ITEC2360

Brick Cegelski 9/5/11 Overview: AAG Center for Global Geography Education offers educational resources for teachers and students. It is very easy to access and is a useful tool for teachers. It provides teaching modules that relate to current events and issues. The website would be very useful to teachers trying to find a good way to teach one of the themes of Geography and to get a look at different geographical issues from a worldwide perspective. Content: The basic content is easily accessible and easily found. The intended audience is stated on the main page. Its intended for higher education teachers, college students, and teachers of Advanced Placement in high school. The authors are clearly defined and information about them and how to contact them are also given. The sponsor of the site is clearly identified and displayed on the main page. The material was updated in the last year and is current enough to still be relevant for the information. The content is complete, well organized and accurate based on my knowledge of the information. Design: The website is easy to follow and downloads quickly. The website isn't too flashy but everything is clear and concise. The contents of the site are clearly indicated along the left side of the main page of the website. Information for making contact with the sponsor and the authors is readily available under the about us tab. The copyright date is easy to determine. All of the links work properly and lead to good information. The graphics are helpful and contribute to the information on the site.

Mitchell Sept. 5, 2011 Overview: Elementary Math Games is a website that has various games for math subjects. It has different activities for all grade levels and you can select the grade level you wish to play games for. It also contains worksheets that can be printed off for each grade. There are flashcards and puzzles as well. Content: There are games and worksheets for grades first through eighth. It contains 3-4 games per grade level and 3-4 worksheets for each grade as well. These worksheets are organized by grade and cover different topics. They are basic worksheets that can easily be printed off. Design: The design of this site is much simpler than the other site I found. It is less colorful but easy to navigate. The pages are organized by the grade levels. The problem is that before seeing the worksheet at all, you have to open it up. You cannot preview them at all. This site has problems with ads being in the middle of the screen again and this distracts from the stuff that is actually found on the website.

Mandi Pollard 09-05-2011 http://www.arteducators.org/news-news OVERVIEW: It is clear that this website is available to provide information for teachers who are looking for it. It appears that this website is complete and is not under any construction whatsoever. All of this site's content is well organized and it is easy to navigate your way around this site. This website also provides many useful articles and ideas that can be very beneficial for teachers as well as individuals aspiring to become teachers. I cannot find any bias in this website just like I cannot find any grammatical or spelling errors. Finally, the links available on this website take me to other sites that are beneficial and additional sources of information on the topics available on this site. Overall I feel that this site is worth bookmarking and coming back to for information as it is needed. CONTENT: This website has many articles available to the teacher viewing the site, all containing information about the authors. This site also very clearly shows the authors of the site, as well as the sponsors. This site also clearly shows an address and phone number that can be taken advantage of to reach the authors of the site as well as people who could help with any questions the viewer may have. This website also clearly shows the latest revision date of its material, which just so happens to be September 2011, this shows me that this site is very current and is revised frequently. All links available on this website in order to gain additional information work properly and take the viewer to very helpful websites. DESIGN: At first look, this website has a very professional feel to it. The colors used for this site are all complementary to one another, and aren't too flashy and bright so the reader concentrates on the content of the site as opposed to the appearance. The words are all legible and it seems that it would be easy to navigate around this site. It al

I found this to be a high quality educational website for elementary school students. It has online educational games as well as informations for hands on activities.  It provides many activities for students to do on their own or for teachers to do in the classroom. It also provides areas so you can submit the results of your experiments to you can compare to other groups of students.  Content: "The Lawrence Hall of Science: 24/7 Science" website  is up to date, and activities are current and appealing to today's students. Although the "Educator Information" link is not yet available, it provides many activities that would be appropriate to use in a classroom. It also explores a wide variety of scientific subjects that are explored in the classroom today.  Design: This website is very easy to navigate to find certain pages. It is very colorful and appealing to children in elementary school. The displays help to easily determine which games are online and which are activity guides provide for hands on science experiments. 

Content: This website contains lots and lots of stuff. It is set up like a classroom and has a reading link, a math link, a playground link, and an arcade link. I think this is more of a game site than an educational one. There are also lots of links to other help sites, but the majority of the links are for advertiser's webpage's, distracting visitors. Design: After looking at it for awhile, I started to feel lost and uninterested because of all the advertisements and the lack of visuals. There are thousands of links for kids to go to, and the actual site doesn't really support a good learning environment. As said above, it's mostly games with reading sections that really looks fun, but if you have to look through the games to get to that section, students will probably never get there on their own. The visual part of this website is interesting. The homepage is pretty boring and filled with links, but the reading and games tabs are designed for younger students. Attribution: The purpose of this site is probably intended to promote learning is fun, but becomes easily more of a distraction with all of the advertisements. I don't think I would promote this site in my classroom without adult supervision because students could so easily be distracted by toys and games.

Overview The purpose of this website is to help kids interact with math and reading. The intended audience is K-8. My overall impression of the website is that is very beneficial and a good free website for students to practice math and reading, whereas with other websites you have to pay to use the website. Content The only thing that I would critique on this website is having other links that would be appropriate and have to do with reading and math. But other than that, I would highly recommend this website. Design I think that everything is up to date but there is no for sure way to tell on the website, there is the copy right that does say 2013 but there is no one hundred percent way to tell if it has all been updated. So this is one thing that I would change on the design for the website.

Trevor Montgomery For this resource, we see another website that in a way, tricks students into thinking they are just playing games by giving them subject related activities. With the subjects of math and reading, students having interactive games, books and comics and even more fun links, without thinking they are doing much work. Through the "Funbrain" arcade, students can also complete activities and must pass obstacles to get through an interactive game board. If they do not successfully complete an activity, they will not be able to get past their current location, but will feel challenged to get through each activity and will most likely attempt multiple times until mastery of the activity. The great thing about this website is that students can also use codes to pick up where they left off on the game board so that they do not have to start over each time they log on (with their parents' permission of course). From grades 1st through 8th, there is a great variability from subjects, and students who are feeling extra brave might even try a level of difficulty higher than their current grade level. As someone who used this website in school when he was in elementary school, I can say that this resource is extremely effective and I think that students will come back to it time and time again. Navigating the website is easy enough. If you type in www.funbrain.com in the url box, you will be directed to the site. From here, you can choose to use the math arcade, reading, fun arcade, playground, and all games tabs, as well as books & comics and more fun activities. This website is specifically directed towards the audience of students in grades 1st through 8th, so as a teacher you can trust it to be safe and student-friendly.

Middle school math problems from Math TV. Each problem is accompanied by a video tutorial, follow-up problems, online calculator and sketch pad.

This site provides resources for getting a digital story started. It includes writing guides, tips, voice, pacing, etc.

Monique Koller Jan. 24 2010 These Stories in These Pictures is an interesting site that gives people a way to break through a writing block they may be encountering. Content: The content of this website is interesting however once you've read through the information on the pages there seems little reason to return to the site. I enjoyed reading the ideas given to break through a writing block and create a creative and interesting story. The ideas were useful and could be used in your classroom when directing your students in a new direction. Design: This website was very easy to navigate. You are given an apple and a couple of tabs. The site is mostly text so everything loaded pretty quickly. It had a few resources that linked you to the stories the author referenced or used examples from. Overview: This site is mostly for professional writers however it can be used by teachers as ideas on getting their students to make creative pieces. This site is worth a visit but I doubt a person would return after reading the content.

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Allyson Boyer Review date 2/2/12 This website is intended for teachers and educators. It is designed for teachers to get quick tips on how to handle their classroom, how to discipline in the classroom, and an overall view on education. There is not a list of available resources, but there are people who can comment and give their opinion on the articles, some of these comments are left by teachers. My overall impression of this site was that there is a lot of information, but it's not organized well. There could be more graphics involved as well to make it more appealing to the reader. When I was looking over the content of this website I found that I had positive reactions. I found that the site was updated in 2012 and the information was relevant to the page. I also liked that the site was not bias in any way and that it gave open suggestions for teachers to explore at their own will. I did however find some things that I was not so impressed with. On the home page there is no author so you are not able to research anything about the writer, but if you click on a link there is often an author displayed on certain articles provided. Because there are multiple authors, or some authors not listed at all it is difficult to find out if the information is accurate. This website did seem like a good source of information because the New York Times Company helps sponsor it. Overall, there are many links on this site to help teachers with various situations such as classroom rules, ice breakers for the first day of class, and discipline tips. When I came across this site I was not impressed with the graphic design. The website looked very busy and there were not a lot of pictures. I did however find that the information that was provided would be very useful. There were also no directions for this site if you were lost. You just have to click around until you find what you are looking for. I also found that there was outdated material lingering on this site. I'm

Overview: This site contains very useful information. This site allows you to go to the links of education websites that promote math, reading, science, english, and lesson plans and activities. The links lead to very useful information that assists teachers in their classroom to whatever grade or subject they are teaching. Content: This site had had twenty-six pages with a little over one hundred links on each page. I clicked on many different links and found so much information. There were some that had interactive games played on the computer, while others had printable worksheets and activity books. There were sites dedicated to assisting students with learning disabilities and sites for networking teachers around the world. Design: This site did have a boring home page. However, as I entered the different sites linked, they were full of color and organization. On the home page, there was no type of organization. Under the site listed, there would be a couple sentences of description so I was not too confused on what I was looking at. I wish there would have been an organization process for the various subjects this site provided.

Overview After looking over this site, it is definitely easy to see that it has a lot of information, links to further information, and search options to help you navigate the site if you need further assistance. There are a lot of resources on this website alone so it looks very professional and well put together. I like the site because it gives you tools and methods on every subject in education and even has an alphabet index so that you can find the exact information that you are looking for. Content I am able to distinguish the basic content of this site at first glance and can clearly see that the audience is intended to be students, teachers, and anyone having anything to do with education. I am able to easily find the authors, author information, title, sponsor, and last publication date on the homepage of this website. The site shows that it was last updated today, 01/24/2010, so I believe they update their information on a daily basis which makes the quality of information recent and reliable. The site is bias free and allows you to access other sites and its links quickly and easily. Design I was able to get to the website and its links quickly. The homepage is attractive and has a variety of graphics including pictures, font styles, colors, and decoration. I am able to find the author, sponsor, and last update easily on the homepage. The information is organized and consistent and gives valuable information that sticks with the purpose of the site. The material is current and I came up with no dead ends when trying to access the links that are provided on the homepage.

Katie Hurrell January 21, 2010 Overview: Apples4theteacher.com is a website that allows students and teachers to access interactive learning games in creative arts, foreign language, language arts, math, science, and articles. Teachers can also create quizzes and worksheet generator tools in the previously mentioned areas. Additionally a teacher may get articles and literacy coloring pages. Parents may also access the website. The intended audience in this website is teachers, parents, and students. My overall impression bases on my content and design reviews are the website is very easy to use and the content is very simple and easy to understand. Content: Based on the first look on this website the user is able to determine the basic content of the site, also the user is able to determine the audience of the website. The author is clearly identified and information about the author is available. Sponsor of the site is also clearly identified and there is a contact person and address on the bottom of the website. The information quality of the website is all generally easy to understand and locate on apples4theteacher.com. There are links to other sites that are related to both mine and the audience's needs. I would say that this website is very useful and definitely worth bookmarking. Design: The homepage is not very attractive, it is kind of plain but you can tell that you are on the homepage and near the bottom of the page there is a table of contents that describes what is in every section of the website. The copyright is established and very easy to find. The user is definitely easy to move around the website and links to other websites within the original website are very easy to use. There are not very many graphics on the website but it is still easy to use even without the use of graphics or animations. There is sufficient information to make the site worth visiting and it is very well organized. When I was on the website I

The content of this website is focused on teachers and students. It is for elementary classes. The website developer is Judy Miller. She has provided links for every subject. She has also provided lesson plans and activities you can print off and use. Most of the ones i veiwed would be fun and useful in an elementary class room. It was however had to detirmed what tabs were for teachers and which were for students. The design of the website was quite plain. Its does have a clear tilte, description, and image captions however. The boarders are filled with advertising and i did run into a lot of pop ups. These things were very destracting. The website was fast and easy to navigate. The list of links were well organized and easy to use. It was also very easy to contact the person that created the website if you have any questions. The website was up to dat. I couldn't find a date that it was last revised, but the copy right date was 2010. My over view for this website is good. I have saved it in my favorites and will refer back to it for future lesson plans. I found the design and content to be helpful and appropriate for elementary education.

-Overview: This website is a very good resource mainly for teachers that provides ideas for worksheets, activities etc… for them to use. It is not a very visually appealing website, but it holds some good information. It is a good informational source for parents and teachers to gather resources and information for their children. -Content: The content is well organized and fairly easy to access. It is mostly simple worksheets and activities for teachers and parents to print out and work with the students on. There are specific ideas that are featured on the side based on the time of the year and what holidays are coming up. It is good to have the students aware of the holidays and will help the students in the classroom to understand and learn the history of the holidays. Also, the teachers can use the print out coloring sheets as parts of projects or decorations for the classroom. -Design: The website is organized if you are able to look past the advertisements that are on the top and sides of the home page. If you know how to navigate the website, and you are able to focus on the content it way easier to use and the design improves. There are specific tabs that help teachers and parents to find exactly what they are looking for and browse easily around the website and find things that are useful for them.

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

Tyler Knowles August 31, 2010 Review of World History Overview This site is a great way to learn about important people and popular events that happened in history. It gives links to various other related things in which you are searching as well as a brief Wikipedia definition. However it does not go into depth if you are looking for vast amounts of information on a topic it would most likely be used for quick facts. Content The content is quickly understandable and one simply has to search for what they are interested. Information is well cited, and links related topics. Site revision dates are not apparent and information is very limited. The content is well organized by timeline if that is how you wish to find it, or simply by searching. Design The Design is organized by timeline or by related topics which makes it very user friendly however many maps and graphics, while very informant seem to clutter the page. The links to related topics are very easy to find and stand out however while each is a brief definition it seems like all you would do is click from link to link and not get anywhere. Also certain graphics by links make it appealing however if there is say a person with no photo it simply has a blank head next to it taking away from this appeal.

Scott Chanthongthip on January 23, 2010 Overview: National Library of Virtual Manipulatives is a free website offered online to help teachers us visual aids to teach mathematics. The content is from the Utah State University and is edited by the university. Content is easy to navigate and understand because it focuses on students from K-12. Content: The National Teachers Council of Mathematics five content standards are listed vertically in a grid, while the grades for each of the standards are listed across the top of the grid. Navigation based on the content standard and grade level appropriateness is accessible because of this organization. Teachers just need to find the content standard and line it up with the appropriate grade level. Although the site has a version that it offers to schools many of the virtual manipulatives are easy to use as long as one's computer has JAVA capabilities. There are four different language options for the different virtual manipulatives, so it makes it easy to use in bilingual settings (English, Spanish, French, and Chinese). The main reason for this website is to offer teachers with computer technology to teach manipulation of different math areas when the physical manipulatives are not available. Teachers can also use the site to help explain concept clarity of hard to understand math functions. Design: The initial web page offers a grid of math standards and grade levels from K-12. Teachers can click on the appropriate link and it will lead them to more options on different subjects in the content areas. None of the links are broken for the virtual manipulatives. Design of the website is updated often by the USU. NLVM also allows users to select from four different languages.

Kaci Philpot Overview: The purpose of this site is to provide teachers and students with fun, interactive Math manipulatives online, because manipulatives help students to see visual relationships in Math and help to actively engage students. The website has the following standards for math education; numbers and operations, algebra, geometry, measurement, and data analysis & probability. Each standard has four different age groups to choose from: pre-k through 2, 3 through 5, 6 through 8, and 9 through 12. This website is one of the very few educational websites I have found that is free and clear or useless information and clutter. Content Summary: This website content quality is very high; it has an index chart on the homepage with grade levels and math standards. Each box on the chart is linked to a page of full of various virtual Math manipulatives. If you navigate to the credits page you can see who is in charge of creating what, however it does not provide information about or credibility of those individuals. It also does not have revision dates. But the site is well organized and has very rich content. The manipulatives are an excellent way to get students excited about learning math. Total yeses: 19 Total no's: 2 Total N/A: 3 Design Summary: The homepage of this site is very easy to navigate and understand, but it does not have very strong eye appeal at all. But the manipulatives are very useful and all have clear directions if necessary and all internal and external links work properly. It does not appear to have any outdated content, if Mathematics can even be outdated. My favorite link on this website is the link to the Spanish page. This would be very useful for teachers with ESL students; it helps to ease the language barrier. Total yeses: 22 Total no's: 2 Total N/A: 0

Chelsey Lynch 1/31/11 * Overview: This website is for the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives. The intended audience of this site is teachers, and students of all ages. The available resources are a wide array of virtual math manipulatives. This website is extremely useful to teachers because it provides children with a firm grasp on concepts by letting them learn directly through physical objects that enable students to visualize relationships and applications. * Design: This website is attractive and very easy to navigate. The main page of the website contains a large grid system which serves as a menu for the math content area and grade level. All information to contact the sites provider is given, and all the information is current. The instructions for the manipulatives are very easy to follow and the site even provides examples when necessary. This site has adequate graphics, though the music and sounds in games is a little dated and sometimes annoying. * Content: The authors of this site appear to be highly education and experts in this field. The purpose of this site is very clear and the content achieves the intended purpose effectively. This site is extremely interactive, well organized, and easy to navigate. I have personally used this site numerous times and love it. The only things I wish this site contained more of are links to websites that are similar to this or had further information.

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Overview: www.abcya.com is a website for educational gaming. It includes games intended to improve skills in several academic skills including math and language arts. Content: This site is somewhat confusing when you fist open up the home page. It takes a little reading to understand what the site is for, and who its target audience is. There are links that give information on the authors and supply contact information. Recent updates are posted, and links seem to work well, but the games do not seem like they would keep the attention of grade school children. Design: The design is where this site really lacks. There is nothing to catch the intention of the intended audience. They seem to simply rely on bright colors as opposed to animations and pictures. After navigating off the main page, this lack of animation and pictures is even greater. Instead of having links to the games with a picture, they only have text buttons.

I rated this website as very well designed and easy to use as well as very useful for my information needs because it is an excellent site for educational games for elementary aged students. The website breaks up content and games by grade, kindergarten through fifth grade and the audience is mainly students. The website does provide a page dedicated to teachers and parents explaining who the authors of the website are (teachers) and suggesting different ways that you can incorporate the games into lesson planning. The website doesn't provide a lot of outside links to other websites, but there is so much contained in this one site that I didn't feel like the content was lacking because of external links. As far as content does go, I was extremely impressed with this website. There was a page describing terms and uses as well as an entire page discussing student privacy. The content is also updated on a daily basis and each grade level had tons of games in all different content areas that students can play around with. They even have "holiday" and "seasonal" games that change periodically showing that the website owners really do update the content frequently. One thing that could have been a setback about this site is that it is sponsered and paid for by advertisements so there are ads on the tops and sides of all of the pages. This might not be so fantastic for younger students who don't understand they aren't supposed to click on every page that pops up. As far as design goes, this website is great for kids. It is fast and you hardly have to wait for the games to load at all which makes navigation really easy. Each game is separated by grade level and subject so students are able to choose their grade level on the home page and then search for a game that will interest them. The colors are bright and the graphics are great which really draws kids in. I would expect kindergartners to need help, but the website is so easy it would provide a grea

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Educational Math Games

Meghan Snell September 11, 2011 Overview: This website is a great site for teachers and students. The website offers many different things such as printable worksheets, interactive games, study tools, stories and more. For someone who is looking for math related work, it offers all kinds of different assignments and tutorials that can be very helpful. It's very simple to use. Everything is just within a few clicks and there is no extra downloading necessary. Content: Everything onthis site seems reliable and easy to use. There is a header at the top that seperates everything into age groups and subjects. There are also tabs that take you to information about the authors of the site as well as how to get a hold of them. The site is updated weekly which keeps all of the information from being outdated. All of the content on the site is easy to get to and hassle free. It is an educationl website mainly for teachers as well as kids. I believe most people using this site would find it quite helpful. Design: The design of the website is done very well. It downloads efficiently and everything is clearly labeled and all the links seem to work very well. There is plenty of information that makes the site worth visiting and it is attractive to all of its audience. The graphics aren't too out of hand or overwhelming either.