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This website is useful in social studies education. It provides information about famous Americans as well as many other aspects of American history and culture.

Overview: Although the site had many different subjects, I focused on the social studies part of it. The purpose of this site is to provide teaching resources for elementary teachers primarily in the upper grades 4th to 5th grade. I thought the website was a good resource for teachers to use find available assignments and projects to have their students complete. The website was navigator friendly in that all links were available to use but the only problem was that there was not an last updated mentioned or listed on the site so it hard to tell how often updates occur. Content: The content provided informational resources for assignments, homework, notes and projects for teachers of upper elementary grades to use for their classrooms. The information is split up into different links available for projects or assignments for students to work on. The sections include the stock market, constitution and Election Day. Although the resources given for these sites would be very helpful for a student, there is limited amount of topics for the teacher to pick from. Design: The design of the website was easy to follow. Bright colors on the page made it pop out and attention grabbing to the viewer although the color wasn't too much to handle. The background of the site appeared to look like cork board which teachers might find relatable probably having hung stuff up on cork board inside or outside of their classroom. The design made it easy to find the author clearly listed on most of the pages and it had a link to contact the author.

Katya Larson February 2013 Overview: The purpose of this website is to visually map major events in history chronologically. There are brief descriptions of the events for each map. The audience is for educators and secondary level students. There are many map and picture resources under the "Maps & Modules" section including previous editions of the website. I think this website is well set up because it is easy to navigate to the time period of your choice to see the corresponding map. It is nice that there are brief descriptions so you can easily review what the map is about. I think it is a very easy to use and useful site.  Content: The content is accurate and easily accessible. The maps are interactive and user-friendly. There are many links within the site to access different content. The content is free of bias and informational.  A possible downside is that there are no dates of revision, but there is evidence that the content has been revised in the past because you can view past versions of the website.  Design: The website itself does not attract the eye readily. While the information is easy to find, there are few graphics or colors that are appealing (excepting the interactive maps). The information is clearly labeled and the maps have useful descriptions. It may not be "fun", but this is a very useful site. 

Tyler Skinner, Aug 31 2010 The purpose of this website to to help give tips and ideas for history educators. From elementary to high school, this can be used for all different grade levels. Overview This website has all sorts of nifty tools. There are separate links for different education levels, helping instructors on what works best with each grade. Along with that, there are also videos on introductory subjects to help with lectures. Content Ranging from the Revolution to the Iraq War, Ancient times to the Present, there are all sorts of awesome tools to use in lectures. They help give more input and teaching techniques to make the lessons go more smoothly. Design The organization of this website is very clear. With links to the side for separate grade levels, its easy to locate what your looking for. Video clips and materials are right on the home page, and with a little click of the mouse information just bursts out everywhere. All in all, this website is a great resource to help out history teachers.

Amy Andreen 9-14-11 Overview: This site has great resources for those teaching history to elementary students all the way through high school students. There are activities, documents to review, lesson plans available to view, and picture to look at. It is a great resource to history and Social Studies Teachers to help with content and classroom ideas. Content: teachinghistory.org has an inexhaustible amount of resources available to the viewers. There is a section devoted to English Language Learners that I found to be extremely interesting and useful. There is also a section that allows you to ask questions to other teachers, historians, and digital historians. I also really like that it has areas of history that often go untouched and unexplored. Design: For the most part, this site was really easy to navigate. Everything was pretty well laid out. However, one issue I faced was that I wasn't always aware of where I was at within the site. This became slightly confusing at times. The information included was very important but not easily accessed. I did like that there were different areas for different topics like "Reviews", "Beyond the Textbook", a "Weekly History Quiz", and "National Resources".

Gary Allen Jan 23, 2011. Overview: As the title suggests, this is a website designed to help kids learn about American history. The site is authored by a man with much experience in presenting history for kids and includes a link to his biography. Content: This site contains many easy to follow links, a glossary, interesting facts, a search box and even some educational games to help present the content. Also included are links to other sites of similar content and a weekly newsletter. There is no date for the last revision of the site, but there is a link to contact the author and ask questions.  Design: The site is fairly simple in design with the main navigation across the top, another menu of links down the left side, and ads on the right side. The lack of flashy elements helps the site load extremely fast however. Navigation is very straightforward and clearly labelled.

Overview: This website's purpose within in a classroom could be for research papers and projects. Each student could choose their own topic and then navigate the links easily to learn more information with concise bullet points, pictures, correlations to current events, and related games. This website included topics in several areas but primarily history, geography, economics, and government. Content: This website has a wide variety of upper elementary social studies information including even broader topics of history, geography, government and economics. The home page had a general toolbar that provided information about the site and the creator. On the left side was a huge bar that linked to many specific history topics such as current events, teaching resources, timelines, and maps. Once you have clicked on a topic from the side bar there are even more links to even narrower research areas. This would be a good site to use for students to create a research project about a topic that they are interested in. There was only one link found that was not up-to-date. Design: The design is not very appealing especially for young children it initially looks a bit bland. Once you have picked a side link and narrowed your topic there are visually appealing pictures and games to go along with the information being taught. The home page took a while to download and had an ad that was generated more towards adults pop-up. The site is easy to navigate following all working links. The website did not work well in Internet explorer but did work well in Google Chrome.

Brianna Gillespie 9/14/11 OVERVIEW: This website is to teach students about the many different subjects related to social studies. Students can use this website to answer almost any questions they could have about social studies. This website is mainly for older children because it has a lot of reading that may be a little difficult for younger children to comprehend. CONTENT: The content includes current events, games, economics, geography, presidents, states, and many more. Within each subject are a variety of links to choose from. Each link is focused on a main point of the subject. There is also a section on the main page titled "This Week in History" with some facts about a certain event that happened in the past. DESIGN: The design has some color, but is a little bland. However, each page has a piece of clipart on it, so it is not completely boring. Children would be able to navigate around this website fairly easily too.

Overview- This site is intended for older elementary students and well as 7th and 8th grade students. This site communicates civics in a very exciting way. There are selections and choices to pick from on the opening page. These choices range from categories such as quizzes, independence, the constitution, legislative, executive, and judicial braches and well as elections, and citizenship. Following your selection of the topic of your choice, one is given additional categories to explore. Content- I like this website because it is very simplistic, but very informative for educational purposes. It is clear and detailed. As an elementary or middle school child this type of website would be an excellent way of establishing ones first book report or learning about government. It is very easy to access all areas of the site. Design- The design is very colorful and eye catching.

John Paul Evans May 18, 2011 shmoop.com is a wonderful and professionally designed website with many resources for educators. This review focuses on the US history portion of this website. Purpose: The websites purpose is to provide a planning aid to U.S. history teachers. It provides timelines, videos, guides and more for every year of American history. Most of it's resources are free but advanced resources such as quizes and advanced student work sheets to require a premium membership which is fairly affordable a $7 a year. Content: The best part of this site is it has a very large amount of unbiased, free content. It's content provides authors, citations, and dates, even for it's photos and video clips. Further, it provides great links for more in depth study on any given subject. The only downside is that a small portion of the website does require a membership. The membership content is always clearly defined and always for a specific and consistent purpose such as student worksheets. Design: The website provides a clear purpose and is designed professionally. It makes great use of photos, and videos while allowing access to them in a way that does not clutter the individual pages. It provides great search and sort features and most importantly everything is organized in a way that the content is found without hassle.

John Paul Evans May 18, 2011 Historyteacher.net is a content heavy page providing many teaching resources for history teachers. The website is usable but needs many improvements. Purpose: Historyteacher.net provides a large amount of content for history teachers. This includes, quizes, timelines, study guides and much more. It also devotes some of it's resources towards updating readers on current events in the field. Content: This website does not lack for content. Unfortunately not all the content is managed appropriately. A person can look at the page and reasonably grasp it's purpose, however they may have difficulty finding the content they are searching for. The site provides a great deal of information and is clearly unbiased when approaching history. However, much of the information reads as if it is pulled directly from a text book and often fails to provide citations or even authors. It does provide many links to credible and useful content providers when more information is required. Also all of the content it provides is free of charge. Design: The design of this site is atrocious. It loads up quickly but has so many links and information on a single page that a user does not know where to begin. It doesn't help that flash animations, gifs and unneeded icons and pictures litter the page almost randomly. The color scheme also seems random and makes your eyes begin to verbally cry out in pain. I would recommend an entire overhall on this website's design. It would also be helpful if news and articles would list an author or at the very least a date posted. As it is I have no idea how regularly the site is updated or if it is even currently active.

Overview: This is the best site I was able to visit. It is the website for the History Channel and it combines all the tools useful for teaching to the digital generation of students now occupying classrooms. Design: The website design is excellent and obviously expensive. It is well organized and broad in its media: combining videos, interactive maps, role playing games, and quizzes. Content: The content is wide ranging and corresponds with cable channel's viewing. The information seems to come from reliable information and it is portrayed in an entertaining and expert manner. The role playing and action games have limited educational value but using these games to get students interested in history may get them to branch out into the more educational areas of the website.

Eileen Andrews: September 9/11/11 Overview: As the title suggests, this site helps students and teachers access history digitally. This site includes links to primary sources, lesson plans and other help tools for teachers, and interactive learning such as timelines. This site would be useful for both teachers and students. Content: This site covers a wide variety of topics in American History from the American Revolution to present day. The site seems to be well kept since the last revised date is 9/11/11. Although some links don't work, many others due, and the ones that don't work can be search in for in other resources. Design: The site is easily navigated and includes a site map and search option to make finding specific content easier. This site provides pictures, videos, and timelines. The site can seem boring at times, but the pictures do help liven it up. The site is organized very well in the sidebar and site map.

Great for incorporating History and Technology in the classroom

Amy Andreen 9-14-11 Overview: thwt.org is intended for the use of History and Social Studies Educators. It is a great resource for finding ways to incorporate technology and the various content areas in the classroom. There are various links to other sites as well as links to other pages within the site that would help Social Studies Teachers to devise lesson plans that incorporate technology. This site can also be used to help brainstorm for project assignments to use in the classroom. There are explanations as to why it is important to include certain aspects of technology in the classroom and what ways we as educators can utilize the resources we have. Content: The content on this site ranges from external sites for historical information to internal resources within the site to help in teaching with technology in the content area of history. There are videos, podcast, articles, chats, and many different ideas about how we can bring all the technology around us into a content area that many student find boring. Design: thwt.org has a very "sleek" design. It is very simple as far as design goes, but so easy to navigate. It was easy to find the tabs that I wanted. Also, the color scheme used wasn't overwhelming and made it even easier to travel around the site. The contacts page was so easy to find and very accessible with questions.

9/14/11 This is a great website for students k-12 learning social studies. There are plenty of games, trivia, and useful facts for all ages. The website is very well organized and is easy to maneuver.

Ebscohost is a massive search site that is similar to Jstor but contains more general and various sources of information. Does include pdf versions along with html and also a search option for peer review articles.