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Kayla Rider January 23, 2010 Overview This website, I believe, will be very useful for pre-service teachers as well as in-service teachers. It is an educational website for ESL students. It has many links within it that show you how to teach or how to use grammar, search for jobs, writing skills, etc. I have yet to use it for anything rather than this evaluation, but I could definitely see myself using it in the future for my students and myself. Content As said before, the content is for ESL teachers and students. It has links for grammar….etc. It has a table of contents of to the side to navigate through its perimeters. If you are stuck on MLA guidelines, it has a link to help you. It can be used for any writing mis-hap or question that you might have. It looks to be credible due to its vast amount of copyright restraints. I believe that overall this educational website can be very useful. Design The overall color scheme is appealing to the eye but does not distract you from its content. It is very easy to navigate through due to its overall set up. The tabs can be easily found, as well as the links in which you might want to navigate to. It has descriptors for its links that allow you to read a summary of what you are getting into. Overall, very effective design.

Posted by Kelsey Potter on January 24, 2010 Content: The content of the page is clear but the audience is unclear for this webpage. The author is unknown and there is no information on the contact anyone for this site, the sponsor of the site is clear at the top of the page. There is no revision date on the page although the information seems to be kept up to date. The purpose of the page is clear and understandable. The content is well organized and easy to understand. There are a lot of ideas throughout the page and is sufficient to the reader. It is free of bias and consistent throughout the webpage. Design: The webpage opened promptly and was interesting at first site. There is a clear title and captions on the page and the index is clear to directing the reader in the right directions. The sponsor of the site is provided although information on the sponsor is not given. Copyright date is available. There are no directions in the site but they may be needed to guide the reader to what they are looking for. There was only advertisement graphics which did not benefit the webpage's content. The basic format was different throughout the webpage making it hard to browse through and ding information. The links are well organized and easy to use. Summary: This webpage is not a very reliable source although it is only science projects so it does not necessarily need to be. There are several good ideas for science projects for teachers to use in the classroom or for students to perform outside of the classroom. Although clicking onto the homepage is a little overwhelming with different resources for science projects to use as well. There is different ways of searching for science projects and that makes it easier for the reader to find what they are specifically looking for. Overall this web site serves its purpose by exposing fun and interesting science projects to its readers.

Ryan Mikesell ITEC Web Review 1/23/10 Overview: Ageducate.org is a website funded by the American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture and is dedicated to educating agricultural educators. It provides information and resources for Ag Ed teachers everywhere to help them in the classroom. From lesson plans to activities the site helps teachers to better educate their students in agriculture. The site is mainly intended for Ag teachers but also has a link to careers available in agriculture. Content: The website is very basic and easily maneuverable. The information presented is clear and understandable as well as very useful to an educator in need of classroom activities and information. All the links are effective and useable, and all copyright information and site revision dates are provided. The website has many useful educational tools including useful book references, downloadable lesson plans and nation wide statistics about agriculture education. It also has a link that provides websites and games intended for the education of younger children and to help get them involved in agriculture. Design: The website is designed mainly as an educational tool. Its links are easily followed and it provides necessary links to other websites. Pictures are used to illustrate and promote agriculture. All provided information is referenced and revision dates provided.

Ryan Mikesell ITEC Web Review 1/23/10 Overview: Lincolnelectric.com or the Lincoln Electric homepage is a promotional website for the Lincoln Electric company but also contains information about Lincoln welding products and links to information regarding welding technology. The site is directed towards people in the welding profession, in regards to potential customers, or anyone in need of products or looking into joining the welding profession. Overall this is a good website to search products and gain information about the welding profession. Content: Lincoln Electrics main page contains a lot of advertisements and product reviews but that's because this is the nature of the website, to sell Lincoln products. However this is not the only available resource this page offers it also contains some very viable information. Within this website there are links to informational sites, career opportunity pages, educational and informational articles as well as educational products such as welding instruction videos and handbooks. Each article included on the website has authors and references. Lincoln electric also provides all copyright information on each page. There are links to talk to professionals and how to contact the company itself. A very useful site to someone in need of Lincoln products or information about becoming a welder and the necessary equipment needed, as well as the opportunities in the welding profession. Design: The design of this webpage is very typical for a corporate, product selling website; it's obvious its intentions are to sell Lincoln products and to persuade people to join the welding profession. Its links and toolbars are easily navigated and clearly defined. All revision dates and references are provided. The page also includes an abundance of images and links to other sites.

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

Katie Hurrell January 21, 2010 Overview: Theteacherscorner.net is a website that is designed for teachers. The purpose of this website is to provide teachers with tools that will help their students learn better. It provides teachers with titles of popular books for elementary students as an example of an available resource. The website also includes lesson plans, thematic units, seasonal items, teacher resources, printable worksheets, and collaboration projects. My impression based on content and design is that the website is very easy to use and has helpful information for teachers. Content: Based on the content of this website it is easy to determine the content of the website. The author of the website is identified at the bottom of the website. The purpose of this website is very clear; it provides teachers with some resources and links to other websites that might be helpful for teachers to use. The information on this website is definitely accurate because it is solely dedicated to help teachers improve their teaching skills. There are links that are related to the needs of the audience. Theteacherscorner.net is very useful and definitely worth bookmarking. Design: The homepage downloaded very quickly and the homepage is attractive and uses graphics to make the user know that they are on the homepage. The user is able to move around the site with ease and links to other websites are helpful and appropriate and the information is clearly labeled and organized. The copyright date is easy to find however, it does not show the date of the last revision. This website is very well designed and easy to use.

Posted by Erika Jeffs on 1/24/2010 Overview: Brightstorm is a dot com website for high school students to prepare for various college preparation exams, such as, the ACTs and SATs along with advanced placement exams. The site offers practice on certain subjects of the tests. The math section is particularly emphasized and has wide range of high school level material. It includes videos of concepts and practice problems that are very helpful. However, the website does sell practice packages which is the ultimate goal of this website. Content: The audience and purpose of this website is very clear. There is information about the creators of this website along with their credentials. The "managers" are qualified and contact information is available. The site has current information and seems to have been updated this year. The purpose is obvious, they do not try to hide that they ultimately wants to sell something. Brightstorm is effective for practicing high school level math and has accurate information. The site is interactive because it offers videos teaching concepts and practice problems as well as a question/answer feature. Also, it is very easy to navigate because it is organized and has clearly marked tabs. As far as I can tell, grammar and spelling are correct. There are not many outside links. Overall, this website as good content. Design: The page loads quickly. When you arrive at the home page, it is appealing and not too cluttered. There are clearly marked tabs that contain the most important aspects of the site. There is also another set of tabs that are easy to find with information about the creators and contact information. The copyright is clearly stated. Navigation is very simple because everything is broken into subjects, and many video clips are available that load quickly and work well. The math section is particularly helpful and has a lot of useful information for high school students. It is very simple to find the informa

Rebecca Gardner Jan. 24, 2010 The content of this website is based on lesson plans for grades kindergarten to 12th grade. This was easy to determine. It was also easy to determine that this website was intended for teachers. The authors and sponsors were easy to identify and they seemed qualified to present information on the topics. I could not find when the website was last revised, but the ads were current. The links to other websites were current and working properly. The purpose of this website was clear and informative. The content was well organized and offers sufficient information for my needs. I didn't see any bias, but I believe that there could be, because the website is presented by Discovery. The website provides interactivity that increases its value. The links provided are worthwhile and appropriate. The design of this website is effective and it down loaded efficiently. The homepage is attractive, but did have a lot of ads. You can tell where you are immediately and the title, description and image captions are clear. The sites sponsors and copyright date were established and easy to determine. The user is able to navigate around the website with ease. The directions are clear and easy to follow. The internal and external links were working properly and there were no dead ends. Each of the graphics, video files, audio files ect.. serve a clear purpose and make a significant contribution to the site. There is sufficient information that makes this website worth visiting. The information is clearly labeled and easy to find. The contact information is provided and easy to find and the links to other websites are provide and some are useful while others are ads. My over view of this website is that it can be useful for grade levels. They provide free lesson plans that could come in handy. This website is associated with the Discovery channel so you may run into a lot of ads and maybe even some biases. I would recommend this

Jennifer Durn January 24, 2010 Pioneer Drama Service, Inc. - http://www.pioneerdrama.com/ OVERVIEW While this site was more of a commercial nature than the others that I reviewed for this assignment, the Pioneer Drama Service website appears to be a valuable resource for the director of a children's theater program or a school drama advisor. The company provides a useful search feature to locate the appropriate play or musical and utilizes a shopping cart, as do many other e-commerce sites. I plan to bookmark this site and use it in my career when I have the opportunity to be a drama or theater advisor in a school setting. CONTENT The intended audience is readily apparent when one first navigates to the Pioneer Drama Service site - the "educational and amateur market." The site is well organized and information is logically presented. The site is updated regularly with the most recent update having occurred on the day I viewed the site. Given the abundance of copyrighted material on the website, playwrights and authors are cited consistently. DESIGN The "Ask the Playwright" feature and blogs are two tools that I had not expected to see on the site. The "Ask the Playwright" button allows the user to send a message through the Pioneer Drama Service to inquire about the particular work. The blog section provides postings from staff as well as news feeds from other relevant websites. Many of the plays and musicals featured on the site also contain production photos and production notes, a useful tool when deciding which theatrical works will be featured in the upcoming season. The site performed without incident using Mozilla Firefox and presented information in a simple and user friendly fashion - search features at the top of the site and a toolbar with drop down menus on the left.

Overview This website is my favorite, even though it does not look very professional. It has links to other sites that are easy to navigate through and it has different classroom activities that are described and are to be used in kindergarten classrooms which is the age group that I intend to teach. I am able to find an author and author information as well as a recent "last updated" date and current links on the homepage to lead me to further information. The site lacks color and graphics, but the content and information makes up for it. Content I am able to clearly see that the purpose of this website is to inform teachers of many different classroom activities that can be used as well as a description of each. The author of the site seems qualified to be giving out this information and there is further information given so that you can find out more about the author and her credibility. The site was last revised in December 2009 so the information is very recent. The content of the site achieves the purpose which is to inform. The site appears to be unbiased, organized, accurate, and consistent. Design The homepage downloaded quickly and efficiently as well as its links and contact information. The home page is not attractive however because it lacks graphics or even color. I can clearly tell where I am once I get to this page and can easily find the table of contents and its links. The author, sponsor, and copyright information are easy to find at the bottom of the homepage. It was easy to move through the site and navigate each of its links and the site is reliable and current.

Meghan Snell September 11, 2011 Overview: This website is mainly for kids and for fun learning. There are useful purposes for parents and teachers as well. At the bottom of the website, links are available to other sites more useful for teachers. It is well organized with links to grade levels as well as links to different subjects. There are 100's of different games which are all mostly educational and help improve children's skills. It's an extremely fun appealing looking site to catch kid's attentiong and easy to navigate. Content: The authors and sponsors were a little difficult to find although there was a nice section about the site itself and its purposes. The content of the site is mainly for children but teachers and parents can find uses out of it as well. I was not able to find information on how often or when it was last updated but the copyright of the site itself was clearly given. All of the links work fine and the site does serve its purpose. Design: The graphics of the site are very appealing, fun and contribute to the site. Everything loaded easily and now unecessary downloads had to be made to go through the games and activities. It was easy to find what activities were desired becuase of the headers being organized neatly.

Overview: The purpose of this website is for teachers to join the community of teachers that teach Spanish or Portuguese. There are a number of important links for all people to see that are not members of the AATSP. The overall layout and design of this site is Professional and has a sense of prestige. Content: The content of this site is up to date. The contact information and date of copyright is listed at the bottom of the page. Content is organized, helpful, and accurate. The calendar shows upcoming events and there is a link to the monthly Journal. Design: The layout is professional and makes it seem that if a teacher joins, they will be part of an important group of people that will provide great resources. The table of contents is in alphabetical order and the scrolling photos make the website seem relevant to the information it provides. All links work properly and provide very useful information. Due to the amount of links, there seems to be a great resource of information available to people with the AATSP.

Posted by Erika Jeffs on 1/24/2010 Overview: Webmath is a website designed to aide in math homework for many levels of math. The site helps solves problems and shows the processes to get there. The student can type in specific problems or practice concepts with provided examples. The site is meant to help when students are having trouble with their homework; however, this site could be utilized too much and may allow students not to do there own work. Content: Webmath directly states what this website is for as well as the levels of math that can be found on it. The site is copyrighted and contact information is readily available, but the authors of the site are unclear. It is also unclear whether or not the site has been updated recently. The information you are looking for is easy to find because the math content is broken up into in an easy to understand fashion. There is also a quick find drop down bar, but it has several options that may be hard to wade through. Students can type in specific math problems and the answer is delivered instantly. There are several advertisements, which imply that math help is not the sole purpose of the site. Internal and external links seem to work well, but the site has limitations and probably cannot answer every question. Design: Webmath loads and operates quickly. The homepage is unattractive but effective. The site is easy to navigate, and there are instructions if there is any question on how to use a feature. The links work properly, and the layout is consistent throughout the site. Webmath is lacking in interactive material and attractive graphics.

Sara Scribner 1/22/10 Overview: This website is intended for students and teachers in Elementary Education. It includes interactive games ranging in difficulty from grades kindergarten through 5th. Although some games are less educational than others, this site offers some helpful, fun tools in teaching most subjects. Overall, this website is very credible and well suited for Elementary Education. Content: At first glance, the audience and basic content for this site are easily determined. Located at the bottom of the homepage are links to find information about the author, the site sponsor, contact information, and a note to parents and teachers with more information about the site. A copyright date was available, but a revision date was not provided. However, the site seems to be current. As I navigated through this website, all links were working. ABCya! is well organized, easy to understand when learning a new game, and provides accurate (content-wise and spelling/grammar-wise) information. Although this site offers games for all subjects, it seems primarily focused on student math skills, for majority of its games are math related. Also, it is clear this site is commercial because of the many ads that litter the pages. Despite the multitude of ads, I believe the content is accurate and useful in the classroom. Design: This quickly downloaded website is visually appealing to me and to young children. Although the rainbow of colors makes the page seem busy, it is very organized and the content is easy to locate and use. Links to other websites are not given, but there is so much information provided one could most likely find what he is looking for. Fun sounds accompany most games one plays adding excitement. For Kindergarteners, all games have sounds and the instructions are read aloud. I would however caution students using this site unsupervised because of the many advertisements.

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

Overview The purpose of this website is to inform people about the history of Native Americans. It is easily accessed by the public and it's a great resource for learning about Native American History. Content When you first log on to this website the title is clearly stated, and its very easy to understand the purpose of the website. The copyright date is current and it ends with a .org, it appears to be a credible site. The information on this website is clearly laid out it terms of dates in chronological order. This makes the information much easier to understand. The content on the website is clearly informative. It is not trying to sway you one way or another. Not only does this website contain great information it also has popular links on the side. These links take you to other sites which may be quite helpful. I think this website would be great for students and teachers. Design The creators of this website could have a done a little better with the design plan. The title isn't very catchy or colorful. In past experiences I have learned more people are apt to read things if they look appealing. The website itself is very efficient and easy to navigate. However multimedia is also lacking. More color and pictures could have been used to draw the reader in. The website is supposed to inform you and it does a great job of that.

Overview This website was created to inform the reader about Betsy Ross and all the aspects of her life. The site has great information and can be easily accessed by anyone who has a computer. Its very attention getting and has a lot of great information. Content When accessing this site it is very clear its purpose is to inform the reader about Betsy Ross. Anyone can find the information on this site useful but it is probably geared more toward younger students. The copyright, latest revision date, and publisher are clearly listed at the bottom of the website. The site also ends in a .org making the information much more reliable. The purpose of this site is to inform, there is no bias present. All the information is well organized in bulleted list form, making the information easy to find. If you click on any of the bulleted points it will take you to another link with more information. The website is very easy to access and navigate and I would recommend it to both students and teachers. Design This website has a great eye appeal. The color scheme was red, white, and blue which I thought was very appropriate, and gave the website a little something extra. The site is easy to navigate because of the bulleted information. There are pictures of Betsy Ross which also help draw the reader in. This website can be accessed by anyone and is very user friendly. Overall this is a great website.

Posted by Amber Rittenhouse on 1/23/10 Overview: This site is particularly intended for grades K-8. The site focuses on the basic skills in order to be successful in the games. It does not offer any lessons to teach the skills. It just assumes that you already know the material, so you can use your knowledge to play the games. There are no further links available through the site. The site does accomplish its purpose of entertaining kids using math, but the site is not very credible. I would not recommend the use of this site. Content: This site contains many math games for many levels of math. The author of the material is not shown, but it does seem to be sponsored by Jefferson County Schools. There is no information given to contact someone in the case of questions. There is also no dates of revision, so the accuracy if the site is questionable. The purpose of the site is to entertain kids with games, using their math skills. The content is well organized, so it is very easy to get to the desired place. There are no math links available to go to further sites. There are no ads or distractions, so the viewer is not distracted from the games. Design: This site is not very well designed. The homepage is not very colorful or eye catching. It is pretty dull. However, it is very easy to follow the steps to get to the games for a certain type of math problem. The copyright date or the date that the site was established is not available. The information is well organized, and information is easy to find. It is unable to determine the date of the last revision. There are no further links to other useful sites.

Amanda Lamey January 23, 2010 Overview I chose this site because RosettaStone has seemed to help lots of individuals learn a second or third language. I was impressed when I came to this site. You can choose from a variety of languages, you can purchase packages or just one at a time. With each package it listed the price and a button for you to add it to your cart. They have a toll free number to call. There are videos of people who have used it and learned from it. I think this is a beneficial part in helping someone purchase this item. I know it would help me. I would want to know from experience whether a product is good enough to spend hundreds of dollars on. This website is designed for anyone, but limited to people with credit/debit cards. Any one person can learn a language with assistance and it has been proven that younger children learn quicker and faster than adults. They had a contact button for further information. It also had other available resources like case studies from a classroom, stories of individuals who had used it, videos of people who had purchased and used RosettaStone. It had different options to chose from like; Home school, Schools, Organizations and Personal. The purpose of this site is to let you explore multiple options and not limit you to one thing and one language, its open ended. I think it's a wonderful site and easy to use. I also think RosettaStone's product is expensive which is a downfall because as a college student I have enough bills and money concerns to worry about to where I can't just go spend three hundred dollars to learn a language on my own time. Evaluation of Design The overall evaluation of the design was accurate. It had useful information and sites to attend to gather further information. Instead of reading the material you would have to purchase it, but it showed what levels were for sale and for how much. It even had it available for different schools and organizations. It had a contact us box

Jaymes Talkington January 23, 2010 http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/ Content This is a site full of documents from the World History Archive. However, the site doesn't presume to validate the accuracy or authenticity of the documents. The information is available but it's up to the reader to research if the information is reliable. The dates that the articles were posted are listed, but none that I observed were very recent. Despite the credibility issue, the site is very informational. Since the site is well organized, it is pretty easy to use. I couldn't find any links on the web site. Design This website is pretty clear about its content on the homepage. If you can't find what you're looking for on the homepage, there is a Google search bar in the center of the page. The page clearly identifies that the information is provided by Hartford Web Publishing. However, the copyright date is not easily distinguished. It's a very simple site to use since all the major topics are listed on the homepage. I didn't find any available links on the site. There were no advertisements on the site at all, so nothing pops up in your way. The information on the site is sufficient for the most part; however there is still an issue on its validity. Overview So this is definitely an informational site that could be used from students to teachers. It ranges from documents to magazine articles about certain world history events. I would be cautious using this site because it doesn't presume the validity of its content; however, I did find some valuable information. I would definitely double check any information I use from this site.