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Dillon Karajanis 10/21/13 Review of ChooseMyPlate.gov Overview: The educational site I chose was ChooseMyPlate.gov and from what I observed I was able to determine right away that the website had to do with health and nutrition. The purpose of this site is to inform the users about the United States Department of Agriculture's regulations regarding a balanced diet, healthy recopies and nutritional activities. After just a couple clicks I learned that this site can be for educators, parents and children as well. ChooseMyPlate.gov provides interactive games, songs, videos and activity sheets that the users can engage in. My overall impression of the site is positive; there are just a few concerns of mine but in general I like the site and would use it in my classroom. Content: I decided to rate this site worth bookmarking because it does have very useful information that can be used in my class in the future. The sponsor and author are clearly displayed in the site and in this case they are the same source, the USDA. Contact information is also displayed inside the website for users to ask questions or verify topics. The content looked very well organized and complete with no spelling or grammar errors. The content of the site was complete and finished. Design: First of all the design of this website was very well put together. The homepage pulled up very quickly and was extremely visually appealing; with a slide show, bright colors and bold, easy to read text right on the first page it really draws the user in. One thing I did notice was that the copyright date and the latest revision date were not displayed and were not that easy to find. This raised a concern for me. Other than this I thought the information was well organized with a directory if needed as well. The additional links in the site were active, did not lead to dead ends and were all relevant to the subject. I thought over all it was a well designed website.

Samantha Cook 10/11/12 The Crusade website is a very plain website. It contains essential information that is very useful to people doing research on the crusades. This information ranges from older texts from that era or new information from historians. The Crusades were many holy wars to obtain lands in the east that were religious areas. This information is represented well by many different scholars through this website in one easy place. The Crusade website is very useful to people in college mainly, some high level high school students could use the sight. The audience is high school students in college level courses, looking for information deeper than the basics provided by their teachers; also it is aimed at for college academics to be used for papers and background information that is found in one easy place. The available resources are from current historians interpreting things from archaeologists and from the writings of that time, and then also the writing from that time to be interpreted yourself. This is very useful information provided because it includes current sources and older sources that has less opinion in it. My overall impression of this sight is very high I used to for my webquest, and I did that to give the kids who would have done it a basic look at crusades which they could have easily done without much looking. This sight is also pleasing to the eye, it is not fancy in any way but it is organized well and looks very academic which helps its purpose. Overall I would use and trust the sight because it is not necessarily their opinion but actual writings for that subject through links of this website and I believe these are the best websites for historians.

This website is essentially an overview of the important events of the Trojan War. The website is clear and organized in chronological order. If you simply read the page top to bottom you get a clear and basic overview of the most important events of the Trojan War. This was written for basically anyone who wants to learn about the basics of the Trojan War. I read through and I feel that it could be useful for anyone in middle school or older due to the level of vocabulary. I feel that all the necessary content is there, however the design could use some work. Pertaining to content, this website is great. Everything someone would want to learn about the basics of the war is there. This website also brings a unique perspective about the war because of the link "The Women". It's not very often (especially in Greek or Macedonian) society that women's opinions or chronicles were valued at all, let alone saved like these were. Information on this site is very easy to find because the links and headings are clear, making it easy to find what you are looking for. The author's and bibliography section are done well, a background of the authors is present, and all websites are presented in order and correctly formatted. The pages about the important women may be the best of all. They included the original Latin text, and an English translation. They also include descriptions of how that particular woman impacted the war or society. Pertaining to the design, this website could use some design help. While it's nice and simple, there aren't many colors, for instance every page has black font with a white background. The images are useful and pertain to the website, but there aren't many of them on the main pages. The sidebar looks very nice, the top bar does as well, if this theme would have been utilized more throughout the whole website it would certainly add to the attention grabbing aspect of the website.

Overview: This website serves as a creative online music environment for children of all ages. Kids are able to compose music and play with musical performance. It also includes many music games and puzzles and educational facts about music. I think this is a great site for children learning music and expanding their music knowledge. The content of this site is very educational and the design is very kid friendly and of high quality. Content: The information provided in this website is straight to the point and its purpose is easy to determine. Author information is clearly identified and easily available. The purpose of this site is clear and the overall content is great for children learning aspects of music. Design: The design of this website is very kid friendly and easy to navigate. It is definitely a site aimed more for kids than for adults including many graphics but very little text. All information is organized and labeled well and can be found easily. The information is sufficient making this site worthwhile.

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

This website, found at education.nationalgeographic.com, is geared at teachers, families, and student audiences. The encyclopedia resources on the site can be altered to better fit each of these audiences depending on the user's selected audience. In addition to encyclopedia resources, videos, photographs, lessons, and educational activities can also be found on the website. The website developer, National Geographic Society, does a wonderful job of providing external links and updated information on a variety of scientific and social topics which could be helpful in elementary classroom research activities. National Geographic's website content is relevant and correct, since it's most recent update took place in 2015. Although the site identifies its sponsor as the Verizon Foundation, no biases in the texts can be detected. On every educational page, whether it is an encyclopedia entry for K-2nd grade audiences or a suggested lesson plan for teachers, National Geographic provides a multitude of working links to back up the site's information and facts. At the bottom of every page, the website provides contact information in the forms of email addresses, mailing addresses, and telephone numbers for users to use in case of any questions or concerns. Clearly, the National Geographic Education website's content is accurate and very useful for science and social studies education. The design of this site is compatible with all web browsers and downloads efficiently. The Education home page offers an attractive, organized display of the website's resources and choice of audiences. This easy-to-follow format also flows onto every page on the website for easy navigation, and all links are integrated into the website's text for convenient learning and fact-checking. Over all, the presentation of National Geographic's content is attractive, organized, and current.

The intended purpose of this page is to educate people on the self-esteem changes that occur in middle school students, through a study done with different ethnic groups. The indented audience is for anyone I would say middle school and older interested in this study and the information. The full article and study, the publication date, publication type, authors, and editors are available through this site. I think this site is very informative and credible based on the information given, and the site is set up for easy access. This study takes a look at middle school students grades 6-8 of different gender and ethnic groups. These ethnic groups include European American, African American, and Hispanic. This study was done on the same students for the consecutive three years comparing the self-esteem of ethnic groups and of gender. The content of this page is relatively old, dating in 2006, but the rest of the article is credible, peer reviewed, and the authors and editor are educated on the subject. This web page does not have a strong eye appeal, and does not bring a lot of attention. The page is easy to navigate. The title and the authors are clear, and all the information regarding the study is listed for easy reference. A summary is posted on the actual web page, and the full text is available through a link. The design is very simple, and is only one page that summarizes all the information.

Emily Pariseau The overall point of the website is clear from the opening page that details specifically that this site provides various creative resources for English teachers teaching to second language learners - specifically this site deals with teaching in Japan and the author of the site, Jeffrey, encourages people to share the site among Japanese teachers as well. The site is extremely simplified with just black Arial text on a white background with just one photo of the author at the top. He explains in the about page that he keeps the site simple so that it can be more internationally friendly across every web browser and on mobile websites of varying operating systems. The site is aimed at teaching English for grades 1-6 in Japan and each link to a grade level provides age appropriate in class activities and lesson plans for basic concepts like counting, animal naming, and holiday vocabulary. Every lesson is provided in word doc format and concise but detailed enough that one could use it in their own class, which the author encourages.

* Jessica A. Wilhelmsen Reviewed September 1, 2010 * Apples4theteacher.com - A Primary Website Overview The overall purpose of this site seems to be an interactive learning environment for both teachers and kids. However, neither teachers nor students would enjoy this site as it seems currently incomplete. While the site is labeled it is cluttered with categories and listings. It is also cluttered with advertisements and gives off a feeling of chaos. While the site does give tons of resources an individual would need time to weed through them all to see if it was something they could use. Content The content of the website has the latest revision date and author. The site is currently under construction, which may be supplying some of the confusion and lack of graphics. The organization of this site does provide categories and various links associated with it each subject. However, the design and over abundance of activities makes looking at it overwhelming. I think individual and students will utilize other sites over this one due to its lack of structure and ease. Design The esthetics of the Apples4teacher.com is very unattractive. The site uses small icons and titles that make it hard to look at. The index for each subject is located just below an advertisement and text boxes border the entire web page. Once you click onto a subject area there is a lack of design, a list of resources to click and more advertisements. There is no flow to the website and the graphics don't add anything to its appeal. I wouldn't bookmark this page unless its updated or I find something in that would work well.

Website: http://science.discovery.com/ Content The science channel website has some good information in it. The audience of this website is obvious in the title and the material. It is for those people looking for science related material for basically any age. There are games for the kids and articles for the older crowd. There are a few N's on my evaluation, but there are no perfect websites. They keep the website current. Design The homepage is very appealing. There is very good contrast and images. The text is easy to read. The website cleary states what its intent is, is easily accessible and navigatable. The videos load and are connected to the websites material. I was able to open the website in safari, firefox and Internet explorer. There is a lot of material from articles to videos to games and even a tv manual to what is on the science channel. The website is logical and orderly. The website is current and there is no out dated material that I could find. There are links to other websites that are related to the science channel such as animal planet and military channel. Overview I found that the Science channel website was very resourceful. It is a science website so there is some bias because there are theories and not all material has been proven. I found that I was current and easy to use. The audience is very obvious and there are things to do for fun and learn at the same time. I really enjoyed looking at this website for its purpose and not just scanning over it not noticing how effect it really is. Joey Skalsky Itech 2360 Sec 4

Jaymie Sheehan ITEC 2360-04 9/2/2010 OVERVIEW For my this review I visited Vocabulary Games, http://www.vocabulary.co.il . The site's intended audience is students from Kindergarten to 12th grade who want to improve their vocabulary. The intended purpose of the site is to provide these students with a fun and exciting way to improve vocabulary. The site has various resources depending on grade level. High school students can practice SAT words while Kindergarten kids can begin to understand reading and phonics. I felt that this site is valuable to students, teachers and parents. Often the hardest part of getting a child to be proficient in reading and writing is generating interest and this site does just that! The simple layout makes navigation quick and easy. This is a site I would use in the classroom and at home with children of all levels.

Rebekah Asay January 23, 2011 Overview: This website offers a lot of free information on English vocabulary. There are games for each age level, vocabulary reading resources, and links to vocabulary around the world. Content: There is a lot of information on vocabulary, analogies, compound words, parts of speech, spelling, contractions, foreign languages, synonyms, and prefixes to name a few. There are a lot of additional resources for viewers who want to expand their search. Design: The design is a little weak. It is hard to navigate the website and it a little disorganized. There are a lot of adds surrounding the content that distract the eye.

Overview: This site can be used by junior high and high school English students to help understand many texts that they will be required to read at some point in their academic career. It contains many games for various novels; the games are appropriate for older students, which is hard to come by. The appearance of the site is a little confusing because it appears to be geared for younger students but the content is that of older students. The games are helpful and applicable to class. Content: This website is mostly useful for junior high and early high school students. It offers interactive help for texts that are commonly read at those ages. Each book that is represented on the site has several games the user can try relating to different topics, such as vocabulary, content, and setting. The website also has information that is beneficial for upper high school students. It offers a variety of different interactive games to help with studying vocabulary for the SAT, or any other standardized test they will need to take. The information on the site is accurate and helpful for the audience. Design: The design of this website does not match well with its' intended audience. The content of this website is for junior high and high school students, but the design seems oriented for a much younger audience. The graphics are not beneficial to the site and may make the site lose some users because they think it is too young for them. However, the site is very easy to maneuver. Each different topic has a headline with a brief description of what the user can expect if they choose that link.

Website: http://adprima.com/tipson.htm Content The adprima website is for teachers looking for educational advice. However the content is not broken up and gets hard to read. There are links but they take you to other pages that have the same design. It was fairly easy to pick the basic content because it tells you what the site is about and the audience is for teachers. There is good material here it is a bit bias at times. It is a website that is made as a guideline. There are spelling errors. It is current as of June 24, 2010. Design I did not find any multimedia. The material is try and blocky making it hard to read. Site is easily navigatable. The website is not appealing to the eye. There is no color or contrast to keep you involved. The speed is quick because there is just text to load. It is browser friendly. Material is ok but very hard to keep interested. Overview I did not enjoy this website. It was very bland and difficult to read. They do keep it updated however. The material is decent but is dry and formatted badly. The content was good but the design of the website took too much away from its content. Joey Skalsky Itech 2360 Sec 4

Kayla Rider January 23, 2010 Overview This site, I believe, is a very resourceful website. It is for those intended audiences looking for more information on Queen Elizabeth 1. This would be useful for any history course involved with the years of which she reigned, or any Shakespearean class. I have used this site many times throughout my collegiate career. It has some great information within it and is easy to move around in. Content The content of this website is as I afore mentioned. It allows you the choice of U.K. or U.S. English to follow along to. It gives you a table of contents to divide the history and story of Queen Elizabeth 1. This website has a vast amount of information about her and does not get boring. It has a section about the author, giving her credit for this website, and also letting the readers know if she is credible, which she does seem to be. It allows you to e-mail her with questions in the About the Site link. Overall, I believe it is a credible and reliable source to venture to. Design The design of the website is very appealing. It catches your eye at the moment you log into it. However, it doesn't over power the content of the site either. It allows for pictures within the text to help you follow along with the times in which Queen Elizabeth ruled. Overall it is very appealing and informational.

Content Summary: The site at first is a little hard to determine the basic content of the site unless you knew about the program before visiting the site. The sponsors for the site are clearly identified on the site and each one had a separate link for them. The site did no have posted anything on the information currency. However, the information on the site is talking about the program therefore; the information does not need to be updated as much. The site met all the information quality standards for the evaluation. The site was well organized and the purpose of the site was clear and easy to understand. Design Summary: The Growing Up Wild web site is very neat and fresh looking. The site and the links on the page downloaded efficiently. All of the text was well organized and easy to read. Navigating around on this site and moving form topic to topic was easy. The few graphics they displayed made a contribution to the site and was the right amount to attract the eye but not take away from the information. There was also availability of further information provided for those who want it. Overview: Growing Up Wild is a site that explains an early childhood education program. This site is for teachers or other educators. This program focuses on having students explore wildlife, nature and the world around them. It also has great activities for students to participate in and learn useful information. The site was very well designed, easy to use, and contained useful information.

Mandy Schumacher 1-24-10 Overview: creativewritingprompts.com is a website that is intended to provide teachers and students with hundreds of different writing ideas. There are over 300 prompts on the site and all of them are easily accessible. This site can be a very useful tool for educators, or anyone who enjoys writing. Content: This website is targeted at anyone who is interested in writing. Creativewriting.com provides the user with 346 different writing prompts. The prompts can be used to create poems, stories, or other creative works. The purpose of this site is not purely informational however; this particular website is also a commercial site. Along the side of the page there are ads promoting online courses, a journaling kit, other books, and there is a list of "sister websites" displayed on the bottom. Copyright and information about the author is easily accessible on the bottom of the site as well. Design: The site quickly downloaded to the homepage. The homepage is really easy to navigate. There are numbers assigned to each prompt. All the user has to do is place the cursor over any of the numbers for the prompt to pop up in a text box. The ads along the side and bottom of the page serve as a distraction but overall the site is easy to navigate and well organized. There are also links at the bottom of the page

Alexis Lunberg: February 1, 2011 The purpose of this website is to provide games and activities for young children in math, science, and literacy. The site also provides a link for homework help. Each section of the website is supposed to provide interactive teaching games and activities for the subject provided. The intended audience looks like it would be around kindergarten through third grade. The design is really simple and not very eye catching and there isn't very much content on the homepage. Since there isn't very much content it is hard to know what is actually on the site. Content There are a lot of things to critique on the content of this website. First of all it is very hard to identify what age group the site is intended for, and there is very little information about the person/people who made the website. Also the viewer has no idea when the site was made and whether the site has been updated. Some of the links to the other sections of the website are not working and the site doesn't really meet the purposes that the teacher would think it would. The games are of low quality and outdated. Overall the site doesn't have very good content. Design The design of the website can overall be confusing if you are trying to get back to where you started. The homepage isn't very attractive and the graphics can be kind of confusing. For instance the math section has a graphic of numbers above the text, so you would assume that the games in that section would be very basic. There are some basic games in this section but there are some that are so challenging that they seem like they don't belong. Several of the links are outdated or broken and there isn't a consistent format used throughout the website. Also the links on the website aren't very useful. Overall the design needs a lot of help.

John Pokallus 31 January 2011 Overview: The purpose of the site "Catch me if you can" seems to be a talent agency for aspiring individuals involved in the performing arts. The available resources of this site were literally non-existent and I had much difficulty navigating and finding any useful information whatsoever. This site was so poorly designed that I am still not entirely sure what content it actually provides. Content: Upon first look I was so inundated with visual stimulus that I was dumb-founded for a moment and had absolutely no idea what the purpose of the site was. After randomly searching the site I discovered that the intended audience was for individuals involved in the performing arts, and it seemed that this site was that of a talent agency. As far as information: providers, currency, and quality were all non-existent. The only actually readable text was the "about us" page that advertised their company named "Catch me if you can." There were links to other pages, but the links did not work so I could not tell if they were relevant to performing artists. The only positive thing about this site is that the grammar and spelling seemed to be correct. Design: The homepage took longer to download than it should have. Upon downloading, there were so many visually distracting animations and colors that I could not tell what the site was about. I did find an index to other pages within the site, but each page was equally confusing and distracting. There use of multimedia served no purpose other than to confuse, distract, and cause seizures to individuals susceptible to epilepsy. There were broken links, both internally and externally to the site. I could not find contact information on the site creators, and there was no indication of a discernible date or copyright notice.

Danie Thiel 1-23-11The outline of the site is very organized and easy to navigate. The information is clear and easy to understand. The site gives a brief over view on the history of ceramics from the very beginning and what led to the creation of glaze. The site gives a basic timeline of when history occurred. There is also addition information in the timeline that the text does not offer. If a member of the site additional resources are available.The intended purpose of this site was to educate on the history of ceramics and the site does. This site is best intended for students of age of 14 and up into adult years. This site is very resourceful and has valuable information to offer. The information is easy to obtain and comprehend.   

Kaci Philpot Overview: The intended purpose of this website is to provide elementary level students with fun and engaging games that build different skills and knowledge. Teachers can use some of the games for supplementing lessons such as; "volcano explorer", "chill the spill", and many more. Even games that don't seem like they would be educational are full of facts about various subjects and environmental awareness. Content Summary: For "First Look" I could not highlight the information because it was not in a text format, but the audience and basic content of the site are very clear. There were no specific authors listed for the games or information. The credibility of the authors is evident though because at the bottom near the copyright statement, it states that the company/sponsor is #1 in non-fiction media. It also has a very clear link for any questions about the site that works properly. I found it hard to find the latest revision date, most likely because the website mostly has games, but the content must be updated frequently because it has games that are up-to-date with the environmental issues today. All links to other sites work properly. In the "Information Quality" section of the evaluation, the website received all yeses. There are biases. However, they are clear when glancing through the content of the games. There was not any further information related to my purposes, but I did not really need any because I was only looking for games and activities to supplement lessons. Total yeses: 18 Total no's: 2 Total N/A: 1 Design Summary: The homepage uploaded very quickly and received all yeses. It has very strong eye appeal, it's clear what website you are visiting, and the copyright date is clearly stated at the bottom of the homepage along with the sponsor/provider. The navigation is easy and instructions for games and such are very clear and easy to follow. All internal and external links work properly. And internal links a

John Paul Evans May 18, 2011 Historyteacher.net is a content heavy page providing many teaching resources for history teachers. The website is usable but needs many improvements. Purpose: Historyteacher.net provides a large amount of content for history teachers. This includes, quizes, timelines, study guides and much more. It also devotes some of it's resources towards updating readers on current events in the field. Content: This website does not lack for content. Unfortunately not all the content is managed appropriately. A person can look at the page and reasonably grasp it's purpose, however they may have difficulty finding the content they are searching for. The site provides a great deal of information and is clearly unbiased when approaching history. However, much of the information reads as if it is pulled directly from a text book and often fails to provide citations or even authors. It does provide many links to credible and useful content providers when more information is required. Also all of the content it provides is free of charge. Design: The design of this site is atrocious. It loads up quickly but has so many links and information on a single page that a user does not know where to begin. It doesn't help that flash animations, gifs and unneeded icons and pictures litter the page almost randomly. The color scheme also seems random and makes your eyes begin to verbally cry out in pain. I would recommend an entire overhall on this website's design. It would also be helpful if news and articles would list an author or at the very least a date posted. As it is I have no idea how regularly the site is updated or if it is even currently active.