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Hannah Streeter 2/1/2010 Overview- This website had great potential. Unfortunately, it falls short in my opinion. It's a spelling game, but its content is weak, and It doesn't do a lot to help improve or correct. Content- You open the website and come to an explanation page for the game, which honestly would be hard for anyone but a teacher to read if they were there to use the website. Once you start the game, there are five categories to choose from. when you open the topic, there are a bunch of pictures and a wheel of letters. you pick a word and try to spell it. If you get it right, they congratulate you, and you move on. If you get it wrong, the website only tells you you got it wrong. It doesn't do anything to correct you, or help you learn. I see this as a MASSIVE flaw. Design- There isn't much going on on the website. It is very simple. The pictures are clip art animation. I like the fact that the word is spoken, as well as the letters as you pick them. The letter wheel does this spin thing that seems cool but takes forever to load the letter you pick or find letters, due to the fact that it stops at the arrow, then doesn't reset so A is at the top, which is frustrating to me as an adult. There are no links to anything else, except the "contact us" button. So its kind of a cool idea, but it could definitely be instituted better.

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!! 

Jessica Chandler January 24th, 2011 *Overview: This site is called Starfall. This website was designed to help students read. There are different categories to choose from such as ABCs, Learn to Read, It's Fun to Read, and I'm Reading. Each category has great contents once the recommended link is chosen. ABCs read the letter aloud that is chosen and shows word in which make the correct sound. Learn to Read contains different easy reads on line for the kids to read. It's fun to Read contains different types of reading such as tongue twisters, poetry, music, and etc. I'm Reading brings up a selection of books to read. This allows the students to choose what book sounds the best. If the child doesn't know a word, clicking on the word will read it out loud. There are many useful things to get out of this website for elementary and preschool kids, and for the teachers of that certain level. *Content: The content is very clear and prepared. It is easy for children to understand the concept of this website. It is easy to access everything to learn about reading. A child could participate in this designed website alone or with the parents. It has great content and is very beneficial for the younger students who cannot read. This website also makes reading fun! *Design: This website is fantastic! It helps the students love to read and demonstrates different patterns and the alphabet to the children. It is very colorful, but only the links are. Therefore, the content isn't hard to read. It is easy to find what you are looking for, and the site Is not overloaded with a bunch of information. It is quite eye catching and would be an excellent website for kids trying to learn how to read!

Whitney Reese Reviewed: 2/4/12 www.starfall.com Overview: The purpose of this website is to teach children to read with phonics. The intended audience for this website is children ranging from the prek grade levels to second grade. It includes many resources such as the letters of the alphabet and their sounds, tools to learn colors and numbers, short tales for beginner readers, several word and reading games, reading materials for more advanced readers including comics and plays, and many interactive educational games. It also has its own unique curriculum for teaching children to read. My overall impression of this site was very good. It was really easy to navigate and loaded quickly. It is very colorful and kid friendly. It also has great content for learning to read. Content: The content of this site is very clear and concise. It is organized in an orderly fashion, which makes finding where you want to go easy. The authors of this site are identified and are credible. The content of this site seems very up to date and serves as a great resource for teaching children phonics. The quality of information provided is very good and every aspect of the site seems to work properly.  Design: The design of this site is very attractive using bright colors and animated graphics. The homepage is set up easily so that kids are able to navigate but has links that adults can use to obtain site information as well. All multimedia aspects serve a clear purpose. Kids would love the design of this site. 

A free website to teach children to read with phonics. For preschool, kindergarten, and first grade. Exciting phonics games and online interactive books.

Jacqueline Twiford Web Site Review September 20, 2009 http://www.abcya.com/first_grade_computers.htm This first grade website allows you to incorporate technology with your students by allowing them to do activities for learning. This webpage has activities for grade levels K-8 which is helpful for bringing technology to all grade levels. On this site it allows students to navigate the web with voice instruction, and has large navigation buttons for easy understanding. CONTENT On the "ABCya" website it allows students in the first grade to play interactive computer games to learn concepts such as the alphabet, drawing, lowercase and uppercase letter matching as well as mouse exploitation. This site has a list of activities that students can use in helping them learn some of the essential concepts they will need to know. DESIGN The design of "ABCya" is a very colorful and organized webpage. Having a large display for navigation buttons and voice instructions makes introducing technology to your young student very easy. The design of this game site is very easy to use and explains in voice as you go. The webpage's load very quickly and easily. Also, if there is something you do not understand, all you have to do is click on the icon for a description of what the icons meaning is. "ABCya" has a design that will allow you to use it in a short class period without having to run from student to student helping. This design is like having an assistant with each student explaining how to operate it. Wonderful for the introduction to technology in the classroom, without the time frame fear (not having enough time) that most teachers have with using technology in the classroom.

Whitney Lindt Purpose: I think that the purpose of this website is to provide parents and teachers a safe website to send their children to. There is so much that one has to worry about on the internet these days it is nice to know that there are safe websites for the younger children out there that they can learn from. Overview: I think that this site would be great for teachers and parents of young students to use. It seems that more often than not students are learning with technology and they think it is fun and it keeps their attention and this website is great for that too because it is so visually attractive. The main focus of this sight is numbers and the alphabet which is perfect for 1st graders because that is the main focus in the classroom. And this website provides links which would help the students not only learn the material but practice what they are being taught. Content: The content of this site is perfect for what 1st graders will be learning in school. As a teacher I would even recommend this website to the parents of my students so that they knew their children were going to safe websites. There are storybooks on this website which would just be fun for the students to go to or for teachers to use in the different subjects they are teaching if they can apply it. Also there are links that can have the students work with spelling and the alphabet and also numbers. This website might also work for younger students than 1st graders because there are some really easy ways of learning numbers and letters on this site. Design: This website is wonderful because as soon as it opens it would have the attention of 1st graders in school and it would keep them attracted to the website. This website is really easy to read even though it has a lot of colors. It is also easy to navigate instead of just a table of contents the different areas and links of the websites are split into different boxes with pictures on them so it makes it easy for a little kid to

Wonderful website for first grade learning games. There are games for letters and numbers

Jared Mohr-Leiva October 13, 2014 Sometimes, planning for class gets difficult, even for "easy" classes like English. Thankfully, there are resources for that. "Tes.co.uk" has a page chock full of them. However, since it is a U.K. site, they are not by grade, but by age (11-14, 14-16, and 16+). Regardless, that allows a pretty close estimate (within a year) of which grades correspond to which age group. The category list includes a large array of sub-subjects in English. These include Drama, non-fiction, Prose, and Writing. These are front and center on the page and vary depending on which age group the reader is teaching. Clicking on any of these subjects will open a new page filled with worksheets, activities, and PowerPoints. For example, clicking on "Drama" will bring up "8 Minute Madness - Creative starter activities" and "Romeo & Juliet: Powerpoint Synopsis," just to name a couple. Tes.co.uk is very blue-oriented, as well. The age-group category box is a deep, bold blue, front and center on the first page. Categories are bold and easy to find. The "sub-subject" pages are displayed as a list, again using large, bold letters. There is also a sidebar allowing the reader to narrow their search by sub-topic, type, format, or event. There are also categories at the very bottom to specify whether it is a special needs course or is applicable to the entire school. "Newest" and "Recently recommended" appear at the top of the screen alongside the number of results.

Jared Mohr-Leiva October 13, 2014 Sometimes, planning for class gets difficult, even for "easy" classes like English. Thankfully, there are resources for that. "Tes.co.uk" has a page chock full of them. However, since it is a U.K. site, they are not by grade, but by age (11-14, 14-16, and 16+). Regardless, that allows a pretty close estimate (within a year) of which grades correspond to which age group. The category list includes a large array of sub-subjects in English. These include Drama, non-fiction, Prose, and Writing. These are front and center on the page and vary depending on which age group the reader is teaching. Clicking on any of these subjects will open a new page filled with worksheets, activities, and PowerPoints. For example, clicking on "Drama" will bring up "8 Minute Madness - Creative starter activities" and "Romeo & Juliet: Powerpoint Synopsis," just to name a couple. Tes.co.uk is very blue-oriented, as well. The age-group category box is a deep, bold blue, front and center on the first page. Categories are bold and easy to find. The "sub-subject" pages are displayed as a list, again using large, bold letters. There is also a sidebar allowing the reader to narrow their search by sub-topic, type, format, or event. There are also categories at the very bottom to specify whether it is a special needs course or is applicable to the entire school. "Newest" and "Recently recommended" appear at the top of the screen alongside the number of results. 

Michelle Hill February 24, 2012 Overview: The purpose of this website is to serve as a resource for instruction for 1st grade internet activities. Therefore, the intended audience is teachers 1st graders and 1st grade teachers. Available on this website are English activities online involving skills such as story listening, letter recognition, literacy activities sight words, and sentence structure and grammar. Also included are Math activities such as number recognition, patterns/shapes, counting, adding/subtracting and much more! There is also unit themes available for teachers of all kinds. Content: The content of the website was rated as very useful for my information needs based on the fact that the total number of "yes" answers outnumbered the "no" answers. Some strengths of this website include the first look, how it was easy to determine the basic content of the site, the information quality, and the further information. The content of the site was well organized and easy to understand. Some weaknesses of this website are that information of the authors is not available, therefore I do not know if the authors are qualified to present information on the topic. Other weaknesses include that the content was not updated frequently, the last time being August 2007 and the fact that one link to another site was not working properly. Overall, there was an abundance of good content that will prove to be useful in 1st grade classrooms. 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 downloaded efficiently and the website was speedy, which was a good start to the design. Some strengths of the website include that it was well organized, the copyright date was easy to determine, the site is easy to move around, and the content was presented clearly. Some weaknesses include that there were no directions

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.

Interactive site for math, vocab, memory, and geography and puzzles.

Ryan Pinkston January 22, 2011 1) Overview- This is a web site that parents and kids can use to learn basic skills while having fun. This goal is to provide a safe place to learn computer skills, math skills, reading skills and problem solving skills in a context that is fun to use. 2) Content Credibility- It is easy to determine the basic content and intended audience. The author was not clearly identified however, the contact information was readily available and easy to locate. The latest revision date was not given and it's not stated how frequently the page is updated. The purpose of the site is effective for the intended use and is well organized with information that is easy to understand. 3) Design Evaluation- The page downloads efficiently and it is somewhat attractive and appears to have strong eye appeal to children. There is an index, the information for contacting the provider is available, and the copyright date is at the bottom of the page. The same basic format is used throughout the whole site, the information is easy to find, and everything is clearly labeled. 4) This is a site that I would use. It has a variety of games for children to use to learn about math and English or science.

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

Lacey Glenn September 6, 2011 Overview: I found this site through my diigo.com community library. I did not like this site. The home page is overwhelming and ads pop up and inhibit you from looking for what you want to. I wouldn't recommend this site to anyone. Content: This site gives a specific book, song, or story that they think would be helpful in teaching children. Some of the information might be reliable, but it's not a source that I would count on. Design: The site home page is very overwhelming. There are many different colors all combined together and some of the words and letters are flashing. The layout is horizontal and spread out, but it's too much to look at. I wasn't fond of this site.

Overview: This website is a good website for teachers who need fun and creative ideas for many different activities and lesson for Preschoolers and Kindergarteners. The last time this webpage was updated was in 2010, this is fairly recent, since that is within the last year. There are a variety of activities, games, quizzes, and many printouts. The intended audience is teachers who are looking for ideas. I love this website. It was easy to navigate and gave me a ton of great ideas and printouts I can use. Content: This website is full of links, all of which work, that lead to many different types of content from letters and numbers to animals to coloring pages. Within each of these sub-headings there are many activities and ideas to use for the children in your class. Each section and sub-sections are clearly defined and have pictures that correspond. The last update was last year, this seems to be a while ago, but since material for pre-k does not change drastically in a year, it is still up to date. There is not any information on the author, so that is lacking, but overall the content on this website is up to date and easy to access. Design: The design of this website has all links well defined and organized. There are pictures that also correspond to all of the links and headings. There is easy navigation throughout the whole website and everything is easy to access. Everything is up to date. There are a few varieties of media, mostly in the form of words and images. There is a copyright, also with a description as to how the website can be used for educational purposes.

Adrianne Lauman September 02, 2011 Overview The purpose of this free website is to provide knowledge and awareness of North American bird species and their habitat. The site encourages people to make connections to science and nature through bird watching. The information is directed toward people of all ages who have an interest or curiosity to learn more regarding ornithology. Video clips, audio clips, colorful photos, range maps and life histories are available for investigating bird species. The site provides expert knowledge on the subject of birds in a clear and visually pleasing manner. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology developed this website and the National Science Foundation supports it. Content The site appears well organized with a visible heading to initiate a search for information on bird species. The search feature has an automatic fill in based on the first letters typed to allow the user to locate the bird of interest. Interactive selections allow a person to listen to bird sounds, as well as watch video footage of the bird. The site provides opportunities to "ask an expert" about topics concerning ornithology and information on how to participate in bird projects. One project named Feeder Watch allows people to send in their own data based on their bird watching experiences. Design The website has clear headings to locate topics and information. The copyright information and developer of the site are displayed at the bottom of each page. The photos of the birds are eye-catching and appealing. The information provided by the site is abundant and well worth viewing.

Hailey Dungan April 15, 2015 The intended audience of this article is the critical readers of Shakespeare, individuals who are skeptical that Shakespeare even existed. The purpose of the piece is to highlight the possibility of his nonexistence. It works to disprove this theory, and proposes instead a multitude of flaws in Shakespeare's career. The article was written in 2014 by Robert Gore-Langton. There has been no updates to the piece as of recently. The site itself is clean, Newsweek being a reputable source provides us with a link that brings us to other articles written by the author. This is just one of the links which make this site easy to use and well designed. I am hesitant to use this site as one that is educational. The article provides food for thought and would be an interesting debate topic to approach in an educational setting. The basic content of this site is stated in the name. Newsweek works to inform individuals of the news as well as other information. The audience is adults, or individuals interested in the daily events of the world. The author of this article is stated from the main page. Though there is little information about the author, there is a link which sends you to a page with a collection of his other writings. There is no indicator that this article has been recently updated but the content is clear. The site is informative, tagging subjects to expand your reading experience. Again, I would use this in class to guide discussion, but would not rely solely on this piece. The website is designed well. It provides you with search options in case one were to look for additional information. It is eye catching, the big red letters of Newsweek drawing you in. The links are in working order, and they are well organized. There is no date for the sites last revision, and there may be some out of date information present as the site is a collection of news and information. However I would say that this site is well designed, it

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

Jennifer Durn January 24, 2010 Purdue Online Writing Lab - http://owl.english.purdue.edu/ OVERVIEW The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) is a site designed to provide online writing resources for writers of all ages; from middle school through college and into adulthood. This site provides a variety of writing resources ranging from assistance with APA and MLA formatting, to tips for avoiding plagiarism and resume assistance. Overall, I found the site to be particularly user friendly and have utilized it when completing assignments in past courses. CONTENT The purpose and function of the Purdue OWL site is readily identifiable when the home page is accessed. Sources and authors are listed clearly and the content of the website is current and up-to-date. Resources are also available which highlight recent updates to the site and provide navigational tips for accessing information quickly and easily. Information presented in each section is relevant and easy to select what is important for the particular writing project. DESIGN Using Mozilla Firefox, I did not have any issues with navigating the Purdue OWL site. Recent updates and upgrades to the website have improved the visual appeal. Multimedia resources are not available on the site but given the subject matter, this is not surprising. One area where this site could use additional work is the lack of links to other websites outside of Purdue University's English Department.

Stetson Fancher Reviewed Aug. 31, 2010 Purpose The purpose of the Purdue Online Writing Lab is to help give information and references towards writing documents for school related projects. It is there to educate Purdue students and others about all kinds of references and sources to help make the writing process easier. They have everything from avoiding plagiarism and APA formatting style guide to exercises that might help you with your writing. This site is a great site to use for students as young as junior high, up on through graduate school. It does a great job of making difficult information accessible. Content This site has a full arsenal of information that it has to offer writers with many different kinds of goals. It also does a great job of organizing the information so that it is easily accessible to those who need it. It also keeps the references us up to date as possible. It keeps the most current style guides and even frequently produces podcasts to those who subscribe. It does not always show all of its references on the home page, but as you dig into information, then it becomes more available. The content that this site provides is one that can be applicable for many different writers.

Adam Matson 9-14-2011 Website Evaluations: 1) http://owl.english.purdue.edu/ - Purdue Online Writing Lab Overview- This site is intended for the use by students (grades 7-12+) and teachers alike in regards to English writing styles, citations, etc. The site is developed by Purdue University and even allows students to turn written works in to be reviewed by university students and teachers to help correct and guide the writing process. It has a very complete overview of how to write well-rounded essays, letters, etc. and is easy to read and navigate. It covers areas such as MLA and APA formats along with how to cite sources both in-text and bibliographical forms. I would recommend it for anyone who has a question about a writing assignment. Content- The content of this site is extraordinarily helpful and easy to navigate. From the homepage you can easily discern that the main focus is education in English writing. All areas are labeled clearly and cover many sides of whatever subject you are on. It explains clearly every aspect, such as citing sources, and shows many examples, reviewing almost all instances the writer might run in to. Design- The design is fairly basic, as many educational sites are. It is not very interactive (meaning videos, sounds, games, etc.), but it very easy to navigate. Tabs and links are obvious and lead to such places as Contact Information. Links to other parts of the site are always colored differently and easy to discern. All links are easy to read and very specific, letting the user narrow down their intended search quickly and efficiently.

An online text book for teachers

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.