the site is reliable and current.

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.

Katrina Swanson - February 25, 2013  Overview: The purpose of this website is to engage young children in elementary school but specifically focusing on a kindergarten aged level. It allows students to explore different games and activities regarding letters and numbers as well as incorporating the use of technology. There are numerous resources for children available to use from this website such as learning their numbers and letters while using a computer.  Content: The content of this website is pretty decent. From the first look of the site, the user is able to determine what audience the site is intended for and also to tell the basics of the site. There is no clear author or creator provided due to the fact that it is a student oriented site and not a site with "specific information." The site works properly and all the links provided are available and easy to access for students. The purpose of this site is very clearly indicated that it is for entertainment and learning at the same time. It is very well organized and easy for young children to maneuver around and interact with. Grammar and spelling are correct and this site has great content for students to learn about letters and numbers.  Design: This website is very intriguing by first look. A student would be enthused to use this site and eager to do the activities. The pages are attractive, and easy to access the different links to games as well as other things on the site. The site is very user friendly for young children due to the fact that they can easily go around the site. Lots of pictures, colors, and sounds are used all throughout the site to engage the children as well. It is also a great site because although it looks fun and intriguing it is also very informational to young kids.  Great website!! 

Dr. Arlys has put together a bunch of sites that are great activities for children to do in math, literacy, and science

K-3 SmartBoard Sites created by SmartBoard 1. Click on an Activity 2. Click on Download this Lesson Activity **It will download it to your computer and it will open the lesson on the SmartBoard

Overall: The website I used for my bad example was called Kindergarten Games. The game for this website is unclear on what teachers or students are supposed to learn. It shows some requirement for multitasking but is not complex enough to really take something from this. Where to go for help is not clear and only the sponsor is listed. The author was not listed; only the game is "information" on this website. Content: The basic content is unclear for whether this game is for teachers or for students. The author is not stated nor links for help. The sponsor is listed as a game site for teachers' and children. Since the author was not listed I cannot determine if he or she is qualified to give information. The website also failed to give dates to validate currency; the purpose is not clear for who/what is going on. The game is not complicated enough for teachers and too much is going on to explain to kindergarteners. Overall too much is missing from this website for it to be a decent, valid place to seek help/information. Design: The website downloaded efficiently and has strong eye appeal; the sponsor was identified and there was a space to leave comments but no information to contact. The copyright date was not established nor was the most recent update. There is a tutorial telling directions how to play the game but not who it is directed towards or the objection of the game. The only links were leading to different games by the sponsors; the music went along with the game as did the graphics. It was not a big enough site and did not contain enough information to navigate through it.

Taylor Pilch 09/09/2011 Overview: The purpose of this site is to provide teachers with a lot of resources for kindergarten-aged children. There are a lot of activities with different subjects, and each activity is a link that takes you to a different website. There are a lot of available resources just because there are so many links. My overall impression of this website was that it was pretty cool, but a found a couple links that were too old or would not work, so it might not be reliable. Content: In evaluating the content, the strengths of this website are that it is easy to determine what this site is about and who provided the information. The information quality was good; it was easy to understand and it seems to be accurate. However, I did not find a sponsor for this website and the last revision was in December of 2009. As for further information, it provided links to other educational websites. Design: This website was not very attractive (it had no use of multimedia on the home page) but it was very easy to navigate. It was very clear what was offered in the site and it seemed to work the same with internet explorer as well as firefox. I would definitely visit this site for resources and information, but some of the material is outdated and I did find a couple links that did not work. As for further information, links to other useful websites were provided.

This website is for both students and teachers. Grade levels from K-8 were posted with activities and lesson plans for each grade. There are games for students to play as well as lesson plans and activities for teachers. The purpose of the website is to make math more fun. I feel like this site is awesome because both teachers and students can benefit from the materials posted. There are worksheets for free on this site so it is a good resource for new teachers. The owner of this site is Jumpstart. They have been in business for over 20 years. This website had a current 2014 copyright date. Therefore I would consider this site to be up to date in all aspects. The games and lesson plans are based off of the Common Core standards and they try to push the students to learn the next step. This website was harder to navigate around. There were way too many links and buttons. This also is good because there is a lot of information, but it can get a little tricky to navigate. The design is very appealing to kids. They have a lot of cartoon characters and bright colors. The section for kids is easy to navigate so I would recommend it as a good resource for students. The teacher's section is the most challenging to navigate because there is so much going on. Overall there are parts that are better set up than others, but as a majority there is just way too much going on as far as the design goes.

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

Great tool for grades ranging between kindergarten and 8th grade. This specific portion of the website has fun math games for kids where they can go around a game board until they complete the game. There are other pages that have to do with other subjects as well.

Overview:  This website is for teachers of any subject from kindergarten to 12th grade. This website has links to many different subjects and in each subject it has different lessons to teach. It gives an overview of each lesson and it explains main points in the readings. This would be a great website to brush up on a certain subject. This could be very useful for elementary teachers because they have to teach so many different subjects and this can help them better understand each subject and lessons within the subject.  Content:  The content in this website varies. It is very broad when it comes to what grade and subject. There are many different tabs and links to the different subject choices. Within each subject, it has many lessons and standards that each grade should be learning. This is very helpful when it comes to teaching because it shows what standards teachers should be teaching in the different subjects that there are.  Design: The design of this website is quite simple. When you first click on the website, it opens most of the website is white with a little green. As you scroll down, there are many tabs for the different subjects that have a picture to describe that certain subject. I like how simple it is to navigate to the different pages and subjects. There are no obnoxious links everywhere or ads on the page at all. There is a copyright at the bottom along with the date it was created and the business that owns the website. Overall, this website is very easy and user friendly. 

Overview: The overall purpose for this website is to have lessons and activity examples that teachers can use for different grades in science. As a teacher this is a great website to seek activities to use in your classroom for different science terms and lessons. This website has activities for science grades varying from kindergarten to 12th grade. This website also has workbooks that teachers can order to give their students to work out of. Overall, this website is very helpful.  Content:  The content of this website is for teachers and there are many activities to do with students that explain science terms and lessons such as science biology of animals, weather, and volcanoes. There are many more lessons available to teachers on this website as well. There is also a way to find certain standards for science that teachers need to meet, which is nice to have so that they can teach the appropriate material. The content on this website is a helpful and fun way for teachers to teach.  Design:The design of this website is pretty simple to navigate through. There are tabs on the top to click on to lead to the other pages. There are quite a few advertisements on this page for different businesses. The color scheme is pretty simple just white and some greens and blues. There are no obnoxious links all over the page or spelling errors either. The design of this website is professional and accurate. 

Overview: This website is intended for students and teachers to practice their math skills. It offers free math games for students from grades kindergarten to seventh grade to help them learn and practice their math skills. This math site has tons of high quality interactive activities, ranging from basic skills like shapes, numbers, adding and subtracting to advanced skills like rounding, fractions, multiplying and dividing. I think that teachers would find this website useful for their students to use in or out of the classroom to form a better understanding of simple math. My overall impression of this site is that it is a fun and educational way for students and teachers to learn more about math. Content: The main purpose of this website is to provide a place for students to practice their math skills by playing games and activities. When first coming across this site, I found that it was difficult to see who the intended audience was, but after further observation I found that the site was full of math activities for students. The content of this website is well organized into different categories of math and provides directions on how to play each game. The site also offers an overview on the subject selected that one can view before or after the game they play. From going through this site I found that the external links that are provided are not for math but instead for other basic school subjects, which may be helpful. All in all, children would benefit the most from this website because of its fun and easy way to learn math. Design: The graphic design of this webpage was not as attractive as it could have been. I found that the way information was presented may not be the most appealing to young children and at times was hard to navigate. The graphics were appropriate for the site and the games were presented in a way that children could easily understand. This website is defiantly a fun way to teach math to younger children.

2-5-12 Overview This website is an interactive learning website for everyone. The goal was to make learning fun as well as memorable and to provide an opportunity to learn and improve for everyone. This website has sections designed by subject as well as age. There are sections for preschool/kindergarten, elementary, middle/ high school, college, test prep and adults. There is something for everyone in this site with varied levels of difficulty. The site provides games, interactive reading pages, facts, quizzes and brain teasers. Overall I feel that this site is wonderful and I would use it in my classroom and suggest it to others. Content There is an unbelievable amount of information on this website. It is mainly based for elementary and is separated into subjects; USA, world, vocabulary, health, science, math, history and animals. The site also can be organized by age level. This makes it easy to find an activity based on interest. There really is something for everyone, from preschool games to chemistry quizzes to games for adults. There are also facts of the day in each subject. The hidden animals is great for learning about adaptations and the way animals camouflage themselves and survive in a fun, interactive way. The site can be considered a business since you can purchase software and materials from an online store. However, mostly it is a free interactive website that provides something for everyone. Design I am slightly disappointed in the design of the website. It does not give a revision date even though the information all seems accurate. I am also disappointed in the links. If you open the site from Diigo, the links to pages other than Hidden Animal Games do not work. However, if you open a web browser and put in Sheppard Software, the whole site works perfectly. Even though I am disappointed in these flaws, I really like the way the site is organized. It is colorful and appealing but more importantly it is extre

Lauren Peterson 10-21-13 http://www.abcya.com/kindergarten_computers.htm Overview: This website provides games and apps that can be used as educational activities to further a kindergarteners understanding of letters, numbers, and more in an enjoyable and interactive way. Content: As mentioned previously, this website contains various links to games and apps that make use of incorporating letters, numbers, and more; introducing these areas of content to the young kindergartener students. Examples of a few of these games are "Alphabet Bingo" and "Birthday Candle Counting". Design: When considering the design of the website, it can be said that it is fitting for its audience. The website is full of bright color and graphics of fun activities do! The links and activities work successfully with the exception of Adobe Software being needed. If the computers or internet source did not have access to Adobe Software, this website would be of little use to the teacher and students.

On math playground there are a variety of different math ideas and concept that students can practice through online math games. This website includes games for students from kindergarten through seventh grade as well as topics like algebra, geometry, and precalculus. The website is designed very well and looks welcoming when you log on. There are pictures of some of the different games offered by the site that look fun and can draw attention to students using the site. One strength from the website is that it covers a vast majority of mathematical skills that are taught and practiced throughout elementary school. Although a weakness this site has is that they group different mathematical ideas together by grade, when even though we like to think that every fourth grader across the country are learning the same concepts, the likelihood of that being true is very low.

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