Group items tagged

Ramon J. Sandoval September 1, 2010 Website Evaluation Site Title: Ask Kids URL: www.askkids.com Authors of website: Ask Kids Subject: Elementary Education Content Summary When I first went to the web site it was unclear what the website was intended to do. The website does not have easy access to the author identity. It never gives you a name of someone to contact. There is not any information about the author or when the site was last updated. This site is a search engine for children age's six to twelve and claims to be safe. The links to the website are easy to navigate through but unclear to me where to go next. Design Summary The home page downloads quickly and when clicking on the links there is not a waiting period. The home page is kind of bland but it does allow the user to dress it up with stamps and drawing on the front. I did not find a clear set of direction. I had to just click the links to see where and what was under the tabs. The same basic format is used throughout the website. There is a copyright date on the website but it is unclear how often the site is updated. This site does have games but the one I played did not give me an extra knowledge. Overview When the website first came up it was not very inviting. With the lack of computer experience I have it would not have enticed me to proceed. The subjects on the left side did not have me wanting to find out more about it. When I typed in a question the first thing to pop up was the advertisements. It does have some good aspects and content in it but I don't think it was easily accessible. This web site is designed for kids to ask common questions in the search engine. It is much like google but without the risk of finding something bad. I think with more time and experience on the computer the w

classic game of lemonade stand

Charlene Asay: 1/23/2010 *Overview: I think that the first promotion of this site is to learning, and to get students to think that learning math is cool and fun. In the end this site becomes more of a distracting site because of all the advertisements. I wouldn't use this site in my classroom without having me there to walk my students through it so it would be easier to get to the lessons I wanted them to do. *Content: This website has a lot of different things that you can use it for. It has different math and thinking games, puzzles, for every age. There are different links for certain subjects such as arithmetic, prealgebra, algebra, and all different math lessons. There is also a link for parents and teachers. This is more of a game site than an educational site, but if you look closely at the certain games, you could be learning from them. There are a few advertisements on the webpage. Such as Walgreens, and Triaminic ad that has a coupon to click on. This webpage has many advertisements that will distract the visitors into clicking on them instead of playing the math games. *Design: The design of this webpage is quite confusing. If I were a young student and my teacher as me to get to a certain lesson in prealgebra, I would get lost with all the different advertisements and other links there are to look at. I would also want to go to the games instead of the lesson my teacher as me to do.

Data Dragon describes itself as information services. It has friendly graphics and no advertisements. It is not intended for any particular age group, and appears as though both a teacher and a student could use it. Content: It provides online tutorials, a Sudoku game, an offer to remove banners from web pages, and a "This Day in Music History" section. This all sounds very nice, and although there is no outright problem with the information provided, it is a very basic layout, however, the tutorials have a very easy chronological layout. Design: The design is very poor. The animations are very reminiscent of bad clip art. The script is oddly spaced and there is little information provided about the creator or the websites purpose. Attribution: I would not use this in my class other than to possibly allow my students to play Sudoku. Although there is nothing incredibly suspicious about the information provided, it is not a good aid for teaching.

Posted by Riley Kallhoff on 1/25/2010 Overview: Funschool.kaboose.com is a site for teachers and students. It is a place where teachers can find educational games for students. This site has a lot of stuff going on in it. There are a lot of advertisements and just unneeded things in the website. The purpose of the site is to make life easier on teachers and help them in the classroom. The website is a little out of control and I would think this makes it hard to navigate. I had some problems figuring it out at first so I think students would struggle as well. Content: This is a website that is a little overwhelming when you first come in. There is a ton going on and you really don't know where to start. I would say it's a little hard to determine what exactly this website is used for at first. It's hard to tell if it's a teacher or a student website. The authors of the site are hard to find and the site is hard to navigate in its own right. You will click on one thing and it will take you on a little bit of a wild goose chase to find what you want if you ever do find what you are looking for. The links on the site work fine, but there are very few of them and most of them are distracting advertisements. I'm still not sure if this is supposed to be an educational site or if it is suppose to be for games. This site is hard to understand and I'm not sure this is a good site to send students to. Design: The website comes up very quickly, and is a fast site as far as downloading goes. However, when you get to the homepage you are confused from the start and you are overwhelmed with chaos. There is far too much on the homepage and it is like to much stimulus to know what to do next. I found it hard to navigate my way through the site. There are advertisements and it takes way too long to get to your desired destination. I think the graphics and animations are very hard to follow and take away from the site instead of enhancing it. The informa

David May 1/23/11 Fun site of games and entertainment. Educational to younger children. Overview: The website is filled with games and fun quizzes for younger children. The games look interesting, but they aren't filled with meaningful information for anyone with a mild understanding of history. The history information quiz is very basic such as who was the first president of the U.S. There are links to crafts and home activities. The website is for children and parents because the home activities and advertisements. Content: The audience is younger children which is clear by the bright colors and the fun game link pictures. Another hidden audience is the parents of the children that will be playing games on this website. This is shown through with the home craft projects and the advertisements for sandwich meats and other child oriented products. The website has a large copyrighted page and a large page of contact information with phone numbers as well as email addresses. Helping children learn is what the supposed site goal is with many advertisements of things that children would want. The clear owner of the site is Disney because the ads and the many links to other Disney sites and online stores on the links areas of the website. The site is very well put together to gain the attention of child and does a good job of entertaining them while hiding a bit of learning with it. Design: The site has wonderful appeal even older than grade school students get caught by this site. Everything is where it says it will be with wonderful smoothness and ease of use. Any type of additional information regarding the copyright, other links, and sponsor (which is Disney) is clearly identified with an entire page or more devoted to it. The site is very well put together and that is easily seen. The games and animations work very well and are quick to load. The games and animations will keep eyes locked on the screen for hours.

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.

Scholastic.com Learning Activities (Grades K-5) Sara Scribner 1/23/10 Overview: I found this website to be very helpful. It has numerous resources for student activities and links to other sites with information and resources for teachers. Ads are present throughout this site, but they do not overwhelm you. Also, on the primary page with learning activities for students there aren't any ads at all. Not only would I use this source in my classroom, but I would recommend it to others. Content: Scholastic, a website for teachers is very credible. Information found on this site is current (updated and links work) and information to contact or learn about the sponsor/author is available. There does not seem to be any hidden agendas on this site. This site is organized according to grade level, K-2 or 3-5, and has activities for both age groups. Its information is consistent/accurate, easy to understand, and organized making it easy to navigate. Another positive aspect of this site is that it has activities for subjects like math, science, language arts, social studies, and Spanish. Design: This site is definitely worth visiting. It's content and links to other useful websites makes it a valuable resource. Content layout is organized and everything is clearly labeled. Graphics provide a glimpse of what each game entails and add appeal to the page/game description. Animations and sounds make one's experience as he plays the games enjoyable and exciting.

Posted by Amber Rittenhouse on 1/23/10 Overview: This site is particularly intended for grades K-8. The site focuses on the basic skills in order to be successful in the games. It does not offer any lessons to teach the skills. It just assumes that you already know the material, so you can use your knowledge to play the games. There are no further links available through the site. The site does accomplish its purpose of entertaining kids using math, but the site is not very credible. I would not recommend the use of this site. Content: This site contains many math games for many levels of math. The author of the material is not shown, but it does seem to be sponsored by Jefferson County Schools. There is no information given to contact someone in the case of questions. There is also no dates of revision, so the accuracy if the site is questionable. The purpose of the site is to entertain kids with games, using their math skills. The content is well organized, so it is very easy to get to the desired place. There are no math links available to go to further sites. There are no ads or distractions, so the viewer is not distracted from the games. Design: This site is not very well designed. The homepage is not very colorful or eye catching. It is pretty dull. However, it is very easy to follow the steps to get to the games for a certain type of math problem. The copyright date or the date that the site was established is not available. The information is well organized, and information is easy to find. It is unable to determine the date of the last revision. There are no further links to other useful sites.

Ashli Hunter 2-1-11 Overview: This website is great for elementary students who are struggling with fractions. The purpose of this website is to see where the students struggle and succeed at in fractions. In this website the students are able to identify, compare, add, subtract, mulitiply, and divide fractions and then play games to further their understanding. The overall content and design of this website is basic and very easy to follow along without any broken links. Content: The content for this website is straightforward and brings you to each link that you need without going through a maze. Everything is up-to-date in information and if you should have problems it gives you the author and how to contact him. The content itself is simple and not over the top for elementary students. After each example they explain how to get the correct answer with the correct word terminology. This websit even offers worksheets that teachers can use in the classroom. Design: The design is very simple and you don't feel like you have to search for what you want. Each link brings you to each section with one click and then the student only has to count and type in the number then submit and it gives them a clear answer to the question. This website also has an explain button if the student does not understand what is being asked of him/her. This website can either be used in the classroom or at home.

Hannah Streeter 2/1/2011 Overview- This website is colorful and fun. It has lots of games based on literary skills driven toward elementary school students. Its a little silly, and easy to use. There is also a really great teacher/parent link on the home page. Content- The content of this website is literary games with fun characters like monsters, animals, dwarfs, and other fun characters. The content is based on auditory explanations, uses simple words to explain the games, and then expounds into more complex concepts to help teach things like Poetry and the alphabet, depending on which category you pick from. The games are super fun, even for a big kid like me. Design- The design is bright and colorful. The games load quickly and the sound is clear. There are many different games and animations for all elementary grades. there are links to the home page, and other games to play and learn from. All in all, a really great site!

Literary Learning

Overview: Funschool is a good website for elementary students. This website provides fun games for all students k-6. The games that funschool offers cover subjects: math, science, geography, history, sports, arts, and music. Design: Funschool has a very colorful home page that is very easy to navigate. It has lots of tabs where you can chose what grade level you are in and what subject you want to learn and get better at. Funschool has a lot of cartoons and cool art that is very appealing to the younger students. The site has lots of bright neon colors that catch the eye. Content: Funschool makes learning fun through games that the students can play and get better at different subjects. Funschool also has different quizzes that the students can take to see if they are improving in the subjects that they are working on. The website is sponsored by Disney so you can tell that the site has good information.

A website full of interactive games for math, english, science, etc.

Overview: This site is all about interactive and fun games to help enhance learning for elementary school-aged children. You can sing songs, play games in math, language arts and vocab. It is child friendly so you can easily find what it is you want to play. Content: The author is not very clear but at the bottom lest side of the page shows the sponsor which is Time4Learning, a online home educational program for homeschooling, afterschool and summer learning. There are links to all the different activities the site has to offer from fun interactive learning games to free worksheets to online learning. The content is mainly the focus for elementary aged kids. It provides the needs to teach and help children learn new concepts and refresh old ones. The information is consistent and updated frequently. Design: The design is fun and appealing for kids. There are pictures to go along with the links which make it easy to navigate and know exactly were to go. Everything loaded fine and had extra places to visit for extra help.

Overview: This website provides games for young learners to explore even before they reach classroom age and throughout the early elementary years. The website covers several subject areas including but not limited to Health, Spelling, Animals, Science, Math, Art, Geography, and Literature. The games are fun and challenging. Content: There are games for young learners that are both challenging and entertaining in a wide variety of topics. Each topic has sub topics and then a multitude of game options for that sub topic. There are illustrations of cartoons throughout the site. The author is not clearly identified but the sponsor is. The website links to other young children's websites and cartoon television shows. Design: The amount of subjects and then sub-subjects is outstanding. The entire website is geared towards young children which is not only seen through the illustrations but also through the advertisements. The games are easy to get into the first time but after you have gone into one of them it is difficult to get back out to the website's main menu. While it has links for the subjects it doesn't have links such as home, about, contacts that may be helpful additions. A copyright is not readily available. The directions for the games are clear and concise.

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.

David May 1/23/11 Good site for base knowledge. It has fun videos and animated activities. It needs more eye appeal. Overview: This website gives history a multimedia and fun twist. Within the simple design on the homepage it contains links to old educational videos, activities, and, movies based on historical events. The educational videos are from decades past such as the 1950s. The videos are accurate, but they leave out some facts such as Native Americans and women that are part of history. That is from the age of the videos. The activities are not really that entertaining at least the ones I used. They do capture one's attention because of the progressive story line and multimedia pictures and animations. These however do have some accurate information. I played around with the Boston tea party activity and the information included in the activity was accurate and explained it well. Overall the website is an okay way to spend some time getting base knowledge on history. The site shouldn't be used as a source though. Content: When first arriving at the homepage it is clear what the site contains. History can be seen with the various pictures and clickable items around the home page. Where the information came from is hard to determine there is so citing of material or authors listed. The site is not clearly marked with a sponsor, but there is clear evidence that it is connected to Amazon.com because in the store section it says powered by Amazon. The most recent update was made in November of 2010 which makes it seem active. The copyright at the bottom of the page is for 2009. The links section of the site send the user to not so credible sites and some links do not work. Informational is the main target of this site with a mix of business which is made clear by all the Amazon.com ads and links. Content seems to be good if base knowledge is already with the user making the information good for most uses except college level detail. Navigation is simple

Erin Kirby January 23, 2011 Overview: The sight http://epa.gov/climatechange/kids/gw.html is a good sight for young children and older children. The purpose of the sight is to teach kids about global warming, allow them to play games, and tell them what they can do to help. On the website it allows you to pick a topic and learn a lot of things about it. The sight is simple to work because there are simple links and there is not a lot of distracting stuff going on. The sight could also be good for teachers, it could allow teachers to learn about this topic and find ways to teach it to their students. The sight seems simple to use and there are not a lot of things in the way. Content: This website is pretty simple and seems easy for most age groups. It is easy to see what the sight is about, it allows children to learn interesting facts. The site may be hard for very young children who cannot read because the sight does have a lot of words. There are not a lot of pictures so kids may become bored. The games are fun for children to play and they test the knowledge of what they have been reading. The author of the site, and words from the author were not available but it does say who the sponsor of the sight is. The content of the sight should all be educational and correct because the sight is a government website. The last time this sight was updated however was in 2006, so some stuff on the site may be old. The links on the site are helpful because they are picture and all of them work and don't take very long. The grammar and spelling is fine and there does not seem to be anything that is bias. Overall the sight seems simple and fun for children to learn. Design: The website comes up very quickly and the site run very quickly. The homepage is simple and the links are easy to follow and use. The graphics of the sight are clear and keep it more interesting for kids. Every game on the site seems like it has accurate information and all the information overall

Kaci Philpot Overview: The intended purpose of this website is to provide elementary level students with fun and engaging games that build different skills and knowledge. Teachers can use some of the games for supplementing lessons such as; "volcano explorer", "chill the spill", and many more. Even games that don't seem like they would be educational are full of facts about various subjects and environmental awareness. Content Summary: For "First Look" I could not highlight the information because it was not in a text format, but the audience and basic content of the site are very clear. There were no specific authors listed for the games or information. The credibility of the authors is evident though because at the bottom near the copyright statement, it states that the company/sponsor is #1 in non-fiction media. It also has a very clear link for any questions about the site that works properly. I found it hard to find the latest revision date, most likely because the website mostly has games, but the content must be updated frequently because it has games that are up-to-date with the environmental issues today. All links to other sites work properly. In the "Information Quality" section of the evaluation, the website received all yeses. There are biases. However, they are clear when glancing through the content of the games. There was not any further information related to my purposes, but I did not really need any because I was only looking for games and activities to supplement lessons. Total yeses: 18 Total no's: 2 Total N/A: 1 Design Summary: The homepage uploaded very quickly and received all yeses. It has very strong eye appeal, it's clear what website you are visiting, and the copyright date is clearly stated at the bottom of the homepage along with the sponsor/provider. The navigation is easy and instructions for games and such are very clear and easy to follow. All internal and external links work properly. And internal links a

Mandy Toll 9/11/11 Overview: This website includes Abraham Lincoln learning games for kids. The website is intended for teachers and students who are looking for more information on President Lincoln. There are educational games for students to learn more about Abraham Lincoln, links to information on other U.S. presidents, the Gettysburg Address, famous quotations from Lincoln and many other informational things about Abraham Lincoln. Within the site there are a lot of links to other pages to further your knowledge about U.S. presidents but mostly Lincoln. I thought that this website was useful in allowing you to find information on Lincoln and would be suitable for students to use as well as teachers when learning more about Abraham Lincoln. Content: There was a lot of good content to this website. There are a lot of different links to allow both students and teachers to gain more knowledge on Abraham Lincoln and some information on other U.S. presidents. It is easy to tell what the website has to offer and who the audience is. The information is up to date and is appropriate for finding information on Abraham Lincoln. The links on the page to other sites are current and work well. The information on the site is for finding more information on Lincoln and games for students to play to gain more knowledge on the president among other things about Abraham Lincoln. The content on the site is well organized and easy to find. All the information is easy to understand as well. The information on the site also is consistent with other information in other sources. This site will most likely help in the future. Design: I did not think that the overall appearance of the website was very attractive however I liked how simple it looks and how easy it is to use. You can tell what you are looking for on the site and navigate around it with ease. The links on the site are helpful and appropriate and go with the subject matter. There were no uses of multimedia that I found wh

word games and puzzles in english.. terminology of word meanings,,, learned a bunch in the ten secnds that i played.

Murphy Muirhead9-8-2011 OVERVIEW: The Learning Planet website is a site that provides learning games for children of young ages. Learning Planet games are educational and the games are all safe and free. This website is designed specifically for children ages pre-k all the way through seventh grade. Although, it does have very helpful links for teachers to use as well which include games and activities to use in their classroom. The resources that are provided with this site include daily worksheets, sudoku's and many more to help further children's knowledge that they gain through this website.  CONTENT: The overall content of this site is very good and provides many educational games that are great for kids to play. The games are valuable to their learning and I would recommend this site to parents and other educators.  DESIGN: This website has a very well thought out design. Each graphic is used effectively and do make a good contribution to the site. Also, the index is very easy to follow and brings the viewer directly where they wish to go on the site. The overall layout is very eye-catching and appealing to viewers. 

The content for this site is very well put together. It is a site where you can go and start a new language and you can either start a free trial or pay to use it. It might be similar to Rosetta Stone. It has a easy to use box that will start you with the basics of the language you are trying to learn.The design is simple you have the unit and lesson at the top of the square saying what one you are on. On the left had side there are boxes with learn, review, write, and speak. Once you have completed all of those levels you are able to use the skill builder exercises to improve your skill. In the middle of the box is a picture with the word of phrase you are trying to learn. Underneath is a rewind play and fast forward button so you can move back and forth from picture to picture. I think that although this could be done from beginning to end I didn't find a way for someone who already knows some words. I also don't think that the exercises were very fun and one would get bored after a while and either stop paying attention or their motivation would die so they would want to do something else.  I am also not sure who the author is or what date it was updated, the only information it said was copyright in 2011.