ITEC2360

Overview: This site had many games involving addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. It could be used for all grade levels because you can adjust the level of difficulty on each game. There were daily puzzles, word games, math games, and printable activities. The site is meant to make math fun and it uses creative games to do that. The ability to adjust the difficulty level makes it great for a classroom because you can make the activities grow as the student's understanding grows. Content: This website loads quickly and has an eye appealing front page. There are suggestions of popular math games but there is also a website index at the top of the page. The index was organized into understandable categories. The games uploaded and played without pause to load. The brain teasers and games were correct to the best of my knowledge. There were also links to math trick videos and other game ideas. This website could be used in the classroom as a fun reward for students who finish their in class homework early. Design: The homepage downloads efficiently. The site sponsor, contact information, and date of last revision are not easily accessible. The website also does not run as well in other browsers. I was using Google Chrome. The list of links are very well organized and easy to use. Each link had a description of the game before you click on it to see what it is. The instructions for the games were easy to follow and very logical and concise.

This website provides educational games, daily puzzles, word games, and math games.

Aylin Márquez 13 September 2011 Overview: The Problem Site.com provides educational games, daily puzzles, word, and math games designed for teachers and Pre-K-12th grade students. Reference and printables tabs provide a free educational source for teachers. The site provides mathematical problems from previous years with their solutions included that influence students' analytical thinking. Interactive games are also designed to improve students' memorization. Content: Although the basic content of the site is easily determined, the user needs to check internal links to determine the intended audience of the site. If the audience is young children, they may need adult assistance to navigate within the site since the site has advertisements that can be considered inappropriate (games, dating sites, and etc.). The site has an overview that explains how the site was started and what it is about. A contact person and address are also available for users to ask questions. Both the site overview and contact information are located at the bottom of the site. Overall, the purpose of the site is clear, and the information appears to be accurate. Design: The homepage is designed well and downloads efficiently. It is appealing for mainly high school students and teachers. The user is able to navigate easily. The internal links work properly and are helpful and appropriate. However, there are advertisements that may not be appropriate for young children. The graphics and animations serve a clear purpose. A list of links is well organized, clearly labeled, and easy to use. The site also includes a search area where users can look for other educational sources.

Ryan Magrum Sept 15th, 2011 Overview: The purpose of this site is to teach student about the frog system through a virtual dissection. The dissection lets the user display the organs of the frog in any combination with or without skin and skeleton without the mess of an actual dissection that many of us have done in high school biology class. The site is strait forward with a big frog picture to click on to start the dissection and various links to other information. Content: The first page has all the bureaucratic business with the contact info, the site creators and developers. There is also a link or two to other pages with more sites like this one and pages with more information. The dissection is a little disappointing. When one highlights an organ or set of organs the organs are sitting there like a real frog on a dissection dish. For a virtual dissection I wanted to see clickable options with descriptions and information (click on the heart and a box with info on the heart of a frog pops up). For a dissection, the pictures accurately depict what an actual frog looks like without the mess of a real dissection. The only other criticism is one can't physically touch the parts of a frog which is one of the benefits of the real life thing that the internet may never have. Design: The website is plain in nature. There are no fancy pictures or visual effect to draw a person into the site. I believe the site is there purely for educational purposes. The title page is white with black print and blue hyperlinks. There are no advertisements. The interactive frog brings the user to the page where the user can play around with the frog parts and view them and how the parts fit together. The art involved is somewhat primitive but the parts are colored and one can tell what they are. This interactive page is plain as well. There is no commercial aspect in this website - it is obviously for educational purposes.

Math.com This website is targeted toward students of all age, as well as teachers. The purpose is to give tutoring and lessons to teachers and students who need help with math, helping them to understand it. The website is easy to understand for the most part, and gives problems relevant to the math students need. Content: The website is fairly easy to understand, and gives math problems and ways to solve math problems. The authors are not clearly presented, and the date is hard to find, and not updated much. The content of the site is user-friendly and appropriate. Design: The website's design is fairly boring, and doesn't draw the audience's attention in. The site's information however, is useful and relevant to the teachers and students that may use the site. There is plenty of info available to make the site useful, but the site is kind of slow and you have to wait for it to load a lot.

Kathryn Slothower September 11, 2011 Overall: The purpose of this website is to help students with math. There is a lot of information on this website about math. Overall I think this is a good math website for students because it gives little mini lessons on each topic that the students can read. One downside of this website is the number of external links that are on the website. The external links are very distracting. This math website can help all different levels of math. Content: The purpose and content of this website can be a little hard to find. Although the purpose to help and guide students in math, because of the external links it makes it look like a math resource store. There are lots of resources on this website for students to use. The website has math lessons, math games, homework help, a calculator, and a math store. All of these tabs are very useful for students. One part of the website that is not the best is the section of math games. These games are not directly math games. I could consider them more math puzzles. The games would not help master a math skill. From the knowledge that I know on these math topics the information presented seems to be correct. The author of this website was hard to find so I am not sure what the author's credentials in math. I could see using this website for math in the future and students could get a lot of help by using this website. Design: The web design that was chosen for this website was very interesting. However, the indexes that the author put on the top of the homepage and on the side of the homepage works very well and makes it very easy to navigate throughout the website. This website has a lot of white spaces so the website is not very attractive and grabbing the viewer's attention. 

Overview: This website is very informative and easy to maneuver. For any student who is having difficulty with any subject concerning math, this site would be the most helpful, in my opinion. Tutoring, practice problems and free calculators are available to those who do not have the same resources available to them as anyone else. Content: This website is not over crowded which makes it easier to find the things they offer. The various games available cover the main points of math and to the best of my knowledge I believe they are accurate. The links that were advertised on the site were up to date and resourceful. Design: Contact information is displayed and easily noticed at the bottom of the web page, and the website has not been updated recently. Even though the site is dated, the sponsor is easily noticed and displayed on the web page.

Ryan Magrum Sept 15th, 2011 Overview: This site is a tour through the exhibits of a natural history museum. The purpose is to experience the museum without actually going there in person. There are many menu options on the home page for kids and for educational purposes. I like this site personally because for students it's like a field trip without ever having to leave the class room (computer room). The site seems fairly main-stream and appropriate for all ages. Content: This is the basic museum home page on the internet. The site has all the information for the museum (contact info, research and curation, business…). There are many links to other similar sites as well as games for kids and to resources for teachers and to merchandising. There are many pictures to lure the user into the site. In terms of the galleries page, The site is a basic tour with captions for each of the interactive picture of real things in the museum that explain what you are seeing in the picture - what a tour guide will tell you. The pictures are mostly for highlights of the museum geared to getting you to visit in person. There is a plethora of information within that is very easy for students and the public to learn from. Design: The site is easy to navigate. All the pictures and colors make the user feel welcome. At first, getting into the specifics of the site and finding what exactly you are looking for is a little difficult but the ease of navigation allows the user to orient their self in the contents after a little exploring. There is a search box so the user can search the site for specifics contributing even more to the ease of navigation. All the advertisements in the site are relevant to education and/or the museum and appropriate for kids.

Teaches and shows in detail how to cite in many different styles

John Ripley 9/12/11 Web Rangers Overview: This site is produced by the National Park Service (Department of the Interior) and I found it through the Yellowstone National Park website. It is listed under the heading "for kids" on the YNP homepage. The intended audience is kids, and not necessarily kids who have been to YNP or any other park. Content is varied and covers several different fields pertaining to history and natural science mostly. Content: The basic content of the site is not immediately clear, but once you navigate into the site a table of contents appears. While I could not find a date for the most recent revision, all the links of the site worked properly and I have no reason to think that anything on the site is out of date. The information is accurate as far as I can tell and fairly diverse. There are several different games under each subject heading. Design: This website looks like it was designed by the National Park Service with the logo in the top right corner of each page and the colors of the NPS on all the pages. The home page is not especially catchy and if I were not doing this assignment I would not go wandering around this site. However, once you get into the site to the contents and the games it gets a little more interesting. It's still not what I'd call exciting though.

John Ripley 9/12/11 Khan Academy Overview: This website is intended to provide a free, high quality educational experience for anyone interested in the material presented on the website. Based on my content and design evaluations I would say that this site achieves it's objective and is a useful educational tool. Because of the seriousness, for lack of a better word, of the layout it is probably more suitable for people in middle school and up. Content: The content covers math and science topics extremely well while the social studies fields are a little sparse. I focused on the math content and it was excellent, covering about every imaginable topic. The videos were easy to follow and informative and the practice problems were pertinent to the lessons shown in the videos. Design: The design of the website is straightforward and direct. It is easy to navigate and find exactly what you want. As I mentioned above, the design is fairly serious and I would think that elementary age students might prefer something a little more catchy and flashy. However, for a little older audience I think that the design is very good.

word games and puzzles in english.. terminology of word meanings,,, learned a bunch in the ten secnds that i played.

Overview - Kinderart.com is a strong resource for elementary art educators where they can find lessons, teaching kits, supplies, community, and more. Content - The content and the intended audience are apparent from the get go at Kindart.com. The authors of the site, Andrea and Jantje Mulder-Slater are credible in their art education backgrounds and have provided accessible contact information. The site is kept current, indicated by its recent update and its up and running links. Content is purposeful for art educators and should be easy to navigate by its simple organization. My only complaints are in the pop up ads. Design - The design elements at Kinderart.com are clean and crisp for the most part. Aside from a bit of clutter near the foot of the home page the tool bars are easy to spot and navigate. Labels are appropriate and links are well organized. Again, my only complaint are the pop up ads.

Nathan Wonnacott 9/9/11 Overview: The purpose of Kinder Art is to supply teachers and parents ways to teach art. There are many lesson plans as well as supplies at the site. The pull-down menu contains a direct link to several art topics, craft ideas, and contests. Content: The first impression of the site is for teaching children, but it is littered with advertisement on the side bars. The authors, Andrea Mulder-Slater and Jantje Blokhuis-Mulder, are described as active and efficient teachers. Contacting them is a hassle, but possible. Overall, the content is updated and relevant, but is easy to say that major revisions are needed to make this site effective. Design: This site is not particularly fast, efficient, or effective. To obtain information one needs, he or she needs to navigate for a few minutes. I found a few dead ends when searching links. For the time it takes to finish searching, the information is not efficient.

This is a great website for any art teacher K-12. Content: This website provides art teachers of any grade level with lesson plans to use in their classrooms. This website will be particularly handy for begging art teachers. It is easy to navigate the site, lessons for everything from drawing to painting to 3D is provided in detailed lesson plans by clicking on the subject. The lessons are step by step and are great for beginnig artists. This website is nice for teachers that need ideas on how to present the information to their students.

Nathan Wonnacott 9/9/11 Overview: The Creative Spotlight is a site providing tutorials to new artists and supplies to continuing artist. It is clear that the site is more commercial than educational. It's a basic site with links to areas such as drawing, painting, and graphic design. Content: It is obvious that this site is directed toward art; however it doesn't provide helpful information. The tutorials focus on very limited instruction, followed by pictures to assist in "learning". The creator of the site only refers to himself by first name, which is an indicator that it's not a trustworthy source. Also, the copyright regulations are harsh, discouraging copying of any kind. I would not suggest this site for these reasons. Design: The design of this site is extremely basic, and links are slow to other sites. The format is cluttered and lacks revision. By the time one navigate through the site, he or she is probably disappointed by what they find.

Overview: Art Education is a website for links to jobs and lessons for high school art teachers. Links are functioning properly and the website is inviting for students as well as teachers.

Nathan Wonnacott9/9/11 Overview: The Incredible Art Department is a source where art teachers can submit and share lesson plans. These lessons apply for all grade levels and are neatly organized, equipped with tools to better one's teaching methods. I find this site extremely helpful, and have not seen anything negative. Content: It's distinguishable as an art site that teachers as well as students can use to learn about art in a non-traditional way. The author Ken Rohrer updates the site frequently, and has a long list of great reviews. The lessons are in-depth, filled with pictures, games, and rubrics to grade students' progress. Links are fully functional, and provide additional sources to their information Design: Speedy, attractive, and available in the public domain; this site offers an efficient way to address teachers' lack of time. Graphics and the title bar at the top of the home page adds to its fluidity. Constantly updated and sponsored by Princeton Online, this website seems to be a worthwhile source inside and outside the classroom.

Nathan Wonnacott 9/9/11 Overview: The Smithsonian Institution web page is a way to allow people to access the galleries without visiting the museum and provides insightful ways to teach students as well. The target audience is parents, teachers, and even students. Some of its topics are history, science, art, and technology. I believe this site to be a very useful tool in educating. Content: The first impression of the Smithsonian webpage is a sense of variety. There are pictures of exhibits and links to others not depicted. It doesn't appear childish, but more for anyone interested in American history. Once I explored, I found that the links work successfully and are full of up to date information. The website does leave out links to other sites, which limits resources to the site alone. It also doesn't specify an author, leaving only the sponsor to be contacted. Design: The setup is both fast and easy with organized pull-down menus. The pictures and references to their exhibit are detailed, useful, and attention grabbing. Activities are also available, and help to locate new information. The pages are current, last revised on July 6, 2011. The site is effective and worth visiting.

Mandy Toll 9/11/11 Overview: This website includes Abraham Lincoln learning games for kids. The website is intended for teachers and students who are looking for more information on President Lincoln. There are educational games for students to learn more about Abraham Lincoln, links to information on other U.S. presidents, the Gettysburg Address, famous quotations from Lincoln and many other informational things about Abraham Lincoln. Within the site there are a lot of links to other pages to further your knowledge about U.S. presidents but mostly Lincoln. I thought that this website was useful in allowing you to find information on Lincoln and would be suitable for students to use as well as teachers when learning more about Abraham Lincoln. Content: There was a lot of good content to this website. There are a lot of different links to allow both students and teachers to gain more knowledge on Abraham Lincoln and some information on other U.S. presidents. It is easy to tell what the website has to offer and who the audience is. The information is up to date and is appropriate for finding information on Abraham Lincoln. The links on the page to other sites are current and work well. The information on the site is for finding more information on Lincoln and games for students to play to gain more knowledge on the president among other things about Abraham Lincoln. The content on the site is well organized and easy to find. All the information is easy to understand as well. The information on the site also is consistent with other information in other sources. This site will most likely help in the future. Design: I did not think that the overall appearance of the website was very attractive however I liked how simple it looks and how easy it is to use. You can tell what you are looking for on the site and navigate around it with ease. The links on the site are helpful and appropriate and go with the subject matter. There were no uses of multimedia that I found wh

Mandy Toll 9/11/11 Overview: I thought that this website was very useful in finding more information on presidents of the United States. This website's audience is mainly teachers who are looking for lesson plans on U.S. presidents. It tells you information about where the presidents are born with a lesson plan to teach students in grades third through fifth. It also tells you when they were presidents and how long they were. At the top of the page there are also other lesson plans on social studies units that you can choose from the drop down and also choose your grade level that the lesson plan is geared toward. I thought that this website was very easy to use and that it would be good for other lesson plans in the future for other social studies subjects because there are a lot of resources available on the website. Content: This website from National Geographic is easy to tell the content and audience of the site. Because it has lesson plans its audience is more likely teachers who are looking for lesson plans on the U.S. presidents. The information on the site is up to date and has material on it that is appropriate for learning more about presidents. The links to other sites are current and work well. The other lesson plans on the page for other social studies units also work well. The information on the website is well organized and easy to understand. The information on the website is also accurate and consistent with similar information in other sources. There are many links to other sites that have to do with the U.S. presidents from this website to help you further your knowledge and gain more information for doing a lesson plan on presidents. Design: I thought that the website was not very attractive however there are images and other things to engage you and let you know what the website is about. There are clear indicators all over the page to inform you on the contents of the site. I liked that you could choose other subject areas and choose you

Mandy Toll 9/11/11 Overview: This website was easy to use. The purpose of the site was clearly notated that the website was for both teachers and parents. The website gives a lesson plan on elections and presidents for first grade students. There were a lot of resources on the webpage to allow you to research more on elections and presidents. My overall impression of the website was that it was easy to use and gave you a lot of ideas for lessons you could use in the classroom. The website also gives other resources like videos and links to further the students' knowledge on presidents and the election process. Content: It was easy to see that the content of this website was about lesson plans on presidents and elections for first graders. The audience is clearly noted for teachers and parents. There was no specific author of the site but the sponsor of the site was shown. The information was up to date and is updated frequently with new information. There are many links on the page for more information which are also up to date. This website was very informational. The website is also well organized and easy to understand. The information appears to be accurate and is consistent with information I have found on other websites. Design: I did not think that the design of the website was very attractive though it is easy to use and navigate. The title of the page tells you what the website is for. The site is clear and easy to follow and the links to other pages on the site are helpful. The links give you more information on presidents if the lesson plan does not. There were no specific graphics and videos on the site but there were some links to others. The information given on the site is organized and easy to find. The site is current and is up to date on the information. It is well designed and easy to use.

¬¬¬¬Mandy Toll 9/11/11 Overview: This website was very useful for finding information on the presidents of the United States. Within this website you choose a president to learn more information. By clicking on their name you learn more about what they did as a president, their election results, and other basic information about them. The audience of this website is directed towards students and teachers looking for more information on the U.S. presidents. There are a lot of reliable resources on the website to allow you to get more information on presidents. My overall impression of the website was that it was easy to use and very useful for the information I was looking for. I think that students and teachers will easily be able to use the site and it is easy to find more information by asking the ipl2 librarian from the button shown on the website. Content: It was easy to find the content of the website and who the website is intended for. On this website there was a lot of information on the author of the site and the sponsor of the site. There is also a button you can click to ask questions to gain more information about the topic you are researching. The information on the presidents from this website is updated to the most recent president. The links on the site also are up to date and working properly. There is a lot of information on this site to inform the user about the president they are researching. The content overall was organized and appears to be well done and the information is accurate. Design: This website was easy to use do to its design. The website looks attractive and you can easily tell what the website is trying to inform you about. This website is easy to navigate. All the links on the website are helpful and give you more information on the U.S. presidents. The only thing that this website did not have was graphics and videos which might have made it a little more exciting. All of the information on this site is easy to find and