John Ripley 9/13 Overview: This is a site produced by the Federal Reserve to promote financial literacy. It is aimed at providing information and activities to all age groups from kindergarten to adult. There are only two games/activities for the K-4 level and I didn't think that either one was especially good. There are several more games for kids at older age levels that are a little better. I still can't imagine kids getting excited about playing any of the games that I looked at though. The games/activities are only a small part of the site and I think that the real strength of the site lies in the information that it provides for a high school age audience that might be exposed to the information through a teacher in a classroom that could help interpret it. The educational value is more as an aid to a teacher in planning a lesson or relaying a concept rather than assigning the

John Ripley 9/12/11 Web Rangers Overview: This site is produced by the National Park Service (Department of the Interior) and I found it through the Yellowstone National Park website. It is listed under the heading "for kids" on the YNP homepage. The intended audience is kids, and not necessarily kids who have been to YNP or any other park. Content is varied and covers several different fields pertaining to history and natural science mostly. Content: The basic content of the site is not immediately clear, but once you navigate into the site a table of contents appears. While I could not find a date for the most recent revision, all the links of the site worked properly and I have no reason to think that anything on the site is out of date. The information is accurate as far as I can tell and fairly diverse. There are several different games under each subject heading. Design: This website looks like it was designed by the National Park Service with the logo in the top right corner of each page and the colors of the NPS on all the pages. The home page is not especially catchy and if I were not doing this assignment I would not go wandering around this site. However, once you get into the site to the contents and the games it gets a little more interesting. It's still not what I'd call exciting though.

John Ripley 9/12/11 A Plus Math Overview: This is a decent site as far as content and design go, but it is not especially good. The audience is math students from first grade through eighth grade with most of the content focusing on arithmetic problems. While students might find this site entertaining and helpful, as a teacher I probably would not recommend it to parents for their children. Content: My biggest problem with the content of this site is that there is no author identified and the link for "sponsors" is simply a list of other math practice websites. While the content is accurate as far as I could tell, I think that having an identified author and reputable sponsors would make the site more reliable. This is why I say that I would not recommend this site as a teacher. Design: The design of the site is easy to follow and well organized. However, some of the links are slow and do not work properly. The content also has not been updated since May of this year. The site works, but it could be a lot more professional.

John Ripley 9/12/11 Khan Academy Overview: This website is intended to provide a free, high quality educational experience for anyone interested in the material presented on the website. Based on my content and design evaluations I would say that this site achieves it's objective and is a useful educational tool. Because of the seriousness, for lack of a better word, of the layout it is probably more suitable for people in middle school and up. Content: The content covers math and science topics extremely well while the social studies fields are a little sparse. I focused on the math content and it was excellent, covering about every imaginable topic. The videos were easy to follow and informative and the practice problems were pertinent to the lessons shown in the videos. Design: The design of the website is straightforward and direct. It is easy to navigate and find exactly what you want. As I mentioned above, the design is fairly serious and I would think that elementary age students might prefer something a little more catchy and flashy. However, for a little older audience I think that the design is very good.