Posted by Mitchell Clark 9/18/09: CliffNotes is a site that provides free summary-type information and helpful tips for just about anything education related. Content: CliffNotes is a site sponsored by Wiley Publishing that covers just about everything that is involved with education. This site provides free information for subjects such as literature, writing, foreign language, math, science, college, test prepping, and more. The articles found under these subjects are easy to cite but may not provide an author. One of the things that set this site apart from similar sites is that it provides information on topics such as getting into college, avoiding scholarship scams, AP test, college entrance exams and grad school entrance exams. Also this site is updated on a regular basis making the information up to date, but as mentioned before there may not be a credible author. This site also offers full length practice test for the SAT, AP Biology, AP English, and AP Chemistry, but these resources are not free. As far as organization goes this site is decent, it is easy to navigate the main subjects such as literature or foreign language but there is so much advertising that it can be both confusing and distracting when reading down the page. Design: Apart from the advertising this site is well designed and easy to navigate. There is a search bar at the top right of the window as well as multiple tabs that link to various subjects of education. The home page is bombarded with ads, but they are mainly advertisements for student travel programs, back to school supplies or the Army ROTC program. The sponsor of the site is clearly stated at the bottom of the page and there is a link to their contact information. This site uses very little graphics aside from their advertising, but the page is still visually attractive due to the well known black and yellow color scheme. Attributes: This site comes from a credible source for review or study purposes. The infor

Posted by Mitchell Clark 9/18/09: HippoCampus is an interactive homework site that provides homework help in math, science, psychology, history and religion. Content: HippoCampus is a simple but very effective homework help site sponsored by the Monterey Institute of Technology and Education. This site uses a combination of resources to help students understand the basics of nearly any level of math, science, psychology, history or religion class that they might encounter during high school or college. The lessons on this site use images, audio and user interaction to help with the comprehension of the material at hand. In addition to this there are also Spanish options for subjects such as calculus and algebra. There are also links to actual text books, but they are deceiving. It turns out that instead of being able to view the text, the user is presented with a video interview of the textbook's author about a certain subject. This can display a certain bias if the interview is conducted poorly. Another potential problem with this site is that it was last updated in 2007. Now for some subjects such as math or language arts this is irrelevant but for subjects such as science and psychology this could result in the absence of new and important information. Aside from the "textbook" links, this site is so well organized that the user can easily find the exact chapter or concept that they wish to review with just a few clicks of the mouse. Design: This site is well designed and very easy to navigate. There are four advertisements but they are organized neatly on the right side of the screen and are nothing more than links to scholarship information and additional resource sites. The sponsor of the site is clearly stated at the bottom of the page and there is a link to their contact information. The site is mainly composed of two sections, the first being a list of general subjects that the user might be interested in, i.e. math and the second section is where

Posted by Mitchell Clark 9/18/09: Lesson Planet is a search engine designed to save the effort of designing various lesson plans by providing over 150,000 teacher approved lesson plans and over 75,000 worksheets. This site provides material for all subjects in grades K-12 and also includes state standards. Content: This Education World sponsored site has an incredible amount of information that has been provided by many teachers in various fields. It has lesson plans for all grade levels and all subjects including math, science and technology, language arts, education, social studies, health, art and music, and it also includes research resources. Each lesson plan includes the author and date that the lesson plan was posted. Also every lesson plan is rated on a scale of 1-5 by other teachers so you don't waste your time searching through inadequate lessons. Another great feature about this site is that because teachers can post their own lesson plans, there are always new and relevant lesson plans. These plans are easy to access due to multiple links which are designated to different fields of education i.e. science or math. There is also a search bar at the top of the web page that allows the user to search specific lesson plans as well as narrow their search results to grade level and rating (1-5). Overall this is a well organized site that provides a wealth of knowledge. The only thing to keep in mind is that these plans are posted by individual teachers which could contribute to a partial bias in the lesson plan. Another thing to consider is that there is $40 dollar membership fee for this site which is an inconvenience, but this fee also discourages the submission of junk lesson plans and worksheets by other internet users. Design: This site is well designed and very easy to navigate. There are no advertisements or links to unrelated material. The sponsor of the site and contact information is clearly displayed at the bottom of the page as well as t