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Overview: The purpose of this site is to show simulations/animations of biological processes. It's more related to higher-level biology classes but there's basic animations for mitosis, meiosis, and cellular respiration that would be useful for high school students. This is a really great site, especially for college students because there's more complex processes that will be more easily learned with these animations. Even though there's not as many for high school students, it's still a good resource and has the main processes that high school biology students will need to know and understand.  Content: the content of this site is quickly determined: all of the animations available are clearly visible and laid out. Authors and copyright information is available for each module when clicked on. The date posted is within a few years of todays date so it's pretty recent. The quality of this website is phenomenal - the animations are easily accessed and understood. There are also links to other science current event topics upon clicking on the science in focus tab. Design: The homepage downloads quickly. Each topic is clearly noted with tabs for different services. The page is very user friendly, each module is where it would seem to be. The multimedia use is phenomenal - the animations are very useful for learning different biology processes. It is browser compatible with its use of IOS or flash. There is a lot of valuable content for biology students as well as links to other science current events. 

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.

The purpose of this site is to interactively be able to learn and create a food web. The specific audience of this site is students around a middle or elementary level. I thought that it was a good website to use interactive learning techniques to learn and review the dynamics of food web interactions. This site is a good introductory level basis for learning about food webs and how different organisms interact with each other. Content It could be a good site to use as a whole class as a supplement to the lesson and have the kids tell you where to put the different organisms and how to link them together. I would hesitate to make this site an activity in class outside of using it to augment the original lesson. Design The design of this site was very simple as well as easy to use. The people that set it up did a good job of making this site accessible to anyone. It had good help menus that would help you navigate the site with ease if you ever got tripped up trying to use the site.

Overview The purpose of the Birmingham Grid for Learning site about Life Cycles is intended to provide an interactive introduction to the topic of life cycles. Life cycles are a key component in Biology and it is very important that each student understands them. The intended audience for the site is roughly middle school aged science students. My overall impression of the site is that it is very basic, and has a limited amount of information on it. It can be an ok resource at introducing the topic of life cycles, but should not be used in going into great detail of the topic itself. Content The content of this site would be good for younger students in the field of science. It is good for students to use to augment prior Learning of life cycles as well as not going into great detail of life cycles. The website is good for younger secondary students due to the fact that it uses interactive lessons on the life cycles of frogs and butterflies. I would personally only use this site on a minimum basis, not more than half of a class period due to the limited information contained within. Design I thought that the design of the website was very useful, as well as easy to navigate. It had clear instructions as well as easy links to follow. It could be used very easily with little to no trouble Learning how to navigate it.

Molly Nations The first website that I found is www.carlisle.k12.ma.us, a website that contains many student resource links focuses on engaging and exciting games that aim to teach elementary students beginning Spanish. There are many different categories, such as animals, numbers, colors, greetings, classroom and school vocab, and much more. Each category then contains several different games and activities for learning that particular subject. It is very easy to pinpoint the content and purpose of this site right away as there is a clear title at the top of the page, you can also tell immediately that the site is intended for elementary students. It seems as though it would be a very useful website for students to learn Spanish and something I would consider using in my classroom. The page loaded immediately on two different web browsers, and upon clicking on many different links under each category I found that these loaded immediately as well. Although this seems to be a very useful website for students, information about the author(s) is non-existent. There is no contact information for questions and no accreditation to any company or author to verify credibility. The site has no copyright information, as well as no information for a sponsor or provider. There is also no information as to when the site was created or revised. There is virtually no information about this site, it only provides the categories of learning and the activities for each, nothing more. Even though the site does not contain an index or table of contents, the content is organized into categories nicely on the page, looks well put together, and the website is very easy to maneuver and understand, even for an elementary student. The color scheme is mostly black and white with simple font and is very easy to read. The information appears to be accurate to the best of my knowledge, and does not cont

kids.discovery.com Reviewed by Kristie Neises on 8/30/2010 Overview This site is a branch off of the discovery channel main site. It features the television series that are on the discovery channel for their younger viewers. It also has games and activities and some television episodes meant to teach that are themed with the popular shows. This site is overall good for its content and design but it can be a little overwhelming for the audience it is intended for. The site has great graphics and would capture the attention of any child visiting the site, it is worth the bookmark to come back to because of how well it integrates teaching with its activities. The useful information that adults might need is a little hard to find. The main down side I can find is that younger kids might need an adult to find games and activities that they can do on their own since the site takes in such a wide spectrum of age categories. Content The content of this site would not be rated very high by adults. Sponsors are not credited, there are no specific things like author information or reviews. Even finding the contact information is a little tricky. Copyright is not posted since each part of the site has a different one based on the show the game or activity is themed after. There are no links to other sites since it is made to go with a very specific set of content to match the television channel. It is very clear on what the purpose of the site is, it is to entertain and even have a little bit of marketing to advertise for shows and the television channel itself. The website has its obvious upsides in that it is something that has accurate information as an educational program and it is made easy to understand for the age group it is intended for. Design The design of this site is well done. It stays true to its roots and copies the same theme colors and graphics that the television channel itself uses such as the chomping teeth and themed background of the month

Brienna Gregor 10/11/12 Overview: This website is very useful for students, teachers, and other educators in that it fulfills a plethora of scientific inquiries. This website is targeted for children from all grades and ages. Its purpose is to instill scientific exploration in children so as they grow older, they continue to be curious in the science world. This website provides many opportunities for both teachers and students to learn through interaction of available resources that include: Games, Puzzles, Activities, Quizzes, Tell Me More (further analysis for many different scientific interests), and more. I believe the design and content of this website is very, very well done. Content: The information currency and quality is superb due to the fact that it is sponsored and created by Discovery Channel. Contact information can be located at the bottom of the page through the link "viewer relations". This website is professionally done and very credible. Design: It is very easy to navigate and provides a huge amount of information. It is very fast, functional, and uses many different modes of media to stimulate children in their learning. Teachers can definitely bring their students to this website and build a lesson plan on one of its many subjects with ease and gratitude from the children. It is very appealing to the eye while stimulating little minds with information.

Sarah Skinner on January 22, 2010 Overview The purpose of this website is to allow teacher to find literacy web resources. There are a variety of different links available for primary grade teachers that are beneficial to their students and their learning. You can learn about some favorite books and authors and also retrieve lesson plans that use the tips provided on this page. My impression on this site sit that it's very useful. There are many links available that can be used as a teacher. Content It is very easy to determine the basic content of the site and the intended audience is clear. The author is not on this site and no information is available about the site so it is unclear if they are qualified to give out this information. The sponsor is not clear as well and there is no contact link to ask questions to the sponsor. The latest revision date is available. It is very out of date. The last time this site was revised was in 2007. Links all still work. The purpose of this site is clearly informational. The content seems to be complete and well organized. It offers information related to my needs. The content seems to be not bias. There is no interactivity that increases its value but does have a lot of useful information that is consistent with similar sources. The grammar and spelling are correct throughout the page as well. Design The homepage downloaded efficiently, but the homepage is very plain and not very attractive. The page tells you where you are. There is a clear index at the top of the page that leads you to many other links. There is no sponsor provided that is clear. There is not information for contacting the sponsor and there is no copyright date provided that is easy to determine. It is very easy to navigate around the website. There are directions to help you where to find information. The links to other pages are appropriate. The graphics fit well with the information that is being provided. I have only tried Internet Explorer a

Sarah Skinner on January 22, 2010 Overview The purpose of this website is to give educators some new material for their classroom. There are suggestions on ways to use new tools to get your students more involved and more excited for learning. There are math activity instructions, blogs for people to read about different age groups as well. There are instructions to help a student learn to read music. My overall impression on this site was that it's very informative. Content This site is very easy to determine the basic content of the site. The intended audience is stated in the introduction paragraph that gives a little information on what the website is about. The author is clearly stated at the top of the page. There isn't a lot of information on the author. The sponsor is identified and contact information is available. The latest revision date is stated clearly on this page. The date is a little old but it has been updated in the past year. All links are working properly. The purpose of this site is mostly informational. There are no under construction signs on this page. The content of the site is well organized and is easy to understand. There is a sufficient amount of information related to my purposes. The content may be bias. Articles are written by different people saying what their opinions are. There is some interactivity and the information appears to be accurate based on my own knowledge. The information is consistent with similar informational sites and grammar and spelling are correct. Design The homepage downloaded efficiently but it kind of has a bland look to it. You can tell where you are immediately when you come to this page. There is an index to lead you to different links. The site sponsor is provided and there is a contact link available. A copyright date is at the bottom of the website. I am able t move around within the site with ease. There are no distinct directions for using the site, but it is pretty straight forward. The

Monique Koller Jan. 24. 2010 Invention at Play is a website designed to get kids interested in being inventors. Content: This is a cute website that has good stories about people who have done some inventing. It also has informational videos and games that encourage parents to allow play as exploration. The games are educational and logic based. Design: This site is very easy to navigate. The links work well and guide you to places that you might find interesting later. The games are educational and encourage creativity. It is easy to find who you would need to get a hold of if you had any additional questions or concerns. I wouldn't be super surprised if this site added new stuff regularly. Overview: The big goal of this site is to encourage learning and imagination! It is built for children and parents. This site has a lot of great stories of people who have become inventors, it has learning games, and informational videos that encourage parents to keep their kids exploring! I really enjoyed Word Play and Tinker Ball, the videos were reassuring and the stories of inventors are inspirational.

New Horizons is an educational site that contains strategies for teachers to enhance and expand their educational curriculum. I chose the Arts in Education page for this review. Content: This website has been around since 1980 and although it is currently retired, it has been the launching platform of many new educational sites. In specific the Arts in Education page offers resources pertaining to art's beneficial attributes in brain stimulation and possible scientific processes that can be applied to art. Design: The design of the site is very easily understood and followed. There are no advertisements on any of the pages and links navigate within the newhorizons.org site only. Although it lacks the appearance of similar websites, this is a very simplistic and easily run learning tool. Attribution: This site's purpose is purposeful and educational. Its aims are primarily at benefiting the teacher and helping to incorporate pertinent tools to their educational programs. As a teacher I would very likely use this in constructing different approaches to learning, however I would be weary of how current and valid the information actually is due to the fact that it is retired.

Kayla Rider January 23, 2010 Overview I found this site and thought it to be a great idea for art classes to incorporate technology into their classrooms. It is aimed at art teachers and students. It grabs the reader right away with its qwerky sayings and great design. Thought it would be a lot of fun to navigate through entirely. Content This website is aimed at the arts. A portion of our lives that is slowly dwindling downward. It creates a technology environment to enrich and learn more about art. It is geared towards teachers and students but anyone can benefit from this website. Design Of course, being an artsy website, it is colorful and fun to look at. However, the overall design of it is quite applicable as well. It is easy to navigate through and catches a readers attention quickly. Overall, I believe it has great potential for a classroom and/ or a fun afternoon of learning more about art and yourself.

Kacee Von Krosigk 1-24-10 Content The National Writing Project states, "…focuses on the knowledge, expertise, and leadership of our nation's educators on sustained efforts to improve writing and learning or all learners". They seem to focus on any forms of writing and they want a future that has each and every person as a successful writer and learner. They are anchored at colleges and universities. Teachers from all levels and all subjects use these ideas. They want to improve the teaching of writing and learning in schools and communities. The page that I focused on was, "30 Ideas for Teaching Writing". It has very interesting and fun ideas to use in the classroom. Design The website is very professionally created. The viewer can tell that this is a qualified website to use. There are no distracting pop ups. The bottom of the page says 2010 National Writing Projects which would make the viewer feel comfortable about using the information. There are many links to very useful pages that any teacher would be happy with. Overview As an inspiring teacher, I would be very happy using this website for projects for my students. There are full length articles and updated information. The purpose of this website is to encourage teachers to be more creative and fun in the classroom by using the ideas given.

Katie Hertel 1-24-2010 Overview: SFS Kids Fun with Music is a website designed to educate children and adolescents about the fundamentals of music. It also provides a great way for people of all ages to hear, learn and have fun with music. Overall it has the accurate information needed and has valuable resources but it doesn't show where it is directly coming from making the accuracy and authority questionable. These resources help if the website is not working correctly along with system requirements in order for it to work effectively and efficiently. Content: The content of this website is supported as one of the best educational music sites out there but it has faults due to the system requirements that it has. In order for it to work the way it's supposed to the required content includes Flash and audio players and Quicktime VR. Although downloading these takes time away from the learning it's quick and easy to do. It includes the kinds of instruments in an orchestra and a music lab full of fun facts and definitions of things related with music. Most of it was easily accessible and contained a lot of information but it didn't give credible information on where it was coming from. It also includes various symphonies that you can take children to enjoy great music and educate at the same time. All in all, the downsides of this included the required programs and not having credibility present. I also had trouble finding dates of publication which is definitely a disadvantage as well. Design: This site is somewhat visually attracting but it only takes up half of a webpage leaving the other side a solid yellow. It kind of takes away from the sites information that it can provide because of the little space used. While it has these faults, it also has good points to it visually due to no advertisements popping up randomly or on the side and is easy to navigate through. The headlines of the tabs easily show what that section is about and tidbits o

Cole Baumann January 24, 2010 This website holds many hints and suggestions on how to help children with dyslexia. The site holds many suggestions on how to help students with dyslexia such as little ways to help them remember things and suggestions on ways to help them feel more comfortable in the classroom. This is helpful as children with dyslexia do feel a lot of stress that no other student does due to knowing there is something wrong but not knowing exactly what. They do not know why they struggle with work in the classroom while other students seem to perform just fine. This website will help teachers and parents make the students feel more comfortable in the classroom and may even be able to help the students work with their problem to become more literate and, consequently, be able to help them grow as a student and a child. The design of this website is very entertaining. There is a picture for almost every paragraph which is just pleasing to look at. This prevents boredom as you search through the website and explore. Also, this website allows you to change the background color which is not a real important thing but it is always fun when websites add little things like that to keep it more entertaining and more appealing to use. Additionally, the site looks presentable and very nice. It is not a very 'sketchy' website to go to which is very important if you are trying to help your student and you do not want your computer to fail due to finding a terrible virus. Though the website is for parents who have children with dyslexia, this website could also help teachers improve the learning abilities of any student that seems to be having trouble reading. This website does not consist of large programs or big dramatic ways to help dyslexic students learn, but there are small items and suggestions that in the end if you put them all together the teacher may be able to help the child function as a better student.

Sara Hindman January 24, 2010 Overview I evaluated the Discovery Kids website because of my interest of the Discovery channel. The purpose of this website is to advertise the channel and I know this because of all the emphasis on their characters. Although the website's main purpose is to advertise, another purpose is educational. Most of their games have no educational value whatsoever, but I was did manage to find some that were extremely beneficial. One was the Build a Volcano game in which the student controls the viscosity and gas of a volcano and watches to see what happens when different variables are increased or decreased. Another game was Make a Mummy, which the student learns about the different procedures the body must go through in order to become a mummy. I learned many things I did not know before. The intended audience for this website is ages seven through twelve. I did not find any links to other websites. I find this website to be a waste except for the few games I found to be educational. Content The Discovery Kids website clearly stated its purpose of advertising and the intended audience by pasting most of their television characters on the home page. Like the nobelprize.org, kids.discovery.com failed to state who the author of the website is, although I was able to find when the last revision was (2010.) The information quality is great, there is nothing "under construction" or inaccurate. There is no further information for this website. Overall I would say the content is ok, nothing spectacular. Design The design of this website is good because of its eye-catching pages. I completely understand why children would find this website appealing because it has everything to offer children; their favorite characters and fun games. The speed of this website is fast and it is easy to navigate. All of the multimedia is loaded fast and provided perfect quality. I am not sure if this website is compatible was different browser bec

Posted by Riley Kallhoff on 1/25/2010 Overview: Funschool.kaboose.com is a site for teachers and students. It is a place where teachers can find educational games for students. This site has a lot of stuff going on in it. There are a lot of advertisements and just unneeded things in the website. The purpose of the site is to make life easier on teachers and help them in the classroom. The website is a little out of control and I would think this makes it hard to navigate. I had some problems figuring it out at first so I think students would struggle as well. Content: This is a website that is a little overwhelming when you first come in. There is a ton going on and you really don't know where to start. I would say it's a little hard to determine what exactly this website is used for at first. It's hard to tell if it's a teacher or a student website. The authors of the site are hard to find and the site is hard to navigate in its own right. You will click on one thing and it will take you on a little bit of a wild goose chase to find what you want if you ever do find what you are looking for. The links on the site work fine, but there are very few of them and most of them are distracting advertisements. I'm still not sure if this is supposed to be an educational site or if it is suppose to be for games. This site is hard to understand and I'm not sure this is a good site to send students to. Design: The website comes up very quickly, and is a fast site as far as downloading goes. However, when you get to the homepage you are confused from the start and you are overwhelmed with chaos. There is far too much on the homepage and it is like to much stimulus to know what to do next. I found it hard to navigate my way through the site. There are advertisements and it takes way too long to get to your desired destination. I think the graphics and animations are very hard to follow and take away from the site instead of enhancing it. The informa

David May 1/23/11 Fun site of games and entertainment. Educational to younger children. Overview: The website is filled with games and fun quizzes for younger children. The games look interesting, but they aren't filled with meaningful information for anyone with a mild understanding of history. The history information quiz is very basic such as who was the first president of the U.S. There are links to crafts and home activities. The website is for children and parents because the home activities and advertisements. Content: The audience is younger children which is clear by the bright colors and the fun game link pictures. Another hidden audience is the parents of the children that will be playing games on this website. This is shown through with the home craft projects and the advertisements for sandwich meats and other child oriented products. The website has a large copyrighted page and a large page of contact information with phone numbers as well as email addresses. Helping children learn is what the supposed site goal is with many advertisements of things that children would want. The clear owner of the site is Disney because the ads and the many links to other Disney sites and online stores on the links areas of the website. The site is very well put together to gain the attention of child and does a good job of entertaining them while hiding a bit of learning with it. Design: The site has wonderful appeal even older than grade school students get caught by this site. Everything is where it says it will be with wonderful smoothness and ease of use. Any type of additional information regarding the copyright, other links, and sponsor (which is Disney) is clearly identified with an entire page or more devoted to it. The site is very well put together and that is easily seen. The games and animations work very well and are quick to load. The games and animations will keep eyes locked on the screen for hours.

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.

Emily E. Krabbenhoft January 22, 2011 Overview: This website has a lot of fun activities and simulations for students to use to further their knowledge about several science concepts. For example, one particular simulation called Weather allows students to learn about weather patterns by reporting the current weather and also predicting future weather in different areas around the nation. Content: Several different simulations allow the students to have fun and learn a great deal in an interactive way. The site is sponsored by The Ohio State University Medical Center and also National Center for Regenerative Medicine. The site only provides simulations to be used for science like simple machines, the weather, and some extensive medical concepts. Design: This website uses bright colors and is very attractive to the eye. Each simulation takes a couple of seconds to load but once loaded are very smooth during the use of the simulation. 

Interactive site for math, vocab, memory, and geography and puzzles.

Ryan Pinkston January 22, 2011 1) Overview- This is a web site that parents and kids can use to learn basic skills while having fun. This goal is to provide a safe place to learn computer skills, math skills, reading skills and problem solving skills in a context that is fun to use. 2) Content Credibility- It is easy to determine the basic content and intended audience. The author was not clearly identified however, the contact information was readily available and easy to locate. The latest revision date was not given and it's not stated how frequently the page is updated. The purpose of the site is effective for the intended use and is well organized with information that is easy to understand. 3) Design Evaluation- The page downloads efficiently and it is somewhat attractive and appears to have strong eye appeal to children. There is an index, the information for contacting the provider is available, and the copyright date is at the bottom of the page. The same basic format is used throughout the whole site, the information is easy to find, and everything is clearly labeled. 4) This is a site that I would use. It has a variety of games for children to use to learn about math and English or science.

Jackson Miller 1/31/11 Overview My first site is an internet site designed to help people learn the English language. This is an interesting site for me, as I want to be an English teacher. The site is really for people who would like to better their English as a second language. The site offers great resources for any student as it has tests and quizzes they could take, basic grammar and usages in the English language, and even access to online teachers for aid. Personally if I was trying to learn another language, I would definitely want a site like this one to help me. It just has a great variety of tools, members, and advanced technology to aid in learning English. It seems like a great site to me. Content As far as content goes it fulfills every requirement. It is a very easy site to navigate around right off the bat. It is very clear what the goal of the site is, and what it is meant for. All the staff involved in making and maintaining the site can easily be found at the bottom. It was revised very frequently, so I'm entitled to believe it is revised often. The information is all laid out in a good order, and they have really anything I could think someone would need when learning English. Design It really is not the prettiest site in the world. It's very bland and orderly, but for a strictly educational site like this that is not a bad thing. It's a very fast site, from all the hot keys. It is constructed very well. It is easy to find exactly what you are looking for very quickly, and everything on the site is aimed towards helping people better their English.