ITEC2360

The Upshot appears in the NYTimes website. Claire C. Miller writes about the rift between women/girls and science and mathematics. The audience for this article is aimed at elementary teachers. It states that biases can unintentionally affect young women into believing that their math skills are below average or not expected. Historically, science breakthroughs and mathematical theories have been postulated by predominately men. Young women are said to not be encouraged to pursue mathematics and science as a career from a young age. Statistically, Information Technology companies hire upwards of 80% of their workforce from males. Women are severely unrepresented. The article ignores past cultural norms that perpetuated this stigma, yet focuses on encouragement to help lead young women into science and technology. The article places most of the effective encouragement on the teacher, not the parents. The article sites a study from 2002 where teachers graded anonymous papers and the results were such that the girls outscored the boys. When the identities were known by the grader, the results favored the males. I would like to understand more on this experiment. While I agree that young women should be encouraged to enter the math and science world, I am not convinced that grading favors males. The article brings up some good areas of focus and I agree that encouragement is important.

This website takes a look at some ideological approaches towards childhood obesity. The article on the website is intended for adults who work with children in any aspect. The author, James Hamblin notes that individual poor decisions are an extreme reductionist approach. The idea is that we can come up with programs in our schools that encourage healthy active lifestyles and that these programs, if effective, will help reduce childhood obesity and promote general overall healthy outcomes for children. One of the ideas expressed and refuted is that obesity is a loosing battle. The epidemic of childhood obesity has grown, this is true. The website and article are showing that our education and government society are concerned and want to help. No one situation is to blame, as suggested by the article. Sugar and soda pops are mentioned but abolition of any of these things clearly is not targeted as a solution. While no particular solution or method is presented, the idea is to keep thinking and not to dismiss this subject. I thought this was a good read and had helpful information for me. Knowing that others still take this problem seriously helps myself and those I can influence to remain aware and able to contribute in some way. This site is good for any person that wants to stay informed of efforts being made among multiple communities.

Discovery Education is a site for teachers, students, and parents to browse for educational resources. Navigational bars located on the page website makes it very easy to browse, and find content that fits the interest of the intended audience whether it be a teacher, student or parent. It even includes ways to make learning fun by having a puzzle maker! I think that this would be a good website for parents to browse along with their children, because of the links for helping with homework and keeping students motivated, but I chose to view this website as if I was a teacher. When you first navigate to the site you have to choose a content area and let the website know the intent of the audience, yourself. After choosing whether you are looking for information pertaining to grades K-5, 6-8, or 9-12 you can then choose what topic you are looking for within these grade levels. There are options to choose from math, science, English, social studies, as well as find resources like lesson plans, puzzle makers, and worksheets. There are also links on the top of the webpage that can change the information displayed due to audience type. I chose to view this website as if I was a teacher, but there are also resources for students and parents that include homework help, games, step-by-step math lessons, and a motivation station. All of the links on this page work, and download very quickly. The only thing that I do not like about this website is that beside the three main navigation bars, as well as below the navigational information on the webpage there are some ads. Other than that I think that this website is very useful and user friendly. This website is published through Discovery Education, and on the bottom of the website there is a link for the terms of use to be easily accessed.

Emily Lewis 4/15/15 This website is the teacher's website on PBS.org. It is called PBS Learning Media and provides lessons and resources for grades pre K-12. The website is intended to be a resource for teachers to use when looking for lessons, videos, games, or activities. Overall the website looks helpful and well put together. The content of the website ranges from a variety of lessons and videos from different providers. The name of the provider is clearly posted under the link to the resource. There is a list of media types you can select from such as images, documents, webpages, videos, lesson plans, and more. There are various subjects and grades available to use. The website is current and presents quality information that achieves its intended purpose effectively. The content is consistent with the standards and free of bias because it is merely a way for teachers to find resources. The design of the website is very pleasing to the eye and easy to navigate. The homepage is attractive and there is a column on the side to easily narrow down your search. This column includes grade level, subject area, language, accessibility features, permitted use, and media type. The websites that appear on the page include a picture, a title, the media type and the name of the provider, which makes it very easy to navigate. The option to find resources in Spanish or English can help teachers cater to the students with English as a second language.  Overall the website is very well designed. 

Emily Lewis 4/15/15 This website is called the National Security Agency and is a government website that provides lesson plans for teachers.  The website's purpose is to cater to the association and provide lessons to them as well people who are prospectors. The lessons I found are about fractions and are great for anyone to use and can be used by most teachers. The lesson plans are intended for the association but it has very thorough lesson plans as well as activities corresponding to them.   The content of the lesson plans is thorough and helpful. There are different lessons like "fractions on a number line" and within the lessons there is an overview, engagement ideas, worksheets, and much more. It is helpful for a teacher looking for ideas because there are a lot of different lessons about fractions. The links are under the year that they were used which is also great to know what is current and what is not. The website is a government website and the lessons refer to the NCTM standards and principles so it is a credible site. The age range varies between second and fifth grade. The design of the website is slightly hard to navigate because it is not only a website for teachers. It is the national security agency, which is based on military and government actions. The only way I could find the page that consisted of the links to lesson plans was through my Google search. After I navigated around the website, I wasn't able to get back to the lesson plan page. The page that consists of the lesson plans is easy to navigate but the rest of the website is difficult.

K-5 Math Teaching Resources is a website for elementary teachers that provides example activities that are aligned with Common Core State Standards.  It is easy to determine the content of the site because of the navigation bar one the side of the page. Within this bar there are options to browse specific content areas, as well as the intended audience (grade level).  After you choose the content area you're interesting in planning a lesson for there are links that take you to site that provide information based on that content. The links with possible activities also provide you with information of which common core state standard the activity correlates with.  Another thing that I really liked about this website is that it gives you examples of outside resources you can use (titles of books, pattern block, etc.) that you can use to keep your students physically engaged in the activity and learning. No ads are present on this website, and all of the links provided work. There are also some resources that teachers can use for their school to incorporate special days for the students, like 100th day and states day, which keep the students engaged on special days of school.  This site is very easy to search through.  They also provide you with a link that states the terms of use at the bottom of the website page. It also clearly identifies that it was first published in 2010 and updated up through 2015, and is published through the K-5 Teaching Resources LLC.

Lauren John 1/30/2011 Jumpstart.com Overview: This site was created to help children learn to read through online games set in a fantasy land. It is focusing on making reading enjoyable and imaginative for those students who may have shorter attention spans or read at lower levels than other students. It offers incentives for completing lessons and practice of more school skills than just reading. The audience not only includes those with attention deficits, but also very young children who would be drawn in by the cartoon images and colorful designs. Although cute, the web design was not the easiest to get around. They offered directions verbally on what each place had in store for the child and how to maneuver in each game, but I had to figure out for myself how to move the person and what the buttons meant. Overall it was well designed though and the content was related. The biggest difficulty I ran into was that the player must be a member to take part in almost every one of the games. Content: The content of this website was fairly desirable. It was clearly stated in an upfront manner who and what they site were intended for. Although there is no author information or way to reach them, the sponsors are clearly identified and they are jointed with several other reputable sites. There is no revision date, but the materials are copyrighted through 2010, and I have actually seen the children I babysit play this game, so I know it is trusted by teachers in my school system. This site has many ways to get around it, but I could see how students would have a difficult time at the beginning because there are not clear labels. The site claims to have many ways to learn math, science, and reading, but in the time I spent there, it seemed like only the members were able to access the games that involved those. That made it so I was stonewalled enough times that I got bored with the site and gave up. I would consider using it in my classroom if there weren't

Lacey Boyles April 15, 2015 This website is for parents and children, there is a section for each. There is also a section for teachers. The website is easy to navigate. It focuses on children from ages birth to elementary grades. It seems that you can access this website on computers and also smart phones, iOS and androids for example. From what I looked through this would be a good site to not only visit again but also show to my children. Again this was a very well set up web site. It was easy to get around and they have the parent, children, and teacher sections separate. There are a few things I do not like about this site. There is a lot of adds for games that could draw attention to students if they were to get on here. When clicking on games you have to sign up and possibly pay to play. There is an index which gives you an idea of where you are going. The purpose of this site I would say is not 100% clear as there is information for parents, teachers, and children. The content on this page is really good. It has lots of ideas on activities, which it separates in to categories such as topic subject, age, and grade. There is a contact us page that you could go to if you needed help. I didn't need help so I am not sure how well or quick it works. Over all I did like this site and would go back again for ideas.

Emily Pariseau The overall point of the website is clear from the opening page that details specifically that this site provides various creative resources for English teachers teaching to second language learners - specifically this site deals with teaching in Japan and the author of the site, Jeffrey, encourages people to share the site among Japanese teachers as well. The site is extremely simplified with just black Arial text on a white background with just one photo of the author at the top. He explains in the about page that he keeps the site simple so that it can be more internationally friendly across every web browser and on mobile websites of varying operating systems. The site is aimed at teaching English for grades 1-6 in Japan and each link to a grade level provides age appropriate in class activities and lesson plans for basic concepts like counting, animal naming, and holiday vocabulary. Every lesson is provided in word doc format and concise but detailed enough that one could use it in their own class, which the author encourages.

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

Molly Nations The second website that I found is www.onlinefreespanish.com, a website that contains many different categories of activities and means of learning, from learning songs and watching videos to reading books and playing interactive games, there are many different means of learning Spanish on this site. The website was quick to load on two different web browsers and upon clicking on each learning activity they were also very quick to load. It is very easy to tell what the purpose of the site is as it has a clear titles, but this site could be for any age group and intended audience as there are several different levels of learning on this site, from beginner to advanced. Overall, I think the site is very engaging as well as informative and would be fun and effective way for students to learn Spanish. The page contains a lot of useful information including daily updates such as words of the days. At the very bottom of the page, you can find the copyright information (copyrighted in 2015) and terms of use. You can also find helpful links, as well as who the website was designed by (FreeCSSTemplates.org), information about them, and how to contact them. Upon searching for this organization, it seemed to me as though it was a credible source and an organization that would only upload accurate and informative information. It is very easy to find this information and the links to each category of this information take you to a page that is well put together and presents the information in a good way. The site is colorful, very easy to navigate, and organized in a sensible and appealing manner. The page is white with black writing making it easy to read. It also contains colorful pictures for categories giving students visual help as to understanding what each category is. The page is very easy to navigate and each category is clearly separated and well organized

The specific article I chose from this website is aimed at anyone interested in stories regarding the English language being taught internationally. The site itself holds a lot of articles in regards to a lot of differing subjects, so it can be a site for all people and all ages. This specific article discusses the lack of proper English education and English educators within other languages, and discusses how, with the right teachers, students learning English in other places would be much better off. The purpose of the site is very clear. Authors and sponsors are noted, and the last revision date (2015) is at the bottom. Content seems up-to-date, and the articles and the content within the articles seem like they are written by credible authors who know what they are talking about. The content is informative to those who care to read about the specific articles, and provide adequate information for those who are interested in them. The home page is very eye catching, and the images and links on the page seem like they all have a purpose. The site is very easy to navigate, and the design is great. I especially liked the fact that you can scroll through the home page and the article titles are in bold but they also have a brief description and lead in that makes you want to read the articles. The contact information of authors and sponsors are given. Overall, it's a very well-designed site.

This article is aimed at educators (mostly math educators) and others who may have an interest in how important it is that students in the United States understand English, because it's very difficult to understand other content areas without understanding English. The article summarizes the idea that it is very important, across all content areas, for teachers to be able to incorporate learning English into their classrooms for students who use English as a second language. They give advice, mostly to math teachers, about ways in which to add more English into the curriculum, and some methods to help those who may not understand English as well as they need to in order to do the given assignments. The content of the site is definitely aimed mostly at teachers. It provides many articles (such as the one on this specific web page) that will better teachers and their students. It contains the name of the author and sponsors of the site, as well as contact information. The authors of the site seem like credible people to write about topics of education. The date last revised is given, and it is 2015. The revisions are up-to-date and all links work properly. The content of the site was very clear on its intended purpose. The content seems accurate, free of bias, and would definitely offer good assistance to anyone searching for how to help their English Language Learning students. The EdWeek homepage downloads efficiently. It is very appealing, and the tabs at the top allow you to find what you are looking for based off of who you are. Author and sponsors, as well as their contact information, are very easy to find. The site is extremely easy to navigate and all links seem to work well. The site seems one worth visiting, not only for teachers, but for anyone interested in aspects regarding education. The date in which the homepage was last revised is noted, and it was last revised in 2015. The site is very well designed.

The purpose of this website is to inform the reader about primary colors.  The intended audience of this website is probably middle school students and up.  It provides a summary of what the standard primary colors are and why.  It talks about the different standards and when they apply.  It seems like a good website because it is informative and easy to navigate with no advertisements. The user is able to quickly determine the basic content and intended audience of the site.  The names of the authors of this site are not provided.  It is open to editing to basically anyone.  The usernames of the authors can be found, along with the date that they updated the site.  The site does not provide a good way to contact the authors, either.  The last date that this site was edited was 4/10/15.  This is appropriate to the material, and the site is updated frequently.  There are links to many other sites related to the topic, and they work properly.  The quality of the information is very good.  There is no detectable bias, and the information makes sense.  It provides information that is different than what I learned in elementary school, but I believe it is still accurate.  There are many other sources that provide consistent information.  The grammar and spelling are correct.  

The purpose of this website is to inform the reader about how the human eye works.  The intended audience of this website is probably middle school students and up.  It is more for the general public than for scientists.  It provides information on the different parts of the eye and what they do.  It also discusses some of the problems that can occur in the eye.  The information presented in the website seems good, but there are some ads that can be distracting. The user is able to quickly determine the basic content and intended audience of the site.  The author's name is provided, but it does not give the reader any way to contact them or any of their credentials.  The sponsors of the site are clearly identified, as well.  The site was published on 2/10/10, which is appropriate to the topic because the human eye has not changed much since then.  The site is not frequently updated, but there are several links to other resources that work properly.  Comments are open on this site, and they provide other resources, as well as extra information and opinions about the topic.  The site is well organized and easy to understand.  There is not any bias on the site, and it provides most of the information necessary.  It is not at all interactive.  The information seems to be accurate, based on my previous knowledge, as well as other resources on the topic.  Its grammar and spelling are correct.

Emily Nielsen: April 15, 2015 This website is intended to educate viewers about rainforests. There is information available about where specific rainforests are, what animals and animals live in them, and how to persevere them. I think it would be a great resource to upper elementary school aged children. Overall, I really like this website because there is a lot of information presented in a format that is easy to navigate. The content of this site appears accurate and easily verifiable. The information is provided by MK and PK Productions and it is material that is copyrighted but can be used for educational purposes. There is contact information provided on the site. I cannot find a date about when the site was last updated but it seems current. The content is well organized into several different categories. The purpose of the page is clearly to be an educational resource about rainforests. Grammar and spelling are correct. The design of the website provides a format that is easy for viewers to use. The homepage catches the viewer's eye with lots of colorful pictures. There is information for contacting the maker of the site to find out more information. There is a wide variety of information on a variety of rainforest topics. The multitude of pictures adds to a viewer's understandings of the topics. The different topic pages on the site are easy to transfer from one to another and are all filled with information and pictures.

The intended purpose of this page is to educate people on the self-esteem changes that occur in middle school students, through a study done with different ethnic groups. The indented audience is for anyone I would say middle school and older interested in this study and the information. The full article and study, the publication date, publication type, authors, and editors are available through this site. I think this site is very informative and credible based on the information given, and the site is set up for easy access. This study takes a look at middle school students grades 6-8 of different gender and ethnic groups. These ethnic groups include European American, African American, and Hispanic. This study was done on the same students for the consecutive three years comparing the self-esteem of ethnic groups and of gender. The content of this page is relatively old, dating in 2006, but the rest of the article is credible, peer reviewed, and the authors and editor are educated on the subject. This web page does not have a strong eye appeal, and does not bring a lot of attention. The page is easy to navigate. The title and the authors are clear, and all the information regarding the study is listed for easy reference. A summary is posted on the actual web page, and the full text is available through a link. The design is very simple, and is only one page that summarizes all the information.

Jade Line April 14, 2015 This article is about different ways to have children finger paint. It provides ideas on how to stay away from the mess of painting and different projects students can do with painting. The attended audience for this article is early childhood/ elementary teachers. This website has all of the information needed for an easy set up and easy clean up. I enjoy this website because it is giving fast and effective ways to get the job done, which saves time. This website is credible and the author is known and is a credible education professor at a university in Pennsylvania. Although, the last time it was revised was in 2008. The content in this site is a little jumbled and it gets confusing to read at times. The purpose is clear and well stated. The author talks about how important setting up this messy project is for an easy take down and clean up. She also highlights in this article different "mess-free" activities you can do with painting. The design of this website is not very appealing. It isn't very colorful and doesn't attract the readers eye at first. There are no pictures to catch the attention of someone either. It is just a bunch of different paragraphs with a few bold headings. There are links provided to other areas on the website, but doesn't directly relate to finger painting. Overall I think the layout of this article isn't very neat and put together. There were no ads on this website to distract the reader.

Jade Line April 14, 2015
This article is about how finger painting benefits children in all different ways. This resource is intended for mothers of toddlers and preschool teachers. It talks about the different motor skills that finger painting can help the young children develop. I think this website is well put together and easy to follow. It gives me great ideas for my lesson in class. This site is credible and the author is known, although she is a demand media, and isn't a credible teacher. In this article she talks about how fine motor development is the number one component of finger painting with children. She compares finger painting to having child zip up their jacket, they are using hand eye coordination which is helping them develop fine motor skills. Finger painting also opens children up to creativity and literacy/vocabulary. For example, the child could describe how the paint feels: squishy, slimy, or sticky. This website helps the teachers and parents to understand the importance of finger painting. It also helps them realize that it isn't just a mess, its fun and productive. The resource gives them ideas on what to do with the children and shows them different content areas they can take the finger painting with. The overall design of the website is appealing to the eye and very easy to navigate around. There are links provided with different content of finger painting as well, that work as well. There were no ads on this website that distracted the eye.

Lacey Boyles April 15, 2015 This website ran very smoothly. I was able to find what I was looking for and also browse other articles easily. The intended audience is anyone who is interested in early childhood development. The purpose of this site is to give advice to parents/teachers, and also ideas on games/activities/art. Over all this is a very well set up website. This site is set up very well. Things are easy to locate as they have blogs set up in different categories. From what I read through the authors grammar and spelling is all correct. They try and set up two blogs a week, I would say they stay pretty current. I did not have any problem clicking on different blogs/articles, I was able to access all that I clicked on. The only thing I think they could add is links to other websites that relate to what they are talking about in a specific blog/article. When first clicking on this website it is very clear as to where you are. The site is nothing fancy so it does not take away from the content. On the homepage there is not too much going on and is easy to read. There is a variety of different information that would help with many different questions. From what I read through articles seem to be up to date and there is not a lot of very old material. This is a website that I will be returning to in the future.