Website Evaluations

Website Evaluations- Fall 2012

1.    Name of Web Site: Flocabulary

2.    Web Site Address: http://flocabulary.com/subjects/

3.    Copyright date and/or last update: Copyight ©2012 Flocabulary

4.    Author/organization credentials: aside from numerous endorsements from over 15,000 schools nationwide, Flocabulary boasts the following: “ ABC News reports that Flocabulary helped to raise average SAT scores at one Virginia high school by nearly 60 points.” In addition, “Dr. Roger Farr, former president of the International Reading Association, conducts an independent study to test the efficacy of The Word Up Project and finds that the program significantly increases vocabulary proficiency among students of diverse backgrounds and that students using the program had higher scores on state reading tests than their academic peers.”

5.    Web site design and ease of navigation: This website is incredible easy to navigate. From the homepage, users log into an account or access a limited number of free songs and videos. These free songs and videos match up very closely to what users who have an account can access, so I see no glaring differences between access privileges. From the homepage users can also clearly see commonly-used links, which are divided simply into categories. Under “The Basics” heading, Flocabulary provides numerous links that almost anyone using the website would probably be interested in, including the background of the company, biographies of many of the people for work for the company, and basically explanations for the idea behind their work. There are also many links to such information as their research and how they know their content effectively teaches students, information teachers would want to know like how they can use the material in their classrooms, and links to the six content areas Flocabulary provides material for.

               Once a user logs into an account, he can also access the six different content areas and see what material is provided. Under each main content area, including Vocabulary, Reading and English, Math, Science, and Social Studies, there are subcategories that are commonly used in the classroom. For example, users could choose a subcategory of “Earth Science,” “Life Science,” or “Physics and Chemistry” under the Science category.

               The design of this website is simple, logical, and fun to look at. There definitely seems to be more content available for the English/Language Arts content areas as opposed to the math and science areas, but that makes sense because the company was originally started specifically for vocabulary development.

 6.    Your response and recommendation for use: I would use the website for anything I could find a use for. The videos, especially ones for English, would be fantastic for an anticipatory set to get students interested in a unit (or even just a daily lesson). I think most of the videos would also be a great “treat” for students to use for review at the end of a lesson to reiterate what they’ve learned in class. The videos and songs use extremely kid-friendly language and make the lessons more relatable to their everyday lives.

1. Name of Web Site: No Fear Shakespeare

2.    Web Site Address: nfs.sparknotes.com

3.    Copyright date and/or last update: ©2012 SparkNotes LLC

4.    Author/organization credentials: This organization’s credentials are not listed anywhere on the website (or at least that is easily recognizable, but they do mention who the authors of their works are: “The writers of SparkNotes are top students or recent graduates who specialize in the subjects they cover. SparkNotes writers approach literature with a passion and an enthusiasm that inspires students and has won over parents and teachers worldwide.”

5.    Web site design and ease of navigation: This website is more cluttered than the first one I talked about, probably because there are paid sponsors to be on this website that frequently has teenage traffic. From the main No Fear Shakespeare page, users can scroll down and see an easy to read list of plays that have been translated into modern day English.

         Under each of the nineteen play’s main page the user can see a very clear table of contents, on which he can jump to any of the scenes in the play. After selecting a certain scene, the user will see a side-by-side comparison of the original text verses the modern day translation of the text. The modern day translation also includes stage directions, a narrator’s voice, and short notes that can help the user cue into small things that make the play more understandable.

         Though the text is translated into modern day English, some of the words and syntax are still a little difficult to understand because a certain amount of the original Shakespeare must be preserved in order for the full affect of the play to come through to the reader. Even with this flaw, the language is still much more student friendly.

 6.    Your response and recommendation for use: The use of this website can be controversial because students could easily try to get out of reading assignments by reading the “Spark Notes version” summary of a play or any other piece of literate that is covered on their website. However, I argue that this website is more of a tool than a hindrance to a student’s education because students can self-check their understanding of often difficult-to-understand works.
     I have and will continue to use No Fear Shakespeare to help my own understanding of Shakespeare’s plays, as well as recommend the website to my students to help supplement their understanding. Students have been told all their lives that Shakespeare is hard to understand, but when students see the side-by-side text repeatedly, they begin to understand the work as it stands alone. I would recommend this website to anyone who is teaching or reading a Shakespearean play.

1.    Name of Web Site: The Purdue Online Writing Lab

2.    Web Site Address: owl.english.purdue.edu

3.    Copyright date and/or last update: Copyright © 1995-2011 by The Writing Lab, The OWL at Purdue, the English Department, and Purdue University; Last Edited: 2012-05-09 07:17:57

4.    Author/organization credentials: This website was created by the English Department and the OWL at Purdue University, using the official MLA and APA guidelines to create examples for students and teachers to reference.

5.    Web site design and ease of navigation: The homepage of this website could potentially be difficult to navigate to a first-time user. There are many links on each side of the page for the general public and the links on the middle of the page are for Purdue students.  I have only used this website for help with formatting, so I will be focusing on the MLA Formatting and Style Guide page.

   Once the user accesses the specific page for MLA formatting, he will see a main page with some general information regarding MLA format and a column on the left side with links to all things related to MLA. The links provided are extensive and really cover just about anything a user could have questions about. However, because of the complex nature of MLA, sometimes it might take a while to dig through the different topics to find what he is looking for. I think the main cause for this is that most people are not incredibly familiar with the ins and outs of the MLA format, which means they don’t know under what category their question would be classified.

   This is not a website a student who has never been taught anything about MLA could come to for a super-quick answer about formatting the night before his paper was due. This website requires some digging, even for those of us who are fairly familiar to the format. That being said, this website offers a TON of information that is easier to understand and probably quicker to locate than trying to look up a question in the MLA Handbook. The website provides a student-friendly explanation for each point with a simple example. Sometimes, though, users will have to do some inferring about the exact format they should use because it does not give an actual example, only a explanation.
6.    Your response and recommendation for use: I would use this website to make sure any of my work was cited correctly to avoid any plagiarism issues. In addition, I would use this as a supplement to teaching my students about MLA format, which they would hopefully use throughout the entire year, but at the very lease during their research paper towards the end of the year. I would not give students this website until I had already introduced them to the concepts in MLA formatting, because I think there would be way too much confusion. However, once students had worked with the MLA Handbook and maybe a few other resources, this is a fantastic website to have them use at home while they are working on their writing. This will prevent students from having to carry a MLA Handbook home, and students will have excuse for not understanding what they were supposed to do.

1.    Name of Web Site: Teacher Tube

2.    Web Site Address: teachertube.com

3.    Copyright date and/or last update: There were no copyright dates for this specific organization listed. However, this website is based on the same idea as You Tube, which means that each individual who uploads content to the website has a personal copyright to his own work. On the FAQ page, the organization encourages users to work on copyright infringement issues between themselves.

4.    Author/organization credentials: From what I understand, the sponsoring organization does not provide any of the content on the site aside from the host website and navigation resources. Therefore, users should use caution and discretion when choosing materials. The content of the website is not fact-checked or approved by anyone before it is made available to the general public. The sponsoring organization encourages members to leave constructive feedback for other users, so I would hope that glaring mistakes would be caught by peers and the original owner would fix those mistakes.

5.    Web site design and ease of navigation: I think this website would be fairly simple and easy to navigate for the average teacher. It’s layout is very similar to You Tube, an extremely popular website for the general public, so I think navigation would come intuitively for most. Users can immediately see that there are a few different forms of content provided, including photos, documents, videos, and audio files. There is also a search function that could help a user quickly type in keywords to find material that matches his intended purpose, although he would probably find more material if he broadened his search by using the provided search criteria.

   This criteria should allow the user to select specific subjects (such as English) to search by. If a user chooses a very broad subject such as “Reading,” over 200 pages will load full of content. This is great, because it means there are a lot of resources, but it is also very bad because the material does not seem to be extremely organized past this. Basically, a user could potentially need to search through over 200 pages of content to find what he needs, which is completely unrealistic for any teacher.

   A user can organize the search results in several different ways, including showing only content that was added within a certain time frame. This would be very helpful if a user really wanted to stick to newer concepts or ideas.

   Another flaw with this website is that content-uploaders name their own files. So while most people do names their files something relevant and intuitive, it is possible that the name of a file does not exactly match the content.

6.    Your response and recommendation for use: This would be a good first place for me to check at the beginning of a lesson or unit to see if anything stands out that I could incorporate into my own lessons. However, this is not a website I would give to my kids (there also seems to be quite a bit of professional development-related content, which kids don’t need to see), because I think the sheer amount of content they would need to wade through is too much. I would not spend more than thirty minutes on this website trying to find information, because you could potential spend hours looking for something that was never there in the first place.

1.    Name of Web Site: Lit2Go

2.    Web Site Address: http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/

3.    Copyright date and/or last update: Copyright © 2006—2012 by the Florida Center for Instructional Technology, College of Education, University of South Florida.

4.    Author/organization credentials: There are no creditials specifically listed on this website, but it is clear this site is hosted and sponsored by The University of South Florida. As with any website that provides materials to the general public, I think it is the user’s responsibility to check the accuracy of the recordings to the version he/she is reading. In the context of the classroom, it is up to the teacher to decide if the inflection used matches what he/she ultimately wants to teach the students.

5.    Web site design and ease of navigation: The homepage of this website provides a short explanation of what the website provides with links to different ways a user can browse the website. User can browse by author, books, genres, collections, or readability (or type in keywords to a search box.) I think these different ways to browse are a great idea, since some people will know a specific title or author they want, while others will simply want to browse the whole collection.

   After selecting a specific way to browse, the website will pull up a small thumbnail drawing of each author with his/her name and a very short biography. Users can then click on each author and a different page will pull up with a longer biography and a list of the works that there is a recording for on this website.

   I was a little surprised at the works there was or was not a recording for. For example, I would expect that under Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice would be listed because it was her biggest work, or under F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby would be listed. However, neither were listed, as were not some other major works by other authors that I have noticed. This is not a deal-breaker, because there are so many pieces provided, but I would say this website went for quantity of authors and works and not so much quality (quality being using less authors but focusing on getting recordings for the major works).

   The website provides MP3 files of the recordings of these works, which should make the files easy for teachers to download and use in the classroom.

 6.    Your response and recommendation for use: I am extremely excited to find this website because it offers me a chance to give students a variety in their lessons. For example, if we were working on a poetry unit and students were assigned a poem for homework, it would be extremely beneficial for them to use a link from this website to listen to the poem being read instead of them trying to understand it by reading it, since poetry is written to be heard, not read. This would also really help the auditory learners.

   In addition, listening to the recording would be a nice alternative to making students read out loud (or even silently) every day in class. While there is incredible value in students participating in the reading, sometimes giving them a break to solely focus on listening and comprehending can be very beneficial as well.

   Finally, I like this website for a selfish reason. As someone who must read the materials ahead of time in order to fully prepare, it would be nice to have another alternative to sitting down and reading it myself. I could listen to the recording while doing house work, exercising, or even while driving. At the end of the day, this will help me be a better teacher because I can get more done in the same amount of time because I can multitask.