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Over View: Activity Village is a website that allows children to explore various subjects from Thanksgiving, to Steve Irwin Day, to Japan. It gives children examples of activities that they can do to learn about their subject which includes color pages, crafts, some youtube videos, and geography if they are learning about a country. Content: This sites purpose is easy to determine. It is a free site where children can learn about various topics and subjects. Everything is free and can be printed easily. The audience is for younger kids, but there are subject areas for all the grade levels. This site would give kids a good introduction into a variety of subjects. Design: The design of this website is very child friendly. There are a lot of colors and the text is fairly large. I think that it is probably meant for teachers and parents to find the activities and give them to the children, but an older child would be able to navigate the page with little supervision.

New Criticism (What and Why)

Whitney Reese Reviewed: 2/4/12 Overview: The purpose of this site is to help children learn different math skills through games and word problems. The intended audience is school age children from grades 2nd through 5th.  The available resources include several games or "challenges". Each challenge has informational hints and fun facts to go along with it to help the user figure out the problem. I think this site has good resources for helping children learn a wide variety of math concepts. However it doesn't seem as kid friendly as other sites and may be hard for kids to understand how to navigate the site.  Content: This site has several useful tabs for navigation. The website has clear and credible authors and the information seems fairly up to date.  The challenges and games make learning math fun for children and demonstrate how math is used in everyday life and why these skills are important. It even includes a tab that changes the content of the site from English to Spanish.  Design: The design of this website makes it fairly easy for kids to navigate. They may get confused at first because the intention of the site is to keep you on a certain challenge until you have figured out the answer and chosen a new challenge. However, once the kids are able to understand how to navigate this site it should be no problem for them. There is a lot of text on this site that may seem boring for some kids. The graphics are fun and colorful. This website is clear and organized fairly well.

This site is intended to help families outside of school enjoy math by solving everyday problems, but may also be used at school. The material is at a middle school grade level. There are multiple challenge problems and for each problem the website gives hints, complete solutions, additional related problems etc. This website was developed by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. So there is a lot of valuable information. I like how the challenge problems are unique and different than your everyday practice problems. Although, there was one major problem with the site. It was very confusing and hard to navigate through. There was not a clear indication on the home page of what the purpose of the website was and how to find the information. There were silly animations that had nothing to do with the math and distracted the eye. The set up was not appealing or well organized. Once I figured out how the website was set up I enjoyed the content, but they should have instructions or a table of contents on the home page. I would definitely like to use this website in my classroom and even with my family once I have older kids, but I would hope the authors improve the navigation system for future newcomers

Like wordle but runs without java and provides more funtionality

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.

Posted by Craig Shepherd on 9/16/09 Overview: Wikipedia is an open-authoring encyclopedia. The purpose of the website is to provide information about any topic to the general public. Content is generated and reviewed for accuracy by the public. Although public documents can include inaccurate information--particularly on hot topics, much of the content is stable. Links to other pages generally function properly, and content is easy to understand. Content: Although maligned by many individuals as a site that promotes inaccurate information, Wikipedia has much educational merit. However, based on the Wiki style of web design, anyone can make changes to articles and can do so anonymously. This means the learned as well as the ignorant have equal access to contribute. Although references at the end of articles may support the credibility of a work, they do not guarantee it and require additional time to peruse. Because authors can post anonymously, it is difficult to tell whether the article is accurate, timely, relevant, authoritative, and so forth. Yet, recent news events highlight the work of this organization to increase credibility of their content. Additionally, one of the purposes of a wiki is to foster collaboration and group authorship. Although individual contributors may not be listed, inaccurate information can be quickly corrected--though it takes some understanding of wiki syntax which may be difficult for beginners to learn. Despite potential inaccuracies, Wikipedia is a good place to begin your research if you realize that contents may contain biases, inaccuracies, and unsupported claims. Design: The site is well designed. A common look and feel permeate web pages, ads and other distractions are not posted, graphics and other visual elements often highlight important points, and links to related articles are prevalent. Several languages are also supported. Modification and revision dates are clearly displayed and the wiki allows you to

Trevor Lenell The first website I am going to evaluate is Wikipedia.org. The educational site that we have been told to never use for a paper because it is editable by anyone. The intended audience for Wikipedia is someone who just wants a quick overview of the subject they are looking for. It does not cover in-depth content or have large amounts of research in the articles. Everything is available on Wikipedia. All you have to do is search anything in google and Wikipedia article will almost always be in the top three links to show up. The design of Wikipedia is actually fairly good. It loads quickly there's a table of contents for each page and it is easy to find the information you are looking for. The content of Wikipedia is where things get a little shaky when it comes to looking for quality information. Since anyone can edit any page aside from a few that have been locked the information of Wikipedia is not necessarily the best way to find information. We do not know who has edited the site or what their credentials are and we have no way of knowing whether it is a great set of information or a joke put on by someone with an internet connection. There is however a bright side. At the bottom of each Wikipedia article there is the references. These are a great tool to find what was used and what is available to use outside of Wikipedia with the same information. These references are a great way to find academic information from good quality sites and can be used when searching through Wikipedia to find actual research. The design of Wikipedia is pretty good. It works equally well on my internet explorer, Firefox, and google chrome. It loads easily, is easy to navigate, and easy to read. Each graphic and audio file on the site serves a purpose to support the material being read. Overall Wikipedia is a great site to navigate and its shortcomings stem from it being able to be edited by anyone. The next website I will evaluate is NationalGeographic.com. An ed

Aylin Márquez 13 September 2011 Overview: Math-Play.com provides a variety of games designed for mainly elementary and middle grades. The games are categorized based on the grade level, subject and type of games. The site has a list of games for teachers and students that is designed to improve students learning skills while they have fun. Content: Math-Play.com offers easy-to-play games. The site includes classroom games that teachers can add to their lesson plans to make learning interactive and fun. The site also shares links to other math games. Even though the date of the last revision is not clearly labeled, the copyright is 2010 dated, and the sponsor of the site is under Doina Popovici name. Design: The homepage downloads efficiently, and the games are readily available. However, elementary or middle grade students may not find this website appealing based on the design of the homepage. The top of the homepage has only one image and lots of text until the user scrolls down on the page. The games are labeled, organized, and ready to use with ease. The graphics, animations, sounds clips serve a clear purpose, and they are appropriate.

Meghan Frank The purpose of this website is to provide math games of different skill levels and different grades to students. The intended audience are students in almost any grade level. This website is intended for students to use to not only get more math practice but to also have fun learning math. My overall impression of this website is that it would be a good website to use to practice math. It meets almost all the criteria of the cyber guide ratings and would be a good resource for students to use in and out of the classroom. This website meets most of the content criteria of the cyber guide ratings. At first glance you are able to determine what the content and the intended audience is of this website. The author of the site is identified, we do not know any other information about the author or whether or not they are qualified to present information on this topic. The sponsor and revision date is also not provided. However, the website seems up to date and all the links work to the different games. The content of the website is clear and it achieves its intended purpose. It is also well organized and easy to understand. The website does better with the web design criteria. The homepage loads fast and is eye catching. You know where you are immediately and there is an index of all the games on the website and age groups. The site is easy to navigate and directions are provided and easy to follow. The links to other pages work and are appropriate to the webpage. Use of multimedia serves its correct purpose and relate to the math on the website. There is plenty of information and games that make this site worth visiting and using. All the information is clear and organized and consistent throughout the site. There is no revision date but all the information looks up to date. Over all it seems like a good website to use even though not all the criteria are met.

Overview: www.abcya.com is a website for educational gaming. It includes games intended to improve skills in several academic skills including math and language arts. Content: This site is somewhat confusing when you fist open up the home page. It takes a little reading to understand what the site is for, and who its target audience is. There are links that give information on the authors and supply contact information. Recent updates are posted, and links seem to work well, but the games do not seem like they would keep the attention of grade school children. Design: The design is where this site really lacks. There is nothing to catch the intention of the intended audience. They seem to simply rely on bright colors as opposed to animations and pictures. After navigating off the main page, this lack of animation and pictures is even greater. Instead of having links to the games with a picture, they only have text buttons.

I rated this website as very well designed and easy to use as well as very useful for my information needs because it is an excellent site for educational games for elementary aged students. The website breaks up content and games by grade, kindergarten through fifth grade and the audience is mainly students. The website does provide a page dedicated to teachers and parents explaining who the authors of the website are (teachers) and suggesting different ways that you can incorporate the games into lesson planning. The website doesn't provide a lot of outside links to other websites, but there is so much contained in this one site that I didn't feel like the content was lacking because of external links. As far as content does go, I was extremely impressed with this website. There was a page describing terms and uses as well as an entire page discussing student privacy. The content is also updated on a daily basis and each grade level had tons of games in all different content areas that students can play around with. They even have "holiday" and "seasonal" games that change periodically showing that the website owners really do update the content frequently. One thing that could have been a setback about this site is that it is sponsered and paid for by advertisements so there are ads on the tops and sides of all of the pages. This might not be so fantastic for younger students who don't understand they aren't supposed to click on every page that pops up. As far as design goes, this website is great for kids. It is fast and you hardly have to wait for the games to load at all which makes navigation really easy. Each game is separated by grade level and subject so students are able to choose their grade level on the home page and then search for a game that will interest them. The colors are bright and the graphics are great which really draws kids in. I would expect kindergartners to need help, but the website is so easy it would provide a grea

Free kids educational computer games and activities

Mandy Schumacher 1-24-10 Overview: Internet 4 Classrooms is a website with many components. The purpose of this website is to help teachers use the Internet effectively. On the "Home" menu the user can choose to visit any of the seven links posted. Those include: Grade Level Help, Links for K-12, Technology Tutorials, Assessment Assistance, Daily Dose of the Web, On-Site Training, or About Us. This is a free website that is designed to help teachers find free Internet Sources to use in the classroom setting. Content: This site is full of information and consists of many separate components. This site is mainly visited by teachers who are hoping to find a way to integrate the Internet into their classrooms. From the site the user can choose a specific grade level and subject. Once the user has selected a grade level and subject a list of sites that can be used for classroom instruction appear on the screen. For example, if the user chose Language Arts for Elementary Students, sites such as "American Literary Classics" or "Brain Food" would appear and the user would then choose one of those links to instruct their students. These links can take you to anything from a list of good books to read in the classroom, word puzzles to challenge your students, or anything else related to Language Arts for Elementary students. Design: The website is somewhat organized, however, it can be a little confusing to navigate since there are so many separate links on the Home page. There are also several ads which can become distracting. Overall this site provides good information for teacher and students about using the internet as a learning tool.

Trevor Santy Sept 14 2011 Overview: This site is mostly a teaching resource with activities for grades from preschool to 12th grade. With many different activities ranging through different class levels. The activities also cover a large variety of topics from science to math to English making it a good learning tool as well as a good place to practice the skills associated with that subject. It even says the grade level the activity was meant for making it a must have for a teacher's resources. Content: This site contains different activities for different subject matters such as history, math, science, and a few others. It also has a games tab that contains learning activities for all ages ranging from the easy to some that are very challenging. Also the activities make great lessons for aspiring teachers and the site has help sections in case you get lost or don't know what grade to do an activity for. Design: This websites design is extremely simple and straightforward. With tabs to take you to individual class levels and activities. On top of that it has a handy on site teacher training for using the activities that is pretty easily designed using a mix of videos and text.

Randi McInerney September 15, 2011 Overview: Internet4Classrooms is an educational website primarily for teacher usage, but could be used by students. There is a good amount of information available on a variety of topics, but the site is not as organized or appealing as it could be. Helpful links, educational games for k-12, assistance and information for teachers, technology tutorials, and SAT/ ACT prep are available. Content: There is a lot of information available, but the SAT/ACT prep is only accessible if you become a member. Interactive games, tutorials, and information are available. The content could be easier to find and access. There is email information to contact the website developers. Design: The site does download, but is not that visually appealing or organized. The site provides tabs to find information, but then will just list a large amount of information that you are expected to look through in order to find what you need.

Jennifer Durn January 24, 2010 Purdue Online Writing Lab - http://owl.english.purdue.edu/ OVERVIEW The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) is a site designed to provide online writing resources for writers of all ages; from middle school through college and into adulthood. This site provides a variety of writing resources ranging from assistance with APA and MLA formatting, to tips for avoiding plagiarism and resume assistance. Overall, I found the site to be particularly user friendly and have utilized it when completing assignments in past courses. CONTENT The purpose and function of the Purdue OWL site is readily identifiable when the home page is accessed. Sources and authors are listed clearly and the content of the website is current and up-to-date. Resources are also available which highlight recent updates to the site and provide navigational tips for accessing information quickly and easily. Information presented in each section is relevant and easy to select what is important for the particular writing project. DESIGN Using Mozilla Firefox, I did not have any issues with navigating the Purdue OWL site. Recent updates and upgrades to the website have improved the visual appeal. Multimedia resources are not available on the site but given the subject matter, this is not surprising. One area where this site could use additional work is the lack of links to other websites outside of Purdue University's English Department.

Stetson Fancher Reviewed Aug. 31, 2010 Purpose The purpose of the Purdue Online Writing Lab is to help give information and references towards writing documents for school related projects. It is there to educate Purdue students and others about all kinds of references and sources to help make the writing process easier. They have everything from avoiding plagiarism and APA formatting style guide to exercises that might help you with your writing. This site is a great site to use for students as young as junior high, up on through graduate school. It does a great job of making difficult information accessible. Content This site has a full arsenal of information that it has to offer writers with many different kinds of goals. It also does a great job of organizing the information so that it is easily accessible to those who need it. It also keeps the references us up to date as possible. It keeps the most current style guides and even frequently produces podcasts to those who subscribe. It does not always show all of its references on the home page, but as you dig into information, then it becomes more available. The content that this site provides is one that can be applicable for many different writers.

Adam Matson 9-14-2011 Website Evaluations: 1) http://owl.english.purdue.edu/ - Purdue Online Writing Lab Overview- This site is intended for the use by students (grades 7-12+) and teachers alike in regards to English writing styles, citations, etc. The site is developed by Purdue University and even allows students to turn written works in to be reviewed by university students and teachers to help correct and guide the writing process. It has a very complete overview of how to write well-rounded essays, letters, etc. and is easy to read and navigate. It covers areas such as MLA and APA formats along with how to cite sources both in-text and bibliographical forms. I would recommend it for anyone who has a question about a writing assignment. Content- The content of this site is extraordinarily helpful and easy to navigate. From the homepage you can easily discern that the main focus is education in English writing. All areas are labeled clearly and cover many sides of whatever subject you are on. It explains clearly every aspect, such as citing sources, and shows many examples, reviewing almost all instances the writer might run in to. Design- The design is fairly basic, as many educational sites are. It is not very interactive (meaning videos, sounds, games, etc.), but it very easy to navigate. Tabs and links are obvious and lead to such places as Contact Information. Links to other parts of the site are always colored differently and easy to discern. All links are easy to read and very specific, letting the user narrow down their intended search quickly and efficiently.

This site provides several examples of universally designed ebooks for students ages 10 and up. ebooks provide scaffolding techniques to understand passeges (editable by teachers), read content back to students, provide Spanish translations, and allow markup and note taking

Scott Chanthongthip on January 25, 2010 Overview: Although the website has seven books students can read from, it offers a helpful tool in learning to read while listening to the computerized voice. The computerized voice can be distracting to young readers though that cannot put aside the monotonous tone and lack of colorful personality a real teacher can provide. Manipulation of the tool bar for the story can help students highlight text, translates highlighted words from English to Spanish, and allows students to stop the reading to answer critical comprehension questions. The design of the website looks simple at first but I think if this a website to help students read it should be in simpler terms. Use of the computerized reading voice can read the whole page to students, so this can be helpful to navigate the pages. Content: Most of the content is laid out simply but it takes a while to get used to navigation of the different tools. Students that would use this site would probably have some background in reading already, as stated ages 10 and up by the UDL. It takes previous knowledge of reading ability to understand some of the more complex stories the site offers. Using the "Stop to Think" option asks listeners to pick multiple-choice answers that show the student comprehends the story they just heard. If readers miss the questions, clues to the right answer help the reader find the correct answer. As a teacher, I would use this site sparingly because I believe the computerized voice reading to students can bore them quickly. The website also takes away the ability for students to learn from their peers. The books used in this selection from the UDL provide just small glimpse at the plethora of reading material out there. The project team for the website consists of people with Education Doctorates , Master's of Education, and translators. As far as the content update, I could not find when its updates or when the site came into ex

Rachel Keyes ITEC 2360 01/24/11 http://www.kimskorner4teachertalk.com/readingliterature/litresponse.html Average website Overview This is a site designed for teachers, giving alternative exercises to help their classes respond to literature. My overall impression is that this is an organized, helpful site. The audience would be teachers who are looking for creative and exciting ways for their students to approach literature. It's a very simple website that has links with the corresponding projects listed. Content The content of the site is well organized and listed. The links on the page go to credible sites with ideas for creative book reports, class discussions, etc. The page was last updated in 2007, so it is possible that the ideas and links could be extremely out of date by now. There are some links that no longer exist and do not work, which is one of the sites major weaknesses. The author of the site is a teacher herself, and repeatedly expresses that the ideas are not hers, and provides the credit for the real authors of the ideas. Design The design of this website is extremely plain. Other than the text and the links, there are no pictures or visual aids. The title is clear and gives the author's name and the purpose of the site. The author reminds the audience that she is merely posting these ideas and they are not hers. The site is outdated, and some of the links don't work because they do not exist anymore.

Beau Pitt 1/31/2011 www.mcwdn.org/ECONOMICS/EconMain.html Overview: The purpose of this website is to provide information on economics with no clearly identifiable intended audience. As such, it must be assumed that the intended audience is everyone interested in economics; however, the information provided is only a general overview of economics and provides no information on current topics. The website provides links to various topics that open onto a short web page with only a brief definition and short overview of the subject. Anyone hoping to gain an in-depth understanding of economics will not benefit from this website as it provides little information and is poorly designed. Content: It is difficult to quickly determine the purpose of this website. Only a strange and distracting animation at the top of the page provides any sort of clue. The user has to read the main description to get any idea about what the website is. No author is accredited to the production of the website other than simply stating that it is a VirtEd site. Whether this is a sponsor or the company responsible for the site is unclear. No contact information is provided and the logo connects to a dead link. There is no date for revision provided, although there is a US National Debt clock that appears to be current, but still offers no clue as to when the site was last updated. The purpose of the site is not clear, the content is insufficient and possibly incomplete, and while it is moderately well organized, the interactivity does not increase the value. There is a quiz available for the subjects presented, but the information is so basic that it would only be valuable to a child trying to get a better understanding for the definition of economics. The information is accurate, but simplistic, and offers no real educational value. The author of the website did not bother to edit out grammatical errors. The links provided to other websites were attached to similarly u

Kandase Quinn 9/5/11 Overview: Made for teachers teaching K-12. This website gives lesson plans for all different grade levels and all different subjects. It is clear and easy to use and I found it useful when thinking of new ways to present different material to students. Design: Lay out is easy to navigate throughout the different links. They have a contact link and the copyright is clearly stated. Texts are all readable and all links and pictures worked. Content: This site has printable, assessments, special needs resources and lesson plans by subject and theme. There are also many other links on this site to get more information that this site may not have.

Katrina Swanson February 26, 2013 The intended purpose of this website is to provide teachers from many different grade levels access to creative and fun lesson plans, printables and other fun activities to include in their classrooms. Content: This website contains a lot of material that is very informational and helpful to teachers. There are links to almost any subject and more to incorporate into a classroom. Design: The design of this website is attractive but pretty basic. It is for teachers to use not students, and this is very clear just from looking at the different pages. Everything runs smoothly and the links seem to be working properly!

Adam Matson ITEC 2360 9-14-2011 Website Evaluation: Overview: http://writingcenter.gmu.edu/writing-resources is almost exactly the same as others I've found that are meant to be as a language arts resource. This one however, is a bit more basic and harder to navigate. It includes things like brainstorming ideas and some writing style directions, but does not go as in-depth or give as many examples as other sites visited. For a quick referencing tool I would suggest bookmarking the site, but there are other sites that may be more helpful. Content- The content I found can be useful, such as a printable handout showing various ways to incorporate transitions into your writing, but the overall content seems somewhat lacking. It just does not cover as many areas and subjects of language arts that many other sites do. Again, it could be used as a quick referencing guide when a student needs help. Design- The design is almost exactly like the sites explored earlier, a white background with black and blue text and links. It is somewhat hard to navigate due to wording and the placing of some of the tabs and links. Locations and members of the actual school seem more prominent in the navigation than actual links to language arts resources, which could prove to be frustrating.

Overview: This site is made to make it easier for high school students to decipher Shakespearian works. It is easy to navigate and applicable to a high school student. It is strictly an informational website, so it lacks an interactive aspect, but that is a minor details. The site is successful in passing accurate information to high school students to help them understand difficult texts they will most likely be required to read. Content: This site is incredibly useful for students to visit before reading a Shakespearian play or poem. The website helps bridge the time gap by explaining to users the language and customs, among other confusing topics, of tat time. The explanations are concise and accurate. Therefore, the website conveys the information it intends to completely without losing the interest of the audience. Design: The design of this website initially draws in its' intended audience very well. The site looks very user- friendly for high school students. Each aspect of Shakespeare that is generally difficult for high school students has a heading with the tips to decipher it underneath. The explanations are concise and applicable to what the students need to know before reading a Shakespeare play. My biggest criticism of the design of the site is that the user must search through pages to find the heading they want. The site could benefit from a heading bar for commonly searched topics.

An amusement park of math and more! Math lessons, math games, math practice, math fun! Coolmath4kids.com This website is targeted toward parents, teachers, and young kids interested in math and math games. The purpose of the website is to give lessons and games that will allow kids to easier understand math. The website seems easy to understand and gives simple explanations on math concepts. Content: The website is easily understood, and very clearly promotes math games and lessons to younger elementary age kids. The president, Karen, and writers of the website are clearly presented. The starting date is given, and the material seems to be up to date. The content is user-friendly and appropriate. Design: The website is very colorful, and appealing to the eye, especially for kids, who are most likely to use this site. The information is very useful and relevant to the younger kids, and easy to comprehend. There is enough info given to make it a useful website, and there are links to further info and to the creators.

CoolMAth.com- Review on 10/4/12 Diigo i.d= Jessle33 CoolMAth.com purpose is a site designed to make math more fun; referring to itself as an "amusement park" of games used to help make math more enjoyable. This site is designed for students of age 13 and up. The lowest level of math that it provides is pre-algebra so students younger than 8th grade may struggle a bit if using this site. There are various resources available for students who use this site: math lessons, math practice, math dictionaries, math games, all levels of math pre-algebra and up, puzzles, books, etc. There is also a tab that parents and teachers may visit that provides ways to help your kids with math homework, web education, and certain resources (books) that are available to them. My overall impression of this site is that it is easy for students to navigate no matter their age and bright colors are used. There are games that keep the students engaged and help to make the lessons educational, but beneficial. There are a lot of various activities for the students to use and that helps in many ways.

Kayla Hyde 10/20/2013 Overview: This website is made to make math cool and fun to students. It would be great for those students that don't think math can be fun or that rather play computer games then do math. It is a great way to promote learning in a new way. Content: This site is full of information and different links to different games based on different skills. There are puzzles and games that can be targeted for children ages three to five to eighth grades. Any student at any math level can find a game to help increase their learning of the subject. Design: The website can be a little overwhelming with so many links and so many colors. Because the site is set on a black background and multicolored text, it can be a little too much at times. Also there are many ads that can be a little much, but the content is still worth it.