Group items tagged

David May 1/23/11 This site is very educational. Great information with a reliable source. Too much advertising the museums. Overview: The website of the Smithsonian museum with a fun educational spin. The site has a few games with animations that are well put together. The games have good images and great animations that put complex things in simpler terms like comparing a planet size with a beach ball compared to a golf ball. The site overly advertised visiting the actual place too much. Everything that was clicked on encouraged visiting and it got very tiresome very quickly. Content: The site is very easy to navigate and find what one is looking for. There is a constant sidebar with information about where you are and what things are easiest to link to.. They list the curator of the museum who is in charge of the content on the website. The copyright of the website is 2010 which shows recent content on the website. There is an informational theme to the site, but the clear objective of this site is to get visitors to the museum. Design: The website is very well put together. It is impressive with the amount of graphics and page design that they put in effect on the site. The problem is that if users don't have the latest flash player they will have to download it and go through the download process. If this is for students the schools might restrict the ability to download the software. The website other than over advertisement is good for information and reliable for what one is looking for.

Laura Rice 2/5/12 Overview: The purpose of this website is to expand educational knowledge and resources for education. The intended audience ranges from educators, families, and students. This website provides many resources for public use. The educators are provided with resources for field trips, professional development organizations, lesson plans, resource library, and online events. For families the website provides information about what is available at the Smithsonian, time you can spend together as a family, and events families can do together. The students are also provided with information about the Smithsonian, topic they can explore, secrets of the Smithsonian, and events available for kids. This website is a great source to a variety of people. The links to each page provide a lot of information useful to educators, families, and students. Content: The website is extremely useful to all types of people from educator, families, and students. Teachers have access to lesson plans for all subject areas ranging from K-12th grade. Teachers are also provided information about taking a field trip to the Smithsonian and the programs it has to offer students. The tab for educators also has a link to online events that are taking place. For families the website contains different activities the Smithsonian has to offer as well as activity sheets for children. Students are provided with events at the Smithsonian that may interest them, as well as topic they may enjoy to see there. Overall the content is very educational and centered around what the Smithsonian can offer to others, and also provides lesson plans that could help educators in their future career. Design: The overall design is easy to understand and information is extremely easy to access. Tabs clearly identify the intended audience from educators, families, and students. Under each tab there are others that provide information useful to each age group. At the bottom of the page ther

Casey KarchOctober 6, 2012 Overview:  The purpose of this site is to inform the reader on current news happening in, on, or around the ocean. It is set up so all ages can use it, but the home page is more for a literate patron due to the scholarly articles. Children can use all kinds of programs throughout the site, such as ocean portal, to learn about the ocean and it's inhabitants. Educators are benefited with an entire link to help with lesson plans. Resources are abundant and vary in type. There are articles, media videos/pictures, and social networking connections to name a few. Overall, a user could not go wrong with this site for an educational purpose. The Smithsonian sponsors Ocean Portal and all content can be trusted as a viable source. Content: At first look, the content is exceptional. Content of the site is easily determined. Information on the author is not available because many people compose this site. Authors for individual articles can be found though. The information is current to date, new articles are always added and old ones kept on the site to reference. Information quality cannot be rivaled; all information is acceptable for education. Design: The design of this page is extremely well done. The home page is eye catching and informational as well as all the subpages. When the user wants to navigate, links are clearly labeled and it is easy to maneuver. Multimedia is everywhere; a form of multimedia backs almost all articles. The revision times for Ocean Portal cannot be found, but the site is well kept. 

Posted by Riley Kallhoff on 1/25/2010 Overview: The purpose of this website is to be a place for both teachers and students. It is a place where educators can prepare, plan, and teach. It is a place where students can read up on some current events or play some educational games. The audience of this site is both teachers and students. The nice thing about this site is that it is very well organized with very little advertisements and unnecessary things. It is very easy to navigate and it has a purpose behind every heading. Content: As soon as you come to the homepage you are able to determine that it is an educational site. You can't tell right away that it has games and reading, but you know it is for education right off the bat. You can also tell that it is for both educators as well as students. The authors of the site are not given right off the bat, but you can tell right away that it is part of the Smithsonian. The content is fairly well up kept you can tell from the copyright date. The purpose of the site is for entertainment in the form of games and it is also educational information. The site is very easy to navigate and has titles to links that work very fast. The site is laid out in a very easy to navigate setting. I would say that this site has educational value and is one that I would recommend. Design: I really like the design of the homepage and the whole website. The site moves at a fast pace and doesn't lead you to things that you don't want. The homepage is set up in a very clear cut manor and sets up the website in a very good way. You can tell right away what the website has to offer and all of the titles lay this out. There is a copyright date at the bottom of the page. There is no table of contents, but you know what the site has to offer from the links and titles on the homepage. Another great thing about this site is that it is very easy to navigate, and it takes you exactly where you want to go right away. The gr

Amy Andreen ITEC 2360 (TR) Overview: While searching for websites that would aid in teaching History to High School students, I found many great sources. It is no surprise that the Smithsonian has amazing resources to use. The site I found was entitled smithsonianeducation.org. Not only does it have great information for history teachers but for Art, Science, and Language Arts as well. Once narrowed down to the link entitled "History and Culture", I found that I could also choose between "Educators", "Families", and "Students". It has lesson plan ideas and information that can be used for many different areas throughout history. Content: The content included in this site is all up to date as far as I can tell. The last revisions were made in 2010. There are resources for different age groups that include different activities to utilize within the classroom. Also, the content ranges from Japanese interment in the United States to African History. The areas I found were very complete and useful, however, I found that the list of content is not as large as it probably could be or that I hoped it to be. Design: The Smithsonian site is really easy to navigate and very well laid out. I had no problems with searching for different eras, materials, or even different content areas. Everything downloads quickly and the attachments were very easy to find and download as well.

This website provides many different ideas for a teacher to use. There are lesson plans, gives you a place to search other topics and gives you a standards search as well. I feel the content is good. There are many resources to choose from. The design drew me in to keep looking at the website for interesting lessons-not even related to to my subject area.

Overview: At the Smithsonian Education site, there is a very large amount of resources for students, educators, and families. Educators can use this website to find lesson plans on subjects such as history, art, language arts, and science. There are lesson plans for all aged students. For students, there are interactive activities. For families, there is information on learning activities to do together. The purpose of the website is to provide teachers, students, and families with useful information and activities on educating students. Content: The content of this website is very useful for teachers that want to teach their students science, history, art, and language arts. As soon as I got to this webpage I knew where I was and what the purpose of the website was. The site is obviously sponsored by the Smithsonian center for education, however, I was unable to find specific authors of the site and their credentials. I was also unable to find the currency of the information, however, based on my knowledge, it seems pretty up to date. The bottom of the page says 2012 so they must keep up on it. The quality of the information seems very good. The content is easy to understand and is well written and organized. The site provides very useful things such as lesson plans, standards information, and really neat interactive games and activities. Overall, I think this would be a very useful site for students, teachers, and families. Design: As soon as I reached this site it caught my eye with cool graphics and a nice layout. The page downloads very quickly. It is easy to navigate through the site. The links provide useful information for everybody. The site includes an abundance of information so it is useful in many ways. I am unclear about the currency of the information because it is not clearly stated.

Nathan Wonnacott 9/9/11 Overview: The Smithsonian Institution web page is a way to allow people to access the galleries without visiting the museum and provides insightful ways to teach students as well. The target audience is parents, teachers, and even students. Some of its topics are history, science, art, and technology. I believe this site to be a very useful tool in educating. Content: The first impression of the Smithsonian webpage is a sense of variety. There are pictures of exhibits and links to others not depicted. It doesn't appear childish, but more for anyone interested in American history. Once I explored, I found that the links work successfully and are full of up to date information. The website does leave out links to other sites, which limits resources to the site alone. It also doesn't specify an author, leaving only the sponsor to be contacted. Design: The setup is both fast and easy with organized pull-down menus. The pictures and references to their exhibit are detailed, useful, and attention grabbing. Activities are also available, and help to locate new information. The pages are current, last revised on July 6, 2011. The site is effective and worth visiting.

Hailey Dungan April 15, 2015 The audience of this articles, similar to the last, is one who is skeptical of Shakespeare and his writing. Skeptics of his literature and even his life itself, the article actively researches the man's life. The articles was written in 2006 by a Mr. Doug Stewart, a writer for the Smithsonian magazine. The author is presented with no credentials, and the site does not offer links to his bio. The articles presents some interesting information, yet once again, I am unsure if I would use this in a school setting. I may use this article as a spring board for discussion. The content of this article is presented early. From the opening paragraph the reader is informed of the purpose of the piece. The article touches on the missing records that are seemingly nonexistent from his life. The amount of fame he holds in comparison to the lack of information about his life makes readers uncomfortable and often turns them into skeptics. The information about the author of this article is absent, however given the length and in depth research presented to us we can infer he is credible. You cannot contact him, though he should be congratulated on his correct use of grammar and spelling. Links to other sources are present, and the links do work. The site design is clean and professional. The sites homepage could use some livening. The black and white backdrop is organized, however not eye catching. A search option is available, though directions for the site are clearly presented. The information for this article is vast. There is a strong amount of information which may be used by students in a class room. They introduce a tree branch method of topics that in individual may use to deeply understand Shakespeare. The links to the other sites are useful. This article is good for both English and History.

Shelby Shatto January 22nd 2011 Overview: Purpose- Provides educational resources and lesson plan ideas. Attended Audience-mainly educators of various ages and subjects. Available Resources- "Shout" allows connection with experts and other educators. Overall Impression- Lots of information and great activity ideas for teachers. Content Overview: Attended audience is clearly identified; content is well organized and offers sufficient amount of info. Design Overview: Downloads efficiently; basic format used throughout the site; links are easy to use.