Group items tagged

Content: This site is a monster. I was looking for a site to explain landmark cases in the Supreme Court. What I found is a site that not only explains but also gives political reactions and the aftermath of the decision. For instance, I clicked on Marbury v. Madison. This is the case that allowed Judicial Review. The site divides the case in two sections Resources and Activities. In the Resources section you can read about the case etc. The Activities students can read logistical information about the case for further understanding. Design: The design is geared to educate. The visual make you think of the Constitution a crinkly brown. I like how the homepage lists the cases on the left side and concepts that came from some of those cases on the right. When you click on a case there is a wealth of information that can further understanding of a case. Many of these cases are a little complicated and I feel that this site can tie up loose ends. It is even geared toward high schools, the sub title reads "one-stop shopping for activities related to key Supreme Court cases and concepts as mandated by State standards. Overview: This site is put on by the Supreme Court Historical Society, meaning it is rather legitimate. I would love to use this site in an activity for class. The site is rather bland but I believe that students would love to be directed to find info and be able to present that info to the class. I could even make them use technology in their presentation. This site is not a baby sitter in the least it is a way for students to use technology and not listen to a boring lecture.

Overview: This article is written by Dr. Michael Morales. He goes over the themes of Shakespeare's "King Lear," and effectively summarizes the play. The blog is updated, and uses current language to describe an old piece of text. This article would be intended for students of High School age. Content: The article is very descriptive with the summary of the play. He is also descriptive with the themes, and cites examples of all of his claims. The information is accurate to the plotline, and the language is correct and meaningful. Design: The website is pleasing to the eye, and has many links to different articles. All of the links work, and it is very community-based. It is scholarly without ads and all information.

Overview: This article is written by Dr. Michael Morales. He goes over the themes of Shakespeare's "King Lear," and effectively summarizes the play. The blog is updated, and uses current language to describe an old piece of text. This article would be intended for students of High School age. Content: The article is very descriptive with the summary of the play. He is also descriptive with the themes, and cites examples of all of his claims. The information is accurate to the plotline, and the language is correct and meaningful. Design: The website is pleasing to the eye, and has many links to different articles. All of the links work, and it is very community-based. It is scholarly without ads and all information.

Kacy BaileyDate reviewed: October 8th, 2012All Weather, all the time web questContent: The content of this website was very helpful, and useful for teachers. It was clear that the content was meant for 2nd grade students trying to learn more about precipitation. It is clear who the author is. Even though it is not clear who the sponsor is, I do not believe that there actually is a sponsor. The website is providing second graders with information that is required to learn. It also has a teachers page making it easy for teachers to have their students complete a web quest like this one.  Design: The design of this web quest makes it stand out from a regular website, but it is not super interesting to look at. I do think that it will get most kids' attention though It could use some more designing. This website is also very easy to navigate. Each link is up to date and useful. The homepage clearly states everything that is needed (title, author, what the website is about, etc.) The only downside to the design of this website is that it may be kind of difficult for second graders to navigate. This is kind of hard to assume though due to the fact that children become more technological every day.  Overall: Overall this website is another great web quest to use for students. Instead of learning on the usual white board and projector, this gives students a more hands on way of learning. And of course students love using technology so a web quest is always a good idea to get them working with it. The website had great information for students to learn, and many links to look up the things that the website may have missed. Overall the website seemed to be a great teaching tool. 

9 tips when creating videos for classroom use / teacher created teaching videos

Charlene Asay: 1/23/2010 Overview: One more story is a great site for beginning readers. This site will read a book to you in English, Spanish, or Chinese. You can either have the site read a book to you or if you are learning to read you can read the book yourself. This site is a great way to learn about different great children's books, and to get children excited about reading. Content: This site could be a great tool to either entertain children, or to have them practice on their reading. And they could find books that they enjoy, and as their parent of teacher you could purchase those books. This site is a learning and profited site for the maker. There aren't a lot of different links to click on to distract others from the purpose of the site. Design: This site is pretty well done for the purpose the maker wanted it to do. I think that this site is made for advertisement of different children's books. If a child can read the book, or hears the site read the book to them they could fall in love with it and want to buy the book. This site doesn't however have a copyright date or who published the site. This could be a scam of a site. But all the links seem to work fine.

Kacee Von Krosigk 1-24-10 Content Web English Teacher is a way for teachers to learn new ideas to incorporate into the classroom. The viewers can follow this website on facebook.com or twitter.com. I believe this is a way to get teachers to discuss ideas for the classroom. Sharing ideas is a great way to use new and fun activities and projects in the classroom. There are also book report ideas, children's literature, mythology, poetry, speech, vocabulary, writing, and many other categories to choose from. Design The website doesn't seem to be very well made. There are a lot pop ups which become very off-putting and bothersome after awhile. There is a column on the left side which allows easy navigation from page to page. There is a Google Search on the bottom of the page. It is very distracting seeing all of the other ads. I wish this website would have a place where teachers or students could write other ideas to use in the classroom. There seems to be a lack of communication among anyone when there is definitely a need for it. Overview This website has a lot of creative writing prompts that I would love to use in my classroom. I think many teachers would be happy with this website because it has creative and new ideas for many different teachers and subjects. The content is easy to understand but it seems as if the page hasn't been undated in quite a while.

Whitney Mills; Website Reviewed: January 24th 2010 Overview: Songsforteaching.com is a website that uses songs to help teach students. It seems as if it'd be very helpful in the classroom because younger age children love to learn through songs!! Content: There are many different aspects on this website that include singing songs in different languages, singing for different holidays, different ages, different subjects, and even for special education students!!! The purpose of the website is clearly defined, and that purpose is to teach through music. The site offers thousands of songs, clips, etc. The links to the other sites work properly and effectively. The grammar and spelling are correct throughout the whole site and the overall content is very well done. I would definitely use this site in my future classroom. The author is stated clearly and it is updated often. Design: The design is very organized. The theme is the same throughout the whole site and it is very easy to follow. The graphics are very well suited to the site. The homepage has strong eye appeal and makes a person want to find out more about the site. I think this is one of the more professional sites I have looked at throughout all the sites I have looked at to review.

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.

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.

Overview: Science for Kids is a website that covers a wide variety of subjects that relate to Earth Science; everything from weather and climate to things that deal with soil and water. This website gears towards agriculture research for kids as well and investigates topics about air, animals, minerals, and what is in the air that we breathe. Content: This website contains a lot of information regarding science that is applicable to anyone that is interested in Agriculture. On the homepage you are able to navigate to other links that allow you to travel to links that offer information regarding topics that are in the spotlight and also offers links to science projects and information for teachers to access. I also find it very cool that one of the websites main links offers you to cool Science careers. Design: I find this website to be very interesting and filled with information that children would love. The interactive home screen allows users to be part of its experience; there are sounds as well as animated images that capture your attention. I can see myself using this website in my classroom because it offers daily information that seems interesting to a young audience I definitely see myself as this being a great website for my future students to use in my classroom. The information is relevant and very well organized and the user interface was very easy to use; perfect for kids. Plus it was filled with information that anyone can learn.

Overview This site is designed for teachers, students, and parents. It really helps them really get to know the school's expectations and resources and really be able to know what's going on with the student at school. It has great lesson plans for grade levels first through fifth grade. This site also has great resources for kids to find information in the library. It also shows different projects for each grade level in different subjects. Their goal for this site is "to encourage students and teachers to use their creativity and support their ideas and curriculum." This site really wants students, teachers, and parents to work together. Content The content on this site is well put together. It is easy for elementary kids to access this as well as their parents. The site includes helpful links to other websites for kids to learn more about literacy. There is no revision date on the site, but this site does include a detailed description of the site and the school as well as a address and phone for contacting. One of the best parts on the website would be the library section. It has great information for kids to search through different topics on sites and obtain information from those sites as well. Design This site is great for what it does for the school. The library section of the site is well organized in all the information it provides. Everything is labeled and has brief sentences describing what the student will learn while they are reading. It includes great pictures, animations, videos, and games for the student. It provides all of the things that a website can possible provide to help the kids learn to love literacy at their school. This site is overall a great website as it gets the parents involved with their students and their school. It gets the student involved to read more, and teachers to improve on their students' literacy skills.

Love this site! Simple... go on, pick a song or a genre of music that you like, put it in... then, boom! So much music that you like just coming up one after another. It is just such a great way to really listen to music you like and learn about other artist sound like some of your favorites. It is free too! After awhile, it may ask you to enter your e-mail and some information, but hassle free... and free!

Several interactive puzzles of states and countries throughout the world.

Monique Koller Jan. 24 2010 This is a site that is helpful when trying to learn maps and geography! Content: The content is very good. There's a list of places you can do. You are given a map and you fill it in. The maps seem pretty accurate. The maps can get harder so that you can make sure you are learning. Design: The site isn't overly interesting or colorful however it is easy to navigate and use! The maps are well done and they load quickly! I think periodically they make a new map of an area. I can now learn more about China. Overview: The purpose of this site is to teach anyone the locations and capitols of different parts of the world. The maps have different difficulty levels making you learn the locations better. I think this site has a lot of benefits and I would love to use this site more for my own knowledge. I like that the maps time you so you know how well you know them by the speed you finish.

Lorena Garcia Web resource Evaluation 10/13/14 The second site that I evaluate was Inside Brue Crew Life, it is about Healthy Food wwwinsidebruecrewlife.com . The purpose of this site is to offer advise and making healthy food for the entire family. Although intended audience is housewives, anybody who wants to eat healthy could enjoy this website. Something that this page got my attention was the bright colors and the used of family pictures. I enjoyed the website. However, I felt it had too many advertisements. It is supper easy to determine the content of this page. The first thing you see is a food dish. it was also easy to determine audience of this site because of the introduction end the pictures of the author and the author's family with a big smile. The author has all her information available for the audience to contact her and share recipes. The content of this page meets its intended purpose. It provides great recipes, which I feel kids would love to eat even though they are healthy foods. The pages color scheme and pictures are very attractive. They gain a web browsers attention. The recipe index is great to quickly choose breakfast,, dinner, and, my favorite, dessert. I was able to navigate easily through different links in the page, as well as other recipe pages. The advertisements, however, distracted a little from the main reason for visiting the page, finding healthy recipes. I would also recommend this page to anyone who likes to eat tasty food.

A resource from the Academy of American Poets with thousands of poems, essays, biographies, weekly features, and poems for love and every occasion

Audience: Parents, but the information could also be useful for a teacher or counselor intending to provide advice or support for parents with anxious children. Overview: The purpose of this website was to explain how and why young children feel anxious, and ways in which parents or loved ones can help calm the anxious child's nerves, and the purpose is served very well. The webpage talking about specifically about school stress in young children provides multiple links and subpages that relate to management of and living with an anxiety disorder, how to recognize it is symptoms and what it looks like in both children and adults, support and resources that families could use to properly live with the disorder, and other related articles on various disorders and mental illnesses. This website is very impressive and I intended to use it for future use in the classroom. Content: This particular website provides multiple pages related to the topic of school anxiety rather than one half of one full page of information! The only thing that was not provided on this webpage was contact information. Revision and copyright dates are available, but the last revision date was in 2007… It was not very long ago, but I feel as though this information should have been looked at recently and updated with new studies that might have been found. The website states clearly that it is a medical related site with professional medical information. Overall, the given information is very well laid out and very professionally written. I am very, very impressed. Design: This website is very appealing to the eye given the amount of pictures and use of color coordination. The amount of pictures gives it just enough appeal without looking like it is too much or overbearing. Information is clearly given and easy to find, navigation is not hard to do, links seem to work properly, as the same format is followed throughout the website.

Audience: Parents, but with the provided information, it can easily be translated into advice for teachers, guardians or loved ones of a student. Overview: The purpose of this website is to provide parents with information about how to work with and help children who have anxiety disorders relating to school. Available resources that have been provided on this page include information on how to prepare a special needs child for school, how to help relieve a child's anxiety or depression, and ways to help a special needs child with homework. Though there were some minor visual and content flaws about the site, it does give good advice and is worth revisiting when needed. Content: This page mainly provided different approaches for parents to take and numerous tips to follow when dealing with their anxious child, but those tips and approaches can be very useful to parents and the main point of each tip is given immediately. Intended purpose was clear and in bold print. There's no wondering and translating what each tip "could have" meant or what it "was trying to say". The only thing that the website didn't provide was the last revision date. The website also provided additional videos, but they were not directly related to school anxiety---under the "Related Video" section, there were videos on ways to relieve breastfeeding problems, relieve separation and anxiety, and what as 504 Plan was. Though there are available articles given to further advance a viewer's knowledge on ways to help children with anxiety, or "special needs", the "Related Videos" (except for the breastfeeding problems one!!!) does mention other related anxieties and provides a useful way to help an anxious child succeed and feel comfortable in school (aka the 504 plan). This website is definitely one that is worth revisiting just because it does provide useful tips and points to help viewers learn about how to help an anxious child, without any word confusion.

Laura Rice 2/5/12 Overview: The purpose of this site is to provide knowledge and promote international art programs. The websites intended audience is for adults hoping to encourage people to seek the arts. I would also have to say this website is more beneficial to those that live in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. They provide information about dance, festivals, film, galleries, gardens, history, libraries, media, museums, music, parks, and theaters. It also provides maps of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. These maps provide access to arts all around the cities. There are also a number of art lesson plans for all ages of students. This website is a great resource for information about different art programs. It is well organized making it useful for anyone that accesses it. Content: This website provides information about different organizations throughout cites. A list of things to do provides information about activities taking place in the cities such as dance, festivals, film, galleries, gardens, history, libraries, media, museums, music, parks, and theaters. The next set of links shows maps of the cities with arrows to the art locations. A calendar outlines all art activities taking place in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. It also provides great resources for parents, teachers, and seniors. For the parents the website has many links that their kids would love to attend such as children museums, music programs, and plays. Teachers are provided with activities their kids may enjoy as well. In the organization section there are links to different types of art organizations. There is also an area that allows people to get involved whether to donate money or volunteer their help. At the bottom of the page there's information about the programs, ways to reach some one for more knowledge, and the legal rights of the website. Design: The website is well organized and h

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