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Brianna Gillespie 9/14/11 OVERVIEW: This website's sole purpose is to teach vocabulary words. It uses illustrations and sounds to teach each word. Learning Chocolate can be used by children of any age; you can choose to use English to learn Spanish or vice versa. Chinese and Japanese are also choices. This website is a good tool for teaching pronunciation. CONTENT: The content of this website includes numerous pictures and cliparts to describe the different words. The words are categorized into sixteen different categories. A few examples are body, school, house, and clothing. After clicking on a picture, more pictures appear with sound buttons next to them. Once you click a sound button, you hear a recording of the word. DESIGN: Learning Chocolate uses a variety of colors and pictures to illustrate each vocabulary word. This website is extremely easy for children to use; all they have to do is click on a picture and then the sound button. It is also in alphabetical order which is very convenient.

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.

Derek Peil 10/7/2012 Overview Purdue University Press is a substantial source of poetry and literature for educated audiences. The website's purpose is to offer intellectual texts for educators and students to incorporate into their curriculum. Carrying a simple, pleasant tone this website lists suggested poems and literature. Although the website lacks clearly stated dates of revision, it still scores high on the evaluation guides; and I recommend this site to those who are looking for some rich pieces of literary work. Content The University of Purdue's sound reputation of information precision is exemplified throughout the course of the website. This site contains sound organization and easy navigation. With genre listings and a friendly search engine, users can find what they need quickly. This allows for Educators and Students to spend less time searching for the material and more time studying it. In contrast to these strengths, the website is weak in terms of its currency. The site fails to display a revision date. But since the site is always uploaded with new inventories and sales, one can assume the site is fairly current. Design This site's display style is definitely suitable for an educational setting. The modest, yet contrasting colors make the site enjoyable to navigate. Also, the pictures of the book covers are very useful in helping to identify one from the others. Waiting for links to load is nonexistent, and this site is multi-browser friendly. Yet, this website lacks external sources from which users can broaden their findings. All of the links are internal. Do to the fact that this site is both education and profit oriented, this weakness is easily overlooked by the benefits of a deep library of texts that this site easily lays out for the user.

Emily Hastings Reviewed: 2/5/12 Kbears.com Purpose: The purpose of this website is to provide students with a fun educational environment. Intended Audience: This site is intended for Kindergarten through fifth grade. Available Resources: This site has its information on it with no need for links to other sites, but it does offer a link for a KBparent site. Overall Review: This website would be fun for students to use during their free time or as a reward for achieving a goal or some other assignment. It is a fun site for students, and could also be used in a classroom as a class or at home. It isn't very broad of a site, it only has a limited number of things to do, which may be hard to use at times and also could get boring. It is hard to navigate around unless you have sound and are able to listen to what each of the avatars are saying. Overall I think this site is more for fun and education at home, or on students own time, but is a fun site for them. Overview: This site offers information in many subjects. It has a lot of reading, so students need to be able to read. It is animated with many characters that talk and videos that are fun for students. It consists of many different things to do and learn about. Content: The content of this website is informative for students and fun. It has unusual ideas and activities, rather than your normal site. After a while on this site you might run out of things to do though, which may become a problem. Design: The design of this website is eye catching, but not very welcoming. It definitely interests you with the characters on the homepage, but is set up as if you were on a ship or something. Unless you're able to use sound this site is going to be quite useless for you, which could be a problem. It is harder to navigate around and the homepage isn't set up very simply so it could be a waste of time until you got the hang of it. Overall the design area is "cute" but unorgan

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.

Adrianne Lauman September 02, 2011 Overview The purpose of this free website is to provide knowledge and awareness of North American bird species and their habitat. The site encourages people to make connections to science and nature through bird watching. The information is directed toward people of all ages who have an interest or curiosity to learn more regarding ornithology. Video clips, audio clips, colorful photos, range maps and life histories are available for investigating bird species. The site provides expert knowledge on the subject of birds in a clear and visually pleasing manner. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology developed this website and the National Science Foundation supports it. Content The site appears well organized with a visible heading to initiate a search for information on bird species. The search feature has an automatic fill in based on the first letters typed to allow the user to locate the bird of interest. Interactive selections allow a person to listen to bird sounds, as well as watch video footage of the bird. The site provides opportunities to "ask an expert" about topics concerning ornithology and information on how to participate in bird projects. One project named Feeder Watch allows people to send in their own data based on their bird watching experiences. Design The website has clear headings to locate topics and information. The copyright information and developer of the site are displayed at the bottom of each page. The photos of the birds are eye-catching and appealing. The information provided by the site is abundant and well worth viewing.

Overview: This essay is intended for High School students studying literature or as a resource for teachers teaching literature. It concisely covers all the themes of the poem "Blackberry Picking," and accurately describes literary devices used. The author has been editor approved and the site is updated. Content: The essay covers the content of the poem very well. It deeply describes the poem and goes over all the different meanings the poem has. It gives accurate information of the poem and dissects it line by line, thoroughly describing it. Design: Aesthetically, the site is nice looking and looks and sounds accurate. All the links work, and there is lots of information available. The only bad thing is that you must create an account to read the entire essay.

Overview: This essay is intended for High School students studying literature or as a resource for teachers teaching literature. It concisely covers all the themes of the poem "Blackberry Picking," and accurately describes literary devices used. The author has been editor approved and the site is updated. Content: The essay covers the content of the poem very well. It deeply describes the poem and goes over all the different meanings the poem has. It gives accurate information of the poem and dissects it line by line, thoroughly describing it. Design: Aesthetically, the site is nice looking and looks and sounds accurate. All the links work, and there is lots of information available. The only bad thing is that you must create an account to read the entire essay.

Derek Peil 10/7/2012 Overview The Purpose of the website Six Minutes Speaking and Presentation Skills is to provide definitions and historical background to Aristotle's three main argument types: Logos, Pathos, and Ethos. Targeting students and public speaking enthusiasts, this website gives first-hand knowledge from award winning public speaker Andrew Dlugan, as well as a wide range of informational book resources. Overall, my content and design guides convince me that this source is authentic, appealing, and applicable for an educational setting. Content This site contains accurate and well organized information. All of the links work properly and load just as efficiently as the home page itself. Upon arriving at the site, the purpose of the site is clearly noted by the titles, headings, and sub-headings. The author visibly identifies himself immediately at the top of the page. The author's credentials and contact information are also given. External sources granted by this site appear sound. One of the only weaknesses to this site is that is last update was January 24th, 2010. Given the didactic mission of this website however, such a disparity in revision is acceptable as the knowledge of Aristotle's argument types is common and highly referenced. Design Appealing to the eye, this website strongly reflects the positive aspects of the design evaluation form. The site loads quickly with no glitches in displaying graphics or text. All of the sites webpages are outlined along the top of the homepage, allowing for easy navigation throughout. Appropriate pictures are used to convey meaning and bring the site to life. For example, on the Delivery Techniques page, the website shows a picture of a speaker covering his face with a mask to convey that section's topic of conquering the emotional fear of public speaking. Throughout the site, links are helpfully placed within the text to further benefit the user in navigating to other useful sites and

Bridget Gegg-October 7, 2012 Overview The purpose of Into the Book is to teach students and help teachers teach reading comprehension using eight different strategies. It provides interactive areas for students to learn and it provides an area for teachers to reference. The audience is K-4 teachers and students in a language arts classroom. This website has an area for students that allows them to watch and use the eight strategies, and it provides an area for teachers to learn about the strategies, how to teach them and the standards they cover. Content The content of this website is addressed on the main page of the site, how it should be used, and whom it should be used for. The authors are credible authors and they are represented on the home page. It is unclear when this has been updated or if there are revisions being made, but the content is very relevant to both teachers and students. The content achieves the purpose of the site and it is easily used for both teachers and students. Design This website entices viewers immediately. It looks both fun and informative. It is really easy to move around and it is very clear which areas are for students and which areas are for teachers. The graphics are visually appealing and the sounds, pictures and videos are all very interactive and fun. It is very easy to navigate through each different area because everything is very clearly labeled with sounds to accompany it for younger students. This site is very well constructed.

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

Shaya Wolf - 2/26/2013 Overview This website is for teachers need ideas on assessments in the math field. They can choose between Algebra 1, Algebra 2, Geometry, and Trigonometry and assessments are given under each subpage. All of the assessments are complete but in need of small changes to fit your needs. It includes many resources, but they are all very similar and lack variety. Overall, this site is worth bookmarking and provides simple assessments organized by subject. Based on the content and design quality of this site, it is worth your time to visit the site if you have the time. Content At first look, you can easily tell that the purpose of this site is to provide assessment ideas for teachers. The information providers section of this website is lacking significantly. The author and sponsor are not clearly identified nor is their contact information provided. The currency of the information is debatable. The site doesn't provide a latest revision date, but at the same time, most of these assessments will ever change. They don't seem to be too outdated. So far the content doesn't sound too good, but the information quality really brings the site back to a site worth bookmarking. All of the information is of quality. The purpose of the site is clear and achieves the intended purpose, which is to provide teachers with assessment ideas. The site is well organized and easy to understand. It is free of bias, accurate, and consistent with similar websites. Design This site loads quickly but lacks a homepage altogether. The site is still easy to navigate, although there isn't necessarily a main title or base to jump off of. The site sponsor and author are not included. It is very easy to navigate throughout the page and all of the links work properly. There are no dead ends or incorrect links. There is a main graphic used under each page, however that is the only multimedia. The graphics enhance the site overall. This site works well with all browser

Katrina Swanson - February 25, 2013  Overview: The purpose of this website is to engage young children in elementary school but specifically focusing on a kindergarten aged level. It allows students to explore different games and activities regarding letters and numbers as well as incorporating the use of technology. There are numerous resources for children available to use from this website such as learning their numbers and letters while using a computer.  Content: The content of this website is pretty decent. From the first look of the site, the user is able to determine what audience the site is intended for and also to tell the basics of the site. There is no clear author or creator provided due to the fact that it is a student oriented site and not a site with "specific information." The site works properly and all the links provided are available and easy to access for students. The purpose of this site is very clearly indicated that it is for entertainment and learning at the same time. It is very well organized and easy for young children to maneuver around and interact with. Grammar and spelling are correct and this site has great content for students to learn about letters and numbers.  Design: This website is very intriguing by first look. A student would be enthused to use this site and eager to do the activities. The pages are attractive, and easy to access the different links to games as well as other things on the site. The site is very user friendly for young children due to the fact that they can easily go around the site. Lots of pictures, colors, and sounds are used all throughout the site to engage the children as well. It is also a great site because although it looks fun and intriguing it is also very informational to young kids.  Great website!! 

An article about dismissed copyright infringement on the musical sound of Pi.

Dillon Karajanis 10/22/13 Review of SendMyTeacher.com Overview: When I stumbled across this website I almost decided not to evaluate it due to its content but as I read on I saw that it could possibly be used as a teacher resource. The purpose of this website is to get teachers to participate in a five day program that provides them with the knowledge and techniques to motivate their students to pursue math and science careers. The audience targeted for this website is third through fifth grade teachers and the resources available for this website is the application to participate in this program, and a section where the students can apply to send their own teacher through the program. Overall I thought that this website was worth bookmarking because this experience could be beneficial as a teacher resource but not as a classroom tool. Content: At first I was unable to tell exactly what the website was about but as soon as I started reading the introduction I found out exactly what it was for. As I explored the site I found out the author of the site with ease because they are directly displayed as well as the latest revision date information. It seemed updated frequently and easy to understand. The content is clear and states its purpose so the user is not unclear of what the site is for. Even though I cannot use this site in my classroom I decided it was worth bookmarking for future reference incase I wanted to apply for the program. Design: The home page along with all the other pages of the website seemed to load successfully with no images or text not viewable. I noticed the sponsor right away along with the copyright information at the bottom of every page. Even though I did not see an index on the site, it is easy to read and navigate creating minimal problems. There is minimal sounds and videos in the site, but regarding the purpose of the site and the images it does have I believe it has a decent visual satisfaction. In general I thought this site to b

Learning Phonics and Sound Blending is an important part of life. Our Educational Songs for Kids make learning fun! Learn while you sing along with your favorite phonics songs on Learning Games for Kids.

When looking for different techniques to use in a classroom setting, I came across a website called www.southernworlds2010.com. While viewing this web site, I first notice that there is not very much offered on the site and it has limited information. The target audience could be applied to as anyone that is involved in the Education system such as a student, parent, teacher etc. The basic concept behind this web page is to explain how virtual worlds can be used to reach children in their educational studies. Although this may sound like an interesting topic to read about, there is no Author given and therefore no information describing who wrote this. All that was provided was what the idea came form the Tasmanian Department of Education. There is also no sponsor given on this web page. This website was also only added a couple days prior to my finding.

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.

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.

Sara Scribner 1/23/10 Overview: This website called Beeswax is meant for elementary students to inform them of current events in a fun, interactive way. It is a new website so the creators are still looking for feedback to improve the site, but it is a great tool for students to learn about current happenings in the world. Currently it is only updated twice a week, but for elementary students I believe this to be sufficient. Content: Information presented on this website is high quality. Its purpose, to present news, is clear, complete, easily understood, and is interactive. Contact and sponsor information are current and available. There might be potential bias on this site however because of its sponsor, Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The amount of information offered on this site is sufficient, but the teacher would need some background knowledge about the event. An advantage to this site is that it is free of advertisements. Design: Beeswax communicates the news in a fun, interactive way and is aided by graphics that you click on to see the related story. It has a unique organization that is effective yet appealing. Sounds also accompany your actions as you navigate the site.

Seth Orndorff February 1, 2011 Bad site review Overview This site claims to have cool math, but fails to offer anything that can be considered as beneficial to students working on math. This site did more distracting than helping. The cool math games that are a part of the site do not teach any applicable math skills to kids. This site should not be used in an educational setting. There is no separation of skills and grade levels which means that it is difficult to assign certain activities to certain aged kids. The site is also very limited. Once a game is beat, it is beat and that is it. There are no further applications of what the student was supposed to learn. The site also lacks encouragement. Kids cannot see past results and compare them with new scores to see their improvement. The site is also extremely slow and has advertisements all along the side which do not help students with math. Content Evaluation The content of this website is very poor. When the page is first opened, it looks like a typical game page that is not educational. The name of the site, "cool math" is very deceiving. This site also lacks sufficient information on who created the site and whether or not they have any credentials. The date that the site was last revised is unknown to me. I could not find a date that it had been revised last. The information that it does have has very poor quality. Although it claims to be a math site, it is more of a game site where the games teach more problem solving skills than actual math. This may seem beneficial at first, but each game only has about ten levels. This means that after just a little while, the games are beat on memory rather than figuring out new ways to solve the problem. There is no further information that would lead a student to get more help on math. Design Evaluation The design of this site is just as poor as the content. The page takes a long time to load, and once it is loaded, there is no appeal to the h