ITEC2360

This is a virtual salmon dissection game. It is actually pretty good for being free. It offers a lot of interaction for students.

Aggregates several Web 2.0 tools for further exploration

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

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

Jessica Chandler January 24th, 2011 *Overview: This website is to help kids with their math skills. The ages are from preschool- eighth grade. There are very many links to click once you choose the appropriate age group. It seems to be quite simple if you know what you want to expand your learning on. It may be difficult for the younger kids to read the different types of things to learn, but the requirements for each are quite simple. *Content: There are several skills to choose from among each age group. This is just a math website, so it deals with different sorts of categories such as the Pythagorean theorem, shapes, fractions, exponents, and etc. The games are very educational and help the students to learn the content. I especially liked this website because it gives explanations to the problem you missed by going through step by step. It also gives the score and how much time was spent doing that certain exercise. You can complete the different skills in however much time you prefer. It will give you feedback once you hit submit and finish. Otherwise, you just keep practicing! *Design: The design of this website is very clear. It opens by stating, "Where your math journey begins." It is very eye appealing and colorful. There isn't too much content to overwhelm the users. It is very easy to use. The grade levels appear right on the home page, making it clear for students to use on their own. Once the level is chosen, different skills appear-all categorized, and then the only thing left to do is select what you would like more practice on. The site looks very professional and up to date. Overall, the design is catchy and great for students to use!

Overview: This website is designed for K-8 aged children, and it includes several different games primarily focused in math. The website is highly interactive and clearly represents the idea of integrating education and fun. Each game has a clear purpose, and they are actually very entertaining. Content: The purpose of the site is easily identifiable in the homepage, where bright colors and very childlike design catches your eye. The content is organized primarily by grade level, so it is easy to find appropriate games for whatever grade you are teaching. Although it is unclear when the website was last updated, the information appears to be up to date and relevant for elementary education standards today. There are not outside links to similar or relevant websites to enhance what is being presented on the site, but the content on the site is very thorough, so other resources aren't really necessary. Design: The design of the site is obviously very child-centered; however, it is well done, not cheesy or obnoxious. The homepage catches your attention, and the information is easy to access. Each game is unique, has its own fun, vibrant design, and is highly educational. Since the website is primarily organized by grade level, the design enhances the user-friendliness of the website. I believe this website would be good for use in the classroom because there are minimal advertisements, and children could easily find a fun and educational game that suits their needs.

I really like this website; I will be using it in my WebQuest design!

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.

Open source software for Mac, Windows, and Linux to help you record audio for music, podcasting, etc.

publish podcasts and vodcasts

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.

This site shows pictures of pig dissections for purposes of science instruction. It also labels many parts and provides practice quizzes

Adrianne Lauman September 02, 2011 Overview This free website is supported by a non-profit educational organization that promotes the preservation of Native American culture and languages. The purpose of the site is to provide information regarding the culture, history and languages of Native people of the Western Hemisphere. The resources are intended to provide teachers and children with educational information, while promoting the revitalization of the use of Native American languages. The content of this site is difficult to navigate. The site provides numerous links to additional sites that are not reputable educational sources. Content The content of the site is poorly organized. The headings of the content are listed in columns that reflect disarray. The authors of the material presented are not identified within the text and the updates to the site are not current. A visitor to the site may have difficulty in determining the accuracy of the information. Design The website information is not augmented by graphics, animation, video or audio files. The links within the pages are to sites that are selling goods or to other WebPages that lack credibility. The homepage is not attractive and the page layout does not encourage visitors to remain at the site. Information is difficult to find and it requires the visitor to utilize more than three clicks of the mouse. When investigating another link within the page it is difficult to return to the homepage.

Danielle Walter 9/5/11 Storyplace: The Chldren's Digital Library Overview: The Storyplace.org website is a great educational website for both English speaking students and Spanish speaking students. Or it also can be used for helping a child learn English or Spanish. The website has activities for pre-school age children and also for elementary age children. It offers an online reading, an activity, a take home activity and also a reading list so children can explore other books. The website is a great resource for teachers and parents to help children be excited about reading. Content: The Storyplace.org website is easy to navigate for children and adults. It is also set up nicely. It has the grade levels on the left side and when you click on one it comes up with a menu of the reading and activities. This is a great website for helping children learn how to read and to become excited about reading, but it is also great for teaching children how to navigate the web and to show them how useful it can be in learning. Design: The Storyplace.org website has very bold colors that are eye catching. It's also easy to navigate. It is a .org website so I would trust it to be a good website for my children or students to be on. It also contains the copyright on the page so it is even more trusted.

Overview: The purpose of this website is to attract children, grades K-8, with educational activities online. The intended audience is children but the site carries extended links to teacher and parent resources. Thus, this website is for all ages. The available resources go beyond games to include online books, comic books, math activities, arcade games, and many more. There are also links to pages for parents and teachers. My overall impression was positive about this site. It was very appealing and allows for children to experience the internet while learning. I also felt that the teacher and parent resources led to some potentially important websites filled with a lot of information. Although this site was very educational, it seemed to be a lot less personalized than previous websites. Content: The content of this website was sufficient for the needs of any teacher. It is organized in a way that allows children to search for games that interest them but also has a teacher's guide. In this guide, the teacher can locate specific features that are appropriate for their lesson plans. There is an identified sponsor along with contact information. It is an updated site with a copyright from 2011 but no recorded last revision date. This site has the purpose to entertain, be informative, and also has some advertisements for upcoming literature events. This site was well organized and complete. It was easy to understand and very user friendly. The interactivity of this site does make it a lot of fun and easy to visit. The information provided, to my knowledge, was pretty similar to outside sources. The website was edited well and provided links to relative outside sources. However, this site did not provide much information on the actual authors of the content. Overall, I would rate this as a highly relevant website. Design: The overall design of this website was very affective. The home page loaded efficiently and was very appealing to the eye. The home page

This site tells you everything you need to know about Montessori teaching methods.

Kristin Gaines September 11, 2011 Overview- Overall, this site is very useful and is designed to teach users about Montessori teaching methods. The intended audience is teachers, but it would be a useful site for parents as well. The available resources are all relating to the Montessori Company and not to other links. This website is definitely useful and is a good site to use when exploring teaching methods of early childhood. Content- The content of this site is very reliable. It is updated frequently; the last time it was updated was just 6 days ago. The only problem with this website's content is that it is biased towards Montessori teaching. This is not a huge problem though, because any user would know that it is biased because the web site developer is Montessori. Design- I could not find any faults in the design of this site. Everything from the table of contents section to the obvious copyright date, this site lays out everything a user needs in order to navigate through its contents. I would recommend this site to others, because it is laid out so neat.

Stephanie Mecca 2/5/12 Overview: The purpose of this site is to provide information on different types of art and the artists that work with art. The site includes the Art 21 episodes and short videos that can be seen on the PBS TV channel and includes written blogs about the Art 21 artists that are featured in the episodes. The intended audience is not just for education uses but anybody can enter the site to learn about art. Teachers could use this site to teach students about different artists and about the types of art. There are some links to the PBS site that provides other resources but there are not many other resources. Content: From the main page the viewer can see that the site includes information about artists and includes videos and episodes. The intended audience can be seen as art-seeking individuals by just looking at the overall art theme. The site douse include a whole section about the site and the people who work on the site and on the Art 21 episodes. You can read about the sites policies and terms of use, you can also easily email any of the board of trustees. The content of the whole site serves a general art purpose including current and past art. The site is well organized but doesn't clarify the currency of the information, meaning it doesn't include revision dates or updates information. Design: The overall design of the site is appealing, with the bright pink color and clear pictures. There is an easy-to-read top menu that you can click on and the copyright is at the bottom of each page. The site is easy to navigate though there are no directions on how to use the site. There some links to the PBS web site but not many other external links. The video files load easily and are clearly seen and heard. There is a lot of information to make it a sufficient site devoted to artists and art. The site uses the same basic format throughout and provides contact information for further information.

This site provides several virtual manipulatives, lesson plans, and other resources for mathematics teachers. It also documents the NCTM standards

Kathryn Slothower September 11, 2011 Overview: This website has a very clear purpose to help and inform students and teachers about math. There is a very nice website as it very easy to navigate through the website. This website is for all age groups in math. The website is broken down nicely into different sections to find what you are looking for very fast and easy. Although students could use this I feel like the main purpose and audience is for teachers to make math fun and interesting for students. My overall impression of this website is very good.  Content: There is a lot of information available within this website. Between the information that the author placed in this website and the links that are found on the website it provides lots of useful information. The last revision date was not found, although the information seems to be up to date from my prior knowledge. The content meets the purpose of the website and is very organized to find.  Design: The design of this website is very appealing. There is not too much white spaces to make the website look plain but there also isn't too much color or activity to make the website too busy. When you are on the website it is very easy to determine where you are and what you are able to accomplish through this website. There is a very nice presentation of this information through this website.