Website Evaluations

For my most recent assignment, I evaluated a few different web sites. http://www.alpine.k12.ut.us/phpApps/genericPage.php?pdid=632 The first website I evaluated was actually my former elementary school, Windsor Elementary. I found this website to be pretty easy to use. There were links to information about the school such as the bell schedule, calendar, and faculty and staff. It has the address and phone number of the school. There are only a couple of images and they are both pictures of the school. There isn't any sound on the website that I could find. There was a message on the website about the students getting a visit from Utah Jazz player Andrei Kirilenko because they read 838,146 minutes. I thought this was really cool that they are promoting reading and helping the students learn to have a desire to read so they can have an athlete come visit them. Overall, I'd say this was a pretty good website. It was informational and if a parent needed to find out anything about the school they definitely could, it just wasn't as interesting as I think it could be.
http://www.lessonplanspage.com/ The next website I evaluated was a website about lesson plans. To be honest, this website kind of overwhelmed me. I felt like it was way too busy and my eyes didn't know where to focus. There isn't very much blank space and there's just stuff everywhere! The few lesson plans that I looked at weren't really that great, and most of them were just worksheets. If I've learned ANYTHING at all from being in the education program it's that worksheets are not developmentally appropriate and there are many more ways that children can learn and be taught. But, a good aspect of the website, is that they do have a ton of lesson plans and a teacher could easily modify them for their students and change them so that they could be DAP.
http://www.compasslearningodyssey.com/sampleactivity.html The next website I evaluated was a website with learning games for kids. I thought the part of the website where you first entered was really boring. It's not at all decorated and just really isn't very inviting. The part with the games was a lot better. It was colorful and fun and I could see it attracting a child. I was kind of confused with some of the games, so I'm not sure if I just struggle or if it would be difficult for a little kid.
http://historyforkids.utah.gov/ The last website I evaluated was a History of Utah website for kids. I really liked this website. It was easy to navigate and I think it would be for a child too. It had great links on the home page and easy access to get back to the home page. Everything was colorful, but still looked professional. There were really great facts about Utah, fun and games, a time line for Utah, and much more. I don't know all of the facts about Utah, but I didn't see anything that I knew to be wrong. I think this would be a really great website for kids to use to find out information without being frustrated by the website itself.
I think learning how to evaluate websites will be a very important tool for me as a teacher. As technology grows and expands, I will have to know credible information that is on the internet so I can help my students learn what is and is not credible. They will have to learn what information they can use and what they shouldn't. I would definitely use an evaluation form, especially if I wasn't sure how credible the website was. I think a time I might not use a website evaluation form is if a child was using a website for fun and if I wasn't worried about them gaining information from it. If they were playing a game where they were learning something, I wouldn't definitely want that website to teach them correct information, but if they were just playing a game for fun, I think it would be okay if it didn't meet every standard of the website evaluation. I think it will all depend on the situation and what the website is being used for.