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Posted by Amber Rittenhouse on 1/24/10 Overview: This site is intended for anyone who wants to get better at multiplication, primarily students in elementary school. The site offers many different strategies and a lot of help to learn the multiplication tables. The site offers many games to apply their knowledge of multiplication to win the games. This site accomplishes its purpose of teaching. There are many links available through this site to go further and learn more. Content: This site contains many games, as well as techniques, tips, and secrets, that deal with multiplication. There is a way to contact someone in the case of questions or a problem of some sort. The purpose of the site is to help kids with their multiplication problems. The site does this through games, so the kids are entertained. Through the entertainment they are learning. The content is well organized. All of the games you get to choose your level of difficulty, so kids of a variety of ages can use this site. There are further links provided for more practice. There are only a few ads spread around the outside of the web page, so they are not very distracting. Design: This site is well designed. The homepage downloads quickly, and all of the links do so as well. It is very easy to get to the lessons and the games. Strategies to help someone better learn their multiplication tables is also easily found. The whole site is very colorful, and it catches the eye very easily.

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.

New Horizons is an educational site that contains strategies for teachers to enhance and expand their educational curriculum. I chose the Arts in Education page for this review. Content: This website has been around since 1980 and although it is currently retired, it has been the launching platform of many new educational sites. In specific the Arts in Education page offers resources pertaining to art's beneficial attributes in brain stimulation and possible scientific processes that can be applied to art. Design: The design of the site is very easily understood and followed. There are no advertisements on any of the pages and links navigate within the newhorizons.org site only. Although it lacks the appearance of similar websites, this is a very simplistic and easily run learning tool. Attribution: This site's purpose is purposeful and educational. Its aims are primarily at benefiting the teacher and helping to incorporate pertinent tools to their educational programs. As a teacher I would very likely use this in constructing different approaches to learning, however I would be weary of how current and valid the information actually is due to the fact that it is retired.

Zachary Donnan 2/5/12 Overview: This site is essentially a blog site for teachers to bounce teaching strategies off of each other. This site also includes lessons along with what ages that the lessons apply to. There are also opportunities on this site to rate and comment on lessons which could be very valuable for those who are trying to adapt their lessons to their own classes. Content: This site contains a great amount of useful information for teachers focusing upon geography. There are many lesson plans and even examples of assignments for teachers to use in their own classrooms. This site could be very useful for most any teacher at any grade level for a range of different subjects. Design: The design of this site looks like it may be a little outdated, but it still uses many modern facets within it. This site has a good set up that seems to be user friendly, and it includes all kinds of different media to help present visitors with the information included within it. This site seems to be very useful for most any teacher and also seems to be very helpful for working teachers.

Seth Orndorff February 1, 2011 Good site review Overview The website, ixl.com is a very useful tool when it comes to math education. The site is kid and parent friendly with effective teaching strategies. If a teacher were to use this site as part of their curriculum, their students would each have their own accounts that keep track of their progress in various math subjects. The site has math questions to answer from kindergarten through eighth grade with different topics in each grade. Students may be assigned to answer ten questions from a certain topic. They would be able to easily navigate the site and find the questions to answer. Once completed, the student receives a score and time which is recorded. It would be advantageous for a teacher to give a pretest on this site at the beginning of the week then give them another quiz on this site to see their improvement. I am very impressed with this site and would definitely recommend it to others and bookmark it. Content summary The content of this particular site would be very useful for my needs and is worth bookmarking. I have several reasons for giving the content of this site such a high review. At first look, it is easy to quickly determine the basic content of the site and the intended audience. The authors and creator of the material is clearly shown and easy to access. There is a tab that gives a full summary of the creators with contact information at the bottom of the page. This makes it extremely easy to get in touch with the authors of the site. The content and information has been revised and has a new copyright for 2011. Along with the outstanding first impression, information on the providers, and information currency, the site has incredible quality when it comes to the information and further information. The sites interactive math problems that include rewards for correct answers are highly motivating for any student doing math from kindergarten through eighth grade. I was also very

Keenan Zimmerman 2/1/2011 Review of: http://www.busyteacherscafe.com/ Overview: Busyteachercafe is a site designed to help K-6 teachers come up with ideas. There are printables, strategies, themes, email sections and a store where I'm not sure what exactly you can buy. Most of the sections have useful ideas a teacher can use. The website is very colorful and looks like it is geared more toward 1-3 graders rather than on up to 4th 5th and 6th grade. It is not a very good website both in content and design. It has potential but at the moment it is not a very good site. Content: The content of the website seems very useful but it is very limited. There are few actual lessons or printables in each section. If the website is brand new than in a couple months I might say the website is very good content wise but at the moment the content is rather poor, another strike because we have no idea how old the site or information within the site are. The author of the material is nowhere to be found and even the e-mail section gives no clues as to who you are writing to. Design: The design is the worst part of the website. Although it has easy directions and it is rather easy to find what you are looking for, the site is littered with adds which are annoying and the search option is horrible finding almost nothing on the site when I used it. The search in the store section doesn't seem to come up with anything and because everything on the site is free I'm not sure why a store even exists.

Ryan Magrum Sept. 15th, 2011 Overview: The site is an online game site known as Armorgames.com consisting mostly flash games aimed at wasting time. However, there is a game Armorgames offers called CellCraft. While CellCraft is fundamentally a game, there are many aspects of it that are very educational. The goal of the game is to command a cell to grow and function as an animal and/or plant cell would and utilize all the functions and organelles as would an actual cell. The game explains all of the functions of the organelles you control and gives some information on the different parts of the cell, how the cell utilizes energy, and reproduces and fights off attack. The instruction in the game is similar to a high school biology class. Content: The game has multiple levels. Each level has a specific goal for the cell which the user controls. Each level also give some explanation of the new organelles available for use as well as the intentions of the antagonistic elements that an average cell has to deal with on a regular basis like infection and replication. The game has instruction for both plant and animal cells and all the included features of cells. It focuses on teaching the user how a cell operates and how to create a strategy to help the cell survive. The effects of the game are very close to reality - neglecting the very fine details. Design: It's a game. It comes with instructions. The game goes chronologically, so to speak, beginning from a time where the user can only move the cell around, to growing and fighting off infection, then to exploring new worlds and avoiding extinction. Just like in a biology class room, the student is expected to learn the basics and then think critically about problems using the basic knowledge to solve the problem, so does CellCraft. The game takes the user, educates the user on how a cell works (and I mean just about everything one would learn in a general biology class), and sends the user off to ke

Content: This website's purpose is easily determined within moments of looking at the page. Although I do not specifically want to teach science the information it provides makes the idea a lot less threatening. The content that is displayed provides a variety of topics that have to do with biology (whether it is human, animal, ECT…). Even though, the website is pretty short the attention it demands when you open the screen is remarkable. There are links to several other websites that all open and are available to further education in other areas of biology like I said previously. Design: From exploring this site, I believe that it is a reliable educational website for the use of teaching science topics and providing stimulating visuals to assist in the students learning. This is a website teachers can use for a variety of grades as it is grade appropriate website as it suggests. The homepage not only opens quickly and efficiently but exhibits other science based activities and strategies in other tabs; it is very clear and directive for the users Attribution: Overall this website is one that I would most likely use if I was going to be a science teacher. From the moment you open the site you see that the intended audience is for students but also provides valuable information for the teachers. As far as what links connect the user to where seems to be very clear. The media that is presented in this site is both interactive with the visual effects and descriptive which amplifies learning. From what I experienced, everything runs smoothly and is up to date with the current knowledge of what is to be expected in the classroom when covering these topics as well as making learning fun, which is equally as important. There happens to also be various links in which the user can use to seek out help.

Posted by Kirsten McAlexander on 9/20/2009 Scholastic is an excellent website for teachers, students, parents and administrators. Scholastic provides something for everyone. It includes grades pre k-12th. Content: Scholastic provides different activities for students, parents, and teachers. It is an excellent website for everyone. The only disadvantage is that it cost $39.99 a year. But that is relatively cheap for all that it provides. For teachers it provides lesson plans, activities, books to buy, games, and printables. It includes every subject and every grade. It provides information from real teachers throughout the states including strategies, how to integrate technology, time management and much more. Scholastic provides many very useful tips for new teachers. It provides printables for those who finish quickly and for those that need more help along with homework worksheets. Scholastic brings everything that a teacher will need and puts it all on one website for quick and easy results. Design: Scholastic is very easy to navigate. It clearly labels all topics, and has a search bar for a those who need things fast. Scholastic is very colorful and appealing to the eye. It allows you to search by both subject and grade so you can easily marrow down what you are looking for. Attribution: Since you must pay for the site, everything is downloadable and easy to use. It does not require any extra work to remove all unnecessary information from the page before you print.

The purpose of this link/resource is to inform teachers (specifically) of things that they can do in order to become more appealing to those who are hiring in the education field. The piece first looks at how teachers should dress. They highlight how teachers should dress as if they plan on getting a lot done that day, or to dress for the occasion. The piece goes on to discuss how attitude and body language impact how others view our professionalism. Finally, the article talks about how we, as teachers, need to constantly be thinking on ways to improve our teaching, learning from other teachers and testing out strategies. At first glance, I think that the page is a little too cluttered with extra links and ads. The article contained minimal graphics, just a small picture next to the title. This was beneficial because there are very few images that would actually serve to enhance this specific page. The page does provide links to other pages on the site, but it may have been better if the links were at the bottom of the page, as opposed to the sides, as they were distracting while reading. Overall, the page was reasonably easy to navigate and effectively read. The author was obviously well-read and presented ideas that are not too cliché, allowing almost any reader to take something away from the content and use it as a tool for learning. There were no spelling or grammar errors in the article, demonstrating a professional approach. This was especially beneficial since the author, Emma McDonald, was speaking about professionalism herself. She aligned what she was writing about with how she wrote about the subject.

This is about English Language Learners. It defines what English language learners are and things to target in the lessons that can be most useful to these students. I like this site because it asks questions that can help a person identify what it is they are looking for and then it answers them thoroughly. This website is created by Benchmark Education Company. This site is extremely thorough and devoted to English Language Learners and teaching strategies that will help them. It goes into detail about some differences these learners have compared to other and also how to help them. The design of this website is very different from the last one. It is more formal but it still very easy to navigate. At the top of the page it states all the questions for easy searching. When you click on these questions it takes you to a very in depth answer. I really enjoy this page because it has a lot of important information. Amanda Harrenga

Melanie Lenhardt ITEC 2360 2/2/2012 Publications and More The purpose of this site is to teach people about special education and the things that go along with it. It has all of the basic information that you need to know about dealing with it as a parent or someone in their life and useful intervention strategies. This site also has different links to satisfy a variety of needs. I would say the intended audience is parents, but is also informative for anyone. I think that overall, this website is very well designed, easy to use, and very useful for my information needs. Content: I would say that most of this website was very well put together, but there were a few things that they could do to make the site a little better. The site didn't really have a specific author/authours to the site that was clearly identified. We don't really know who they are or any information on them, but we do know how to contact the people about the site. Design: The design of this site is also very well, but could also use a little changes to make it better. I didn't find any directions on how to navigate the site. It seemed self-explanatory though, so I'm not sure that it is necessary to have one or not. I also think that the website could use more videos and images to present information on special education and the things that go along with it. There is not a last revised portion that I saw on the website, the only thing I saw was the copyright date. Last revised is important, and could definitely use that on the site.

OVERVIEW: The purpose to explore readingrockets.org is to learn how to teach small children how to read and to see research that has been done on children reading. The audience for this website includes parents, teachers, principals, librarians, school psychologists, school counselors, and speech pathologists. If you fit into one of these specific categories all you need to do is click on the link at the top of the home page. There are numerous resources available on Reading rockets ranging from videos on how to teach reading to resources for school psychologists helping struggling readers. The Reading rockets website gave me a fantastic first impression. One of the first things I did on this site was watch a movie and I learned many new and interesting things! CONTENT: Like all of the other websites I reviewed, the content of readingrockets.org was fabulous. The information given seemed to be accurate and the content is complete. The information was easy to understand and extremely interesting. If anybody was struggling teaching a child to read, this is the first site I would direct them to. It does a wonderful job satisfying the need of teaching literature and reading. DESIGN: There is a lot going on at the home page of readingrockets.org, but it is well organized and easy to navigate. There is a table of contents bar with links not only on the top but also on the left side. All of the links work great. I did not experience any problems with getting to a specific web page on the site. Finally, the website is current with a 2012 copyright date at the bottom of the home page. Overall the design of Reading rockets is fantastic.

Paige Hanewald 10/21/13 Overall: The purpose of this specific branch of the HippoCampus website is a resource that can be utilized by both teachers in explaining lessons and high school students in interactively researching reading and writing strategies that concern evaluating text, forming a thesis, writing fundamentals, characteristics of specific types of essays, and more. Overall, I believe that this is a simple resource that could provide a lot of insight to students having trouble in reading and writing content areas. Content: The content provides lessons as well as some interactive activities. It explains certain aspects in writing that teachers seem to assume students already know such as passive and active voice, punctuation, grammar, forming a well-thought out thesis statement and other fundamentals of writing. Unfortunately, because of the features presented on this website, you must have good Internet and either Adobe Flash Player or Quicktime. Design: This site looks boring. While it is very informative, so much information with such a lack of "oomph!" can bore a middle or high school student and put him or her to sleep. While it is very easy to navigate, compared to other websites, the interactive components such as videos and activities don't seem as engaging to kids above the 6th grade.

Lacey Boyles April 15, 2015 This website ran very smoothly. I was able to find what I was looking for and also browse other articles easily. The intended audience is anyone who is interested in early childhood development. The purpose of this site is to give advice to parents/teachers, and also ideas on games/activities/art. Over all this is a very well set up website. This site is set up very well. Things are easy to locate as they have blogs set up in different categories. From what I read through the authors grammar and spelling is all correct. They try and set up two blogs a week, I would say they stay pretty current. I did not have any problem clicking on different blogs/articles, I was able to access all that I clicked on. The only thing I think they could add is links to other websites that relate to what they are talking about in a specific blog/article. When first clicking on this website it is very clear as to where you are. The site is nothing fancy so it does not take away from the content. On the homepage there is not too much going on and is easy to read. There is a variety of different information that would help with many different questions. From what I read through articles seem to be up to date and there is not a lot of very old material. This is a website that I will be returning to in the future.

Overall of Website This website is a great source for helping students learn in all different styles and with different subjects. It teaches you things from time management to studying to different ways you can prepare for tests. It also has a list of different languages that you can choose from so everybody can use it. The purpose of the website is to help students with schooling in many different ways. It is very organized and easy to find what you need help with. It's a great student help. Content of Website The information providers are pretty clear about who they are it is found at the bottom of the page and you can find out more about who they are. Information Currency is clear the last time the website was evaluated was 2011 by SGS annual report and the material seems correct. The information Quality of the sight is good you can tell the main purpose is to help students better understand schooling. The website is very well organized and the spelling is all correct. Further information is that all the information is appropriate and helpful. Design of Website The speed of the website is very fast it has a good speed. The website has a cool look to it and all the different languages are on the left side which makes the website interesting to look at along with pictures and ads on it. The tables of content really organizes the site very well. You can easily navigate through the website all the buttons and links work. Every link has a specific purpose and it describes what that is before you click on it. There is a lot of information on the website but its easy to get to and understand.

Michelle Jacobsen 9/16/11 Overview: This website really isn't the best for students to use I would say. Some of the games are free but most you have to pay for. For teachers, it is a little more helpful for helping first time teachers teach different parts of math, like the times tables for example. Content: The content of this website is more directed towards helpful tips for teachers in teaching elementary math classes. They give teaching tips and guides as well as strategies to use to help get the point across to kids. Design: This isn't the easiest website to navigate though that I have come across. It's really a boring design and has everything cluttered into the home page. There are also quite a few ads that will also show up on the side of the page. Overall I'm not a huge fan of this site and wouldn't really recommend it.