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Meghan Snell September 11, 2011 Overview: This website is a great site for teachers and students. The website offers many different things such as printable worksheets, interactive games, study tools, stories and more. For someone who is looking for math related work, it offers all kinds of different assignments and tutorials that can be very helpful. It's very simple to use. Everything is just within a few clicks and there is no extra downloading necessary. Content: Everything onthis site seems reliable and easy to use. There is a header at the top that seperates everything into age groups and subjects. There are also tabs that take you to information about the authors of the site as well as how to get a hold of them. The site is updated weekly which keeps all of the information from being outdated. All of the content on the site is easy to get to and hassle free. It is an educationl website mainly for teachers as well as kids. I believe most people using this site would find it quite helpful. Design: The design of the website is done very well. It downloads efficiently and everything is clearly labeled and all the links seem to work very well. There is plenty of information that makes the site worth visiting and it is attractive to all of its audience. The graphics aren't too out of hand or overwhelming either.

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

K-5 Math Teaching Resources is a website for elementary teachers that provides example activities that are aligned with Common Core State Standards.  It is easy to determine the content of the site because of the navigation bar one the side of the page. Within this bar there are options to browse specific content areas, as well as the intended audience (grade level).  After you choose the content area you're interesting in planning a lesson for there are links that take you to site that provide information based on that content. The links with possible activities also provide you with information of which common core state standard the activity correlates with.  Another thing that I really liked about this website is that it gives you examples of outside resources you can use (titles of books, pattern block, etc.) that you can use to keep your students physically engaged in the activity and learning. No ads are present on this website, and all of the links provided work. There are also some resources that teachers can use for their school to incorporate special days for the students, like 100th day and states day, which keep the students engaged on special days of school.  This site is very easy to search through.  They also provide you with a link that states the terms of use at the bottom of the website page. It also clearly identifies that it was first published in 2010 and updated up through 2015, and is published through the K-5 Teaching Resources LLC.

Emily E. Krabbenhoft January 22, 2011 Overview: This website has a lot of fun activities and simulations for students to use to further their knowledge about several science concepts. For example, one particular simulation called Weather allows students to learn about weather patterns by reporting the current weather and also predicting future weather in different areas around the nation. Content: Several different simulations allow the students to have fun and learn a great deal in an interactive way. The site is sponsored by The Ohio State University Medical Center and also National Center for Regenerative Medicine. The site only provides simulations to be used for science like simple machines, the weather, and some extensive medical concepts. Design: This website uses bright colors and is very attractive to the eye. Each simulation takes a couple of seconds to load but once loaded are very smooth during the use of the simulation. 

Bridget Stein 9/14/11 Overview: This website is extremely helpful for ESL students looking to learn English in a fun and easy way. There are games on grammar, vocabulary, reading, and much more. There is also the option to play these games on an iPad or iPhone if you have one. Content: On this site, within each link you click, you find even more information and activities available to you for your free use. There are so many different options that are all fun and interactive ways to learn English. There are crossword puzzles, sentence patterns, jokes, songs, and quizzes. Design: The design of this site is put together very well, because it isn't overwhelming when you first get on the site, but there still is plenty of useful information. It is clear to see where things are and what the use is.

The value of studying genetics is in understanding how we can predict the likelihood of inheriting particular traits. This can help plant and animal breeders in developing varieties that have more desirable qualities. It can also help people explain and predict patterns of inheritance in family lines.

Sean Wilde January 2011 http://epa.gov/climatechange/kids/index.html Content This site you can pretty quickly tell what its all about. And could tell that its audience was for kids. But it lacked personal authors and contact to the others. You can tell that is sponsored by the EPA to help kids become aware of the climate change around them. But it must of not been a big hit. The content if fairly accurate and the latest revision was almost three years ago. The site is well organized and the information has scientific back up so it is not biased. Most links worked to other sites but this site does need an overhaul to get back to be working. Design The site seems to be a little slow, and its slightly attractive but one becomes bored with the patterns it has throughout the site. It is fairly easy to navigate but it has become a dull website, probably because it just was not worth the difficulties it caused. All graphics seemed to work well but were at times slow, for a kid wanting to get quick easy information for a elementary research paper this site would be great. But this site really becomes ugly and is realized to be not well tended to in terms of what other sites have. Overview This site was probably great when it first came out, but it has ran its course. And I bet it gets used more then a bit becomes of some of the sites that link to it. Ultimately this site needs a redesign soon or someone else will take advantage of the oppurtunity (if one hasn't already) and get a better more "fun" site with same content and could make money for it leaving this site out in the cold. But as I said earlier, this site is good for the basic and bare minimum.

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.