Weather (Extra Credit)

1. Weather Wiz Kids

Weatherwizkids.com is a site designed by a meteorologist (Crystal Wicker) with children’s learning in mind. Her site provides detailed information on many weather subjects ranging from severe weather to general weather phenomena such as wind and clouds. Severe weather dominates the side bar with hurricanes and tornadoes topping the list and continuing with rain and floors, thunderstorms, and lightning. She also includes wildfires, earthquakes and volcanoes, which may not seem related to weather from a child’s viewpoint, which is good. For each of the topics I just listed, she provides definitions and explanations and links to external sites if you want to know more about a particular topic. She also includes graphics and pictures that are easy to read and look at. Each of these pages also includes links at the bottom specifically for teachers. The links include several lesson plans (depending on the age of the students you are teaching, it generally ranges from K-5), one or two experiment ideas involving the topic that the page covers and then a link to science fair ideas (for grades 1-12, basically). Also part of her sidebar are topics like Climate (what it is), optical illusions (like rainbows), Weather forecasting (and how it works), weather experiments for kids, weather safety, games, flashcards, jokes, folklore, words (and their definitions), instruments (in order to measure the weather like a thermometer or barometer), photos, a career corner (if a child or teen is interested in becoming a meteorologist, she provides information on how you can do that), “Ask Crystal” (you can e-mail her any question that is not addressed on the site, links, and “kids questions” where she answers some questions from kids like “why is the sky blue?” She provides a lot of really useful information that can be used for a range of small children to pre-teens. The games, which I like to focus on with websites when wanting to teach elementary school students, are not the site’s strongest point, but she does link to some games on other sites (such as the “Wild Weather Adventure” provided by NASA), which I think is good. A way to use this in the classroom is definitely through the experiments she provides. Though if you are teaching a specific lesson on one of the topics, the lesson plan may help you jumpstart your ideas, but the experiments seem like more fun and she provides a good explanation of why the experiment works (like with the “make lightning” or “make a tornado” experiments). Overall, this site is really excellent, however it does lack in its ability to support a multi-literacy classroom. It is only available in English and of all the great resources she provides and links; I did not see anything applicable to English Language Learners. But, I think if you as the instructor take some of the basic ideas she provides for your classroom, it can be adapted for bilingual education as well. I really do recommend this site!

2. The Weather Channel Kids

The Weather Channel is a popular source for some people to receive their weather forecasts, so it’s not surprising they have a site that is geared toward kids. They provide a link to receive the forecast on the homepage, but it isn’t exactly younger kid friendly. The entire site seems to be geared toward older children except in the “seek and find” games they provide (where you find “hidden” objects in pictures that pertain to a particular subject, like weather safety). This site as a whole seems to be more concerned with weather safety than information about various forms of weather (at least, it appears so on the surface due to the nature of the games). There is a “Weather Encyclopedia” however it only provides information on El Nino & El Nina, Flooding, Global Warming, Heat Wave, Hurricanes (& Tropical Systems), Severe Thunderstorms, Tornadoes and Winter Storms. Basically, they only focus on severe weather in the encyclopedia. There is also a glossary of terms that expand past severe weather terms, however does not provide the connection of ideas needed in order to understand our atmosphere and weather. They also provide “online resources” and “teacher resources” which can take you to sites that better explain what weather is and in order to use the teacher resources, you must be a registered user. Though the site could be properly used to teach students, I really wouldn’t recommend it because of its primary focus being on severe weather. Yes, severe weather is typically more interesting but it’s important to know about the weather basics before jumping into sever weather and why it happens. I think if a teacher were planning on going over weather safety in severe weather situations, this site would be a good resource. It generally does not seem to really be a good resource in ELL situations because the site is only available in English and makes no effort, even in the other online resources it offers, to help students in multi-literacy classrooms. Overall, I am very unimpressed by the site, but I am sure it could be used well if need be.

3. EdHeads.Org

The edheads site provides activities for students to use on several topics, one of which is weather. The primary function of the site is the “activities” for weather, which, once you click on the link to them, include “predict the weather” (using the “Predict-o-matic!”) and “Forecast the weather.” I spent some time playing both games and they are probably the most fun games I have found thus far in searching weather sites. The forecast the weather game requires the student to know what the symbols on the map mean when they see a weather forecast (such as a red capital L means a low pressure system). They are given the forecast and they must match the forecast on the map. The predict the weather game requires a student to not only understand how to read a forecast map that we often see on the news but also be able to realize that the weather moves and we can predict, based on how fast it is going and what direction it moves in, what the weather will be like wherever it goes. Both games are entertaining and I believe would be a good use of computer time if you were doing a weather unit for class. The site is generally built for students around the 4^th grade age, not only due to the nature of the games but also due to the other resources the site provides. They provide a weather glossary, only containing a few, but important terms, a Fahrenheit to Celsius & Celsius to Fahrenheit converter, an “interesting people in weather” page and weather class lesson plans. The lesson plans for weather are suggested for 4-5^th graders and the glossary explains some of the more complicated things to understand like what a front is or how clouds are formed or what air pressure is and how it affects our weather. Though the site generally seems to be kind of lacking in multi-literacy availability, I think the temperature conversion portion of the site is very good since the U.S. is on the Fahrenheit scale while most everywhere else is on the Celsius scale. It allows you to put in a temperature on either scale and it will tell you what that temperature is on the opposite scale. It also provides the formula you would need to use in order to convert it manually. Overall the site is very good if you want to use technology in the classroom for games. There are only 4 or so lesson plans available that are submitted by teachers, which you can use if you want a more hands on approach as well, but I think this site’s strongest suit is in the games.

4. Anglomaniacy

The last site I found, I made an effort to try to find one that would cater to ELLs more. The anglomaniacy site provides a “weather picture dictionary” where it provides pictures of the more common phenomena of weather (cloud, cold, storm) and provides the word underneath. When you click on the picture, it has a voice that will say the word, which I think is a wonderful idea because often times hearing the word helps more than reading it. The site has several online resources teachers can use for students besides the Pictionary including hangman, a matching game, Simon says game, spelling game and word search. All of the games are very simple and mainly test to see if the vocabulary is learned. More abstract concepts are not addressed. A teacher may also use the site for offline activities because they provide bingo card templates, crossword puzzles, matching cards, word search puzzle, picture tests and a vocabulary quiz, which you may print. All of these resources revolve around the 10 weather words that are provided in the picture dictionary. I think if you have a classroom of very young learners, maybe in kindergarten, that are native speakers, this is a good site for them. However, very beginning ELLs are what the site is made for and I think it works well. The site also provides these resources for other topics. I think using the computer for learning the vocabulary is a good way to get the students to learn how to use the Internet as well. You can then follow up with in-class activities like bingo or the picture test on paper without the website to help them later on.

Evaluated by: Anne Pugh

Fruits & Vegetables

http://www.foodchamps.org

by: Caroline Lamb

Food champs is a great website for fruit and vegetable units with children! They have a wide selection of games dealing not only with fruit and vegetable vocabulary, but also nutrition in general. The way the website is set up allows teachers to have students log in, and then click on the appropriate age level for the games (either 2-5, or 6-8).  Students are given a variety of appropriate games to help them learn the vocabulary words in a written form. The downside, especially for ELL’s, is that the website does not make any noise or speak, so there is no vocabulary pronunciation modeling, or practice with phonemes while reading the word.  So, while this website is ideal for students with an L1 of English, it may not be the best for students or are struggling learning English as their L2. Also, there are probably several other websites out there that offer a much more extensive selection of vocabulary intensive games, while out of the 6 available on the site, only 3 or 4 actually deal with this vocabulary reading and identification directly. Through all of that though, the website still offers a very entertaining and educational selection of games for learners between the ages of 2-8. But if you have a class with an ELL, or several ELL’s, it might be worth looking into a website that includes an auditory component.

http://bogglesworldesl.com/fruitsvegetablesbingo.htm
By: Michael Cousins
This is a great site that plays a bingo game with the learners about the specific topic: Fruits & Vegetables.
There are several aspects about this particular learning activity that makes it especially beneficial to the English language learners. Initially the learners will have the entertainment of participating in a competitive game with the other students. Games that are competitive and involve participation from several students are really educating to new language learners because they have the opportunity to learn from their peers. The great thing about this game is that bingo is really fun and forces you to pay attention. The educator will go to the site and download bingo play cards with either fruits, vegetables or a combination of the both. The kids each get a card and will play against each other to see who fills the bingo card or makes a bingo line first. The teacher will call out a fruit or vegetable and then show a picture of that food to the students. They will then write out the word and the students will match the target word with the same on on their bingo card. The student will learn to associate pictures with with words and learn the sound of the read words. This game could be altered even more specifically for ELLs where the teacher might only call out the word in the L1 or have the bingo cards written in the L1.

http://www.freshforkids.com.au/games/games.html
By: Krista Robinson

For Blog Two I evaluated Fresh for Kids which is a website dedicated to teaching healthy living choices to children and parents. It has a wide variety of games and activities for children too.  My objective for this website was for a student to use it and be able to identify and correctly spell the names of different fruits and vegetables. Of the seventeen games only four of them could have possibly left a student with a better understanding of how to identify and spell the names of fruits and vegetables. These four games are Worm Game, Quiz Game, Word Guess, and Word Match. Since most children would prefer to play games rather than read, I feel that most of the games should have more emphasis on the variety of fruits and vegetables. The information in other areas of the website is geared towards parents and teachers and not children. The section about the different fruit and vegetables is far too long for any child to read through. For these reasons I don't believe this would be a good website for students and especially not English Language Learners. I would maybe use this website for research or activity ideas for my classes but, I would not send my students younger than third grade to use it on their own.

Cinco de Mayo

http://www.apples4theteacher.com/holidays/cinco-de-mayo/

            This site is has a variety of activities that a student or child could do to help him or her learn about the Cinco de Mayo. On this site there is a list of different such as the history of Cinco de Mayo, crafts that you can do with your students. Then there are even some games that the teacher can hand out to his or her students, like the crossword puzzles that are given.

            This is a good site for parents and teachers because of the ideas that are given to help a child understand what Cinco de Mayo is about. On tab that is good for the parents to use is the one that has to do with the different recipes that are given that are related to Cinco de Mayo and even the Mexican culture. One activity that is on here is one that has to do with crafts that are related to Cinco de Mayo. When you click on that tab some ideas that are given are making a sombrero, and making a fiesta puppet.

            Another good tab on this site is the one toward the bottom, the tab teaches the student some Spanish words that are different parts of the face. There are also two other tabs that have to do with counting in Spanish, and there is another one that is about counting in Spanish backwards.

http://www.kiddyhouse.com/Holidays/Cinco/

This site is mainly about the history of Cinco de Mayo. It explains what the history is and what the celebration of Cinco de Mayo is about too.  This site also has section that describes why the celebration of Cinco de Mayo is larger in the Unites States compared to Mexico.

            The next section has six tabs, lesson plans, songs and finger plays, crafts, worksheets and coloring, and clipart and graphics. Under the lesson plans tab it gives suggestions like making a piñata, and when you click on it, it shows the literacy focus and science focus. It also tells you how to set up your classroom so that way the children know what they are making. There is even a section for English language learners. This section is really good for teachers because it already has lesson plans so if you are unsure of what you want to do for Cinco de mayo then this site will give you plenty ideas.

            Another tab that is good to look at is the one with worksheets and coloring, because you have a choice of what you want to look for, either worksheets or coloring pages. At the bottom of that section if you click on Cinco de Mayo worksheets it will take you to another site that has a list of different worksheets and one that it has is a Cinco de Mayo acrostic poem.

            At the very end of the site there is a box that has a list of more information that has to do with the Mexican culture. Below that there are two books that you could find or buy that have to do with Cinco de Mayo. This is a good site for teachers because it has lessons that you can use when teaching. This site is also good for kids that are trying to find out about Cinco de Mayo, the history and why the United States has a bigger celebration than Mexico.

http://kids.librarypoint.org/story_cinco_de_mayo

This site is an online library that is good for kids. When you get to this site it is colorful so it interests the web surfer. This site will take you directly to the story of Cinco de Mayo. It gives you a brief story about what the Cinco de Mayo day is about. It also tells the people reading this, that Cinco de Mayo is not a Mexican independence day, the very first sentence.

            After the brief description of Cinco de Mayo it list books that are about Cinco de Mayo and books that have to do with the Mexican heritage. Off to the side are some pictures of the books may look like, so the person looking at this site can see if it is something that he or she may want to find in their own library and check out. There is even a video recording called Cinco de Mayo and in the video it shows the celebration of Mexico’s win over the French. One book has Mexican recipes, and another book has crafts, games, stories, and cultural activities. Below that are some sites that you can explore to find more information about Cinco de Mayo.

            I think this site would be good for kids that are in the 3^rd grade and higher because the information that is given is more appealing to a kid than to an adult.  The books and websites that are given are also more kid based. I would recommend this site to any kid that is doing a project on Cinco de Mayo or just wants to know more information about what Cinco de Mayo is.

           

http://holidays.kaboose.com/cinco-de-mayo/

This site is called Kaboose and it is a site that would be good for teachers. I think that this site would be good for teachers because it has coloring pages that you could give out to your students, it also has history lessons, and games that you can do with your students. This site would also be good for parents if they wanted to have a party for Cinco de Mayo because it gives party ideas and Mexican recipes, so you could cook with your child.

            When you first open this page up, it has three pictures that you can click on that have to do with Cinco de Mayo. For example if you click on the picture with the Mexican flag it will take to different crafts that you could do with your students or with your children. A couple of the craft ideas that are given are a wearable sombrero, Mexican flag piñata, and maracas. A good craft that a teacher could do with her students is general Ignacio Zaragosa portrait, because he was in the battle between Mexico and the French, so it could be like a history lesson.

            You can click on the history lesson tab it will take you to another page that explains why we celebrate Cinco de Mayo and it even list some fun facts about the Cinco de Mayo like this holiday is mainly celebrated in California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. This part of the site is good for students because it gives them information that they would want to know about when it comes to the Cinco de Mayo holiday and the Mexican culture.

By Blanca

Texas

http://www.lsjunction.com/

This is a very simple website, with many links on the homepage, so students who are not exceptionally computer literate should not struggle with navigating to the different tools on the website. I like that it has a lot of information about Texas in an easy to access format, and the information in simple and not particularly wordy, so students who struggle with reading should not be intimidated by the website. However, we have learned a lot about how interactive learning should be and I think that is a flaw of this website. While it contains easily accessible information, I think an interactive worksheet or assignment would be necessary to make sure students are actually learning the information provided on the website. We could assign them certain aspects of Texas history to make presentations on, or provide them with worksheets which ask questions about information included in the website so that they will have to fill in the facts about Texas and through that they would learn the information. This website would be great if trying to learn little facts about Texas, but as far as learning stories about Texas, another method would be better.

By Lauren

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/usa/states/texas/

            This site that I found is about Texas and all of the facts, maps, and state symbols of Texas. On this site every main point is bold and in red.  For example the first main point that is listed on this site is the state abbreviation.  There aren’t any tabs that you can click on because all the information is listed down the page. The way this site organizes its information is by putting everything that has to do with the state first, and then abut the geography in another section.

            Further down the page this site has pictures of some of the state symbols such as the flag, flower, and the state mammals. If you go even further down the page it has different worksheets that would be good for a teacher to use. It is good for teachers to use because it has some lessons that you could teach, like it has a page that is number to ten, and the student would have to write ten different things about their state. This site also gives ideas for younger age groups, because one activity they could do is connect the dots and at the end they will have made the shape of Texas. At the very bottom of the site it allows you to pick another state to find the same kind of information on the state of your choice.

            This site would be good for kids because they could go to this site if they have a research project that has to do with finding information about Texas. I found something interesting on this site, it list the dinosaur fossils that have been found in Texas. So if the child has to find interesting facts about Texas then this site would be helpful.

            When you first look at this site it is not that appealing to kids because it has some advertisement at the top and their aren’t any pretty colors or anything to make you want to explore the site. I would suggest making the site more appealing to kids so they will want to explore the site to read about all the information if has about Texas.

By Blanca

http://www.senate.state.tx.us/kids/

The home page for this site is simple and uncluttered. It has divisions of the site for kids in grades three and below or those not yet proficient in reading, kids in grades four and above and more advanced in reading, and for teachers and parents. Entering the sections of the site, the pages are neat, with a consistent theme throughout-large white borders on a shape similar to a long, yellow, green, or blue file folder.The site also offers a Spanish option as well as a help page, both buttons listed at the top of the pages.

The section for grades three and below is called Senate Jr. It has three activities for kids. One is a matching game using state symbols. Another is a story called "The Legend of Lone Star Bob". Last is a coloring activity. This may not be as freely available to everyone, as it requires a Shockwave plug in download.

For older children, there is more information available. Links include "Capital Tour", "Texas Trivia", "Senators", and a glossary. In the Texas Trivia, children can read facts about the state of Texas and then quiz themselves later. It includes the state symbols used in the matching game for younger children, but does not have as many pictures. The Capitol Tour gives information on the State Capitol and its history. I feel this section of the website is not that interesting and may not appeal to children unless they already have interest in Texas government and facts.

Overall, the site is aesthetically pleasing, neatly organized, and not too cluttered. The younger children's section is more "fun" while the older children's section seems more serious and full of facts to read and may not engage a child's interest for too long.

By Melissa

http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/kids/index.html  

The website from the very beginning once the home page is accessed clearly appeals to a demographic of children from both stimulating ascetics and even in text with large bold and brightly colored print reading “Kids, only”.  The options to maneuver throughout the site are also animated by categories for website navigation that rotate on the home screen inviting children to explore more. Not only is the site specific to children but it also targets residents and youths of Texas with the state outlining a clock in the background and with exciting and curiosity inspiring facts about Texas and adventures of exploration that wait a click away.

By Ryan

Volcanoes

The Magic School Bus Blows Its Top

The Magic School Bus Blows Its Top is an activity where children are suppose to find their way from the center of the earth to the volcanoes surface. This activity requires the navigation through a maze behind it there is a picture of a volcano with different levels of the center of the earth including the inner core, outer core, mantle, and the crust. While going through each area of earth’s crust is explained, this includes the temperature of the area of the center of the earth, what it is composed of and the state of matter. Then when the top of the volcano is reached there is an eruption and that is also explained. Lastly the activity finishes off with “Volcano Factoids” where the child is given different knowledge about volcanoes around the world and other facts in general such as where the name volcano originated from.

This activity is for students in second grade the knowledge gained is very basic but children need to have the ability to read in order to obtain knowledge. It is very easy for students to simply focus on the maze itself and not actually pay attention to the information that is being provided to them, I know this was my case when I first came across the activity. As a teacher it is necessary to make sure students focus on the information rather than the game itself. Another disadvantage of the activity is that there is no way to test the students’ comprehension on the material through this game. There is a pop quiz about the earth on the same site that includes material presented here but only 4 out of the 8 questions are related not making it very useful. This activity does present a different way of providing the information for the students that includes a visual and builds new knowledge that can be used before beginning a new lesson about volcanoes with the students.

(evaluated by Alejandra Santillanes)

Volcanoes

When it comes to learning valuable content in classrooms today, it?s important for the resources to be interactive and informative so that information is readily available for the students. For example, take the topic of volcanoes. How can educators provide information about this subject without making it seem dull and boring? Well, in this website called Discover Kids: Volcano Explorer, information about volcanoes is transformed from dull and boring to engaging and interactive.

Right off the bat, this website gives off an inviting stance by merely describing what volcanoes can be like with clever adjectives such as ?beautiful and powerful? and ?awe-inspiring and deadly? to draw the student in. The student must then click on the enter button in order to be taken into the main page where a world of information awaits. Upon clicking the button, a 3D figure of the planet Earth is seen rotating. While doing this, there is a key next to the rotating globe indicating what the marks on the planet?s surface mean such as the boundary lines of plate tectonics and active volcanoes today. A brief but right to the point paragraph is positioned below the rotating planet describing how plate tectonics work in relation to volcanoes. Just on the right side of this paragraph, the student also has several more topic options such as the layers within the earth and of the ring of fire. These topics all relate to volcanoes and how they work. Upon clicking either topic, the rotating sphere corresponds to the subject by highlighting/pointing it out through labeling and animations.

Another interesting find about this website is how the menu is placed on the left side of the page. This provides an organized manner in navigating through website with other links such as volcano types and what the inside of a volcano looks like. What?s really positive about each link here is how the information is presented. The display of information is similar as the first time the student clicked to enter and saw the 3D figure of the planet Earth which only shows just how user-friendly this website is. Little animations on the 3D figures presented also help tremendously in giving the student a feel for how volcanoes act and the language used to describe each topic are all in relation to what the student is visually seeing. This proves to be a great feature should an English language learner use the site to find information. Having the visuals also aligned next to the text also proves to be another positive aspect since the English language learner would have a much better chance at not getting confused on what is being discussed.

To further expand on the student?s interactive journey in acquiring more information about volcanoes, there is a virtual volcano activity. This activity has the student creating different types of volcanoes and their varied eruptions. Since this activity is a bit more complex by asking the student to set viscosity and gas levels, there are two links right next to those settings providing definitions of both levels in a simplified language. This is a positive feature here for the English language learner to click on should he/she not know exactly what the activity is asking. Once conditions have been set, the activity describes what kind of volcano the student has created and provides several characteristics. With this in mind, the student can then start the eruption by clicking the start button and a 3D figure of a volcano appears on the screen and starts erupting, sound effects included. As it is occurring, the animation begins labeling out specific parts of what is going on such as ?lava flows? and ?plume? and the student may click on those words to learn its definition. Labeling here works to help the student expand on his/hers vocabulary, which only makes this activity even more enriching.

Overall, this website is highly recommended for second language learners. It?s interactive, it?s visually appealing, and it?s incredibly easy to navigate through when it comes to learning more about volcanoes.

(evaluated by Michelle Lopez)

Photosynthesis

Photosynthesis

http://www.realtrees4kids.org/sixeight/letseat.htm

This website has different parts that are for different grade levels such as K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and then 9-12. The page that I would specifically use is classified for grades 6-8. The website is really to inform the reader about tree farming but in doing so the photosynthesis process is described. Even though the entire website is not focused on photosynthesis I think that reading a little about tree farming helps the photosynthesis process make more sense. The students would actually learn about one of the many results that photosynthesis produces. I like that the site introduces different vocabulary words and on the side of the information it gives you a definition. This website could be used as an introduction to the photosynthesis unit. A worksheet can be provided with the bolded vocabulary words and from reading the site and the sites definitions the students can come up with their own definition. Even if they are not able to fully understand the photosynthesis process by reading the information from this site, they should be able to talk about some of the things it takes to make the photosynthesis process work.

Photosynthesis

http://www.biology4kids.com/files/plants_photosynthesis.html

This website could be used with middle school students. It explains the photosynthesis process and even has a diagram to demonstrate how it works using the highlighted vocabulary in the site. With this site students could have an activity where they just focus on the bolded words and their definition along with what role they play in the photosynthesis process. Another activity could be having the students look at the diagram after reading about the process and drawing a diagram that they can understand better. This is also a great site for students to see the results of photosynthesis, so during class time they can take time to explore the site and learn specifically about plants and how they go through the process. Even though they will be able to explore and learn about the effect on plants the students still need to primarily focus on the photosynthesis process.

Photosynthesis

http://www.wartgames.com/themes/plants/photosynthesis.html

This website is also geared towards middle school students. The great thing about this site is that it has multiple links for the students to go to in order to learn different things about photosynthesis. Each link pinpoints something different about the process. A weakness about this site is that kids could get easily confused going through all the links so a way to solve that problem is to have an activity like the following. If this is done in the classroom the students can be broken up into small groups and each explore one link or the teacher can give each student a specific link. After the students have researched and learned more they should write down a few facts about what they learned from their link. If the teacher gave each student their individual link, all the same links can come together and share what they got out of it. Sharing in a group shows the different things that popped out at each student and because everyone may be different that does not mean that they are wrong. This activity practices picking out important ideas and sharing them with their peers.

Photosynthesis

http://www.phschool.com/science/biology_place/biocoach/photosynth/intro.html

This website is geared towards middle and high school students. The website gives a lot of structure to the photosynthesis process and walks the students through it step by step. Using this site I would break my class into groups and have them specifically focus on one step. The wording on the site is very bland so I would encourage the students to rephrase the steps using vocabulary that all the students could easily learn. Once all the groups have completed their rephrasing they will present to the class. This presentation should consist of easy ways to help the students remember the order of the photosynthesis process and how each step works. This activity also helps with sequence words.

dinosaurs

www.sdnhm.org/

This website starts off with a series of common questions and answers. The format is a benefit because students can get the answers to questions that they may have about dinosaurs without going through each page separately. Second language learners that may be exploring the idea of questions and answers can see this format in use. The type of activity that the teacher can do is provide a list of questions and students can then explore the websites and find the answers associated with them. Not only would students be practicing their skill to answer questions but they would also benefit by learning more about dinosaurs. The benefits of this website is the simple structure which makes it great for lower leveled students and the pictured time line which uses pictures of dinosaurs to outline the different periods in which they were alive. Because of these pictures and simple worded sentences, this website is great for both English language learners and English proficient learners. Another quality of the website is the easy to locate game associated with dinosaurs and fossils. Games of course bring a benefit of their own because they engage students while fostering learning. These games are even more beneficial for ELL because they are simple worded and involve language as well. In fact on game is a word search so students can learn the association of words with a dinosaur while learning spelling as well! Another aspect of the site is suggestion side bar which gives easy suggestive links to other more interesting subjects such as “fossil mysteries” which explains how fossil are found and where you can go to see them. More importantly, it offers many photos and diagrams for students. Overall, I enjoyed this website and feel it would be very beneficial in the classroom when teaching about dinosaurs.

(evaluated by Jennifer Ramos)

www.sheppardsoftware.com

The website “DinoMight”, is an extremely effective website for second language learner children who are learning all about different dinosaurs. The first thing you see when you go to this website is a video called “Dino Movie”, which is a perfect introductory visual to spark children’s interest in learning more about dinosaurs. The video is shown with cartoon drawings and is narrated by the voice of young child, who does a wonderful job of giving a brief yet factual summary of what dinosaurs are and basic characteristics of them. I found that this would be a great resource for second language learners because it provides a simple visual aid that they could use to better understand the information. The website offers four different categories along the top which include timelines, fossils, dinos, and games. Timelines shows you the three periods of times that dinosaurs were on the Earth and gives you a short description of the different climates and different dinosaurs in each period. Fossils, provides another wonderful short video which provides a ton of helpful information about where fossils come from and how people are now able to find them. Dinos has eleven clickable pictures of the main types of dinosaurs and gives a physical description of each and what time period they lived in. These are great visual aids for children to begin recognizing the different types of dinosaurs. The last category provides several different games that are not only fun and entertaining for the children, but allows them to test their knowledge. One particular game that I like is called Name-A-Saurus, which has the child drag each type of dinosaur to their correct name. The first level provides black shadows of the dinosaurs so it’s fairly easy to match them but the next level takes away the shadows and increases the difficulty. This is perfect for challenging them to actually learn what their names are instead of just memorizing the different shapes. For second language learners the shadows can act as a form of scaffolding that provide the children a way to learn them but in a fun way. Overall I think that this is a wonderful website for children of all ages and provides a wide variety of options for learning. It has educational games, videos and visual clickable links that are perfect for engaging second language learner children and allowing them to learn during the process of playing games. Personally I would assign this as a website that the children would be able to explore on their own at school or at home, because it is so easily navigated and has content that is not too advanced for children while they are still learning a language.

(evaluated by Amy Sand)

www.kidsdinos.com

Kidsdinos.com is a low quality site that provides several resources for children learning about dinosaurs. The several resources that the site provides include a “Dino-Database,” where you can read about specific dinosaurs separated by type (example: “Early Dinosaurs”) and names within that type. Once you pick a dinosaur of your choice, the site provides you with a drawn picture of the dinosaur, where the dinosaur falls on the timeline (Triassic, Jurasic, Cretaceous periods, up until humans), where they would have lived in the world on the “dinosaur map,” a summary of the dinosaurs history and appearance, and then a list of “dinosaur facts” that include how to pronounce the name, what the name means, what did it eat, etc. The “Dino-Database” is quite informational and fairly easy to read and navigate, making it ideal for when students are looking up information.

There is also a section for Dinosaur Games which include the following: Make a Dinosaur; Dinosaur Match; Dinosaur Flashcards; Dinosaur Classification; Dinosaur Memory; Dinosaur Hangman; Dinosaur Mutation and Dinosaur Painter. The first game I investigated was the “make a dinosaur.” You were able as the player to give the dinosaur a name, body type head, back feet, front feet, and tail of your choosing. This game had a lot of potential to be fun and educational, however the graphics of the game were quite small and difficult to see and once you finished the game, nothing really happened so it was anti-climatic. The Dinosaur match game provided several “popular” types of dinosaurs (such as the T-Rex) and has you match the shadow with the dinosaur’s picture. This is most suitable for younger students but really holds very little educational value for older students besides teaching the physical appearance of these five dinosaurs. The dinosaur flashcards provide information on a dinosaur and you must select the correct dinosaur that corresponds with the information. These are handy because they require that students research the dinosaurs using the site’s Dino-Database. The Memory and Hangman games are just like the classic games where you must match pictures from memory and guess letters for a certain dinosaur to make its name. The Dinosaur Mutation game provides the picture of a random dinosaur and information on that dinosaur. You can then click on the dinosaur to “mutate” its appearance, which basically means you stretch the image.

Overall, the site is informational, but very low quality. Ads scatter the page and are placed in inconvenient places, especially in the Dino-Database where there is an ad below the picture of the dinosaur, which originally caused me to think that the database only provided pictures. It wasn’t until I scrolled down past the ad that I discovered all the useful information it had. These ads can be very distracting to students and are an eyesore. Also, many of the graphics in the games are very small and difficult to focus on. However, the graphics in the database where they place the dinosaur on the timeline and map make that information easy to read and process, so that is one of their strengths. It is primarily in the games they provide that their weakness exists.

As for use in the classroom, perhaps activities could be based in computer lab where students have to research dinosaurs and play the flashcards game. Or, perhaps they could each research one dinosaur of their choice and create a small presentation where they describe what era the dinosaur is from, where the dinosaur would have lived, how big the dinosaur was in comparison to humans, and 2-3 fun facts along with a picture (all of which could be found in the dino-database). They would become the “expert” on the dinosaur and they would teach it to the class essentially. Once they do that, they can maybe create their own dinosaur on the make a dinosaur and create information for the dinosaurs they make that are completely different so that it’s fun. For a multi-literacy classroom, this site is probably not preferable. It provides only information in English and the only language assistive thing they have is the phonetic pronunciation of every dinosaurs name in the Dino-Database. The site is definitely not equipped for English Language Learners unless they are at their grade-level of reading and writing (or close to native- speaking). Though this site does provide some good information in the Dino-Database, there are probably better sites out there to use when teaching a class.

(Evaluated by Anne Pugh)

teacher.scholastic.com

This website has many great dinosaur-related activities for students to complete with the help of their teacher. There are quizzes, fact pages, worksheets, and teacher suggestions to help students understand more about dinosaurs and test their knowledge. Much of the website is quite accessible to students in the higher elementary grades. This site benefits English Language Learners because of the pictures and the headings. The fact pages have quite a bit of text, but the way that it is organized allows ELLs to draw out the main points without necessarily understanding the entire body of text. Each page includes bold headings and main ideas that are in a different color from the other text. Simply reading the headings on most of the pages will allow students to complete most of the games and quizzes that the site contains. A game that is particularly good for English Language Learners is "Real or Make-Believe?" This game shows kids short statements relating to dinosaurs and the student answers whether the statement is real or make-believe. This is a variation of true/false that children will encounter in the classroom, and gives the ELL more vocabulary to express whether a statement is true or false. There is also a writing portion of the site that prompts the children to write what they know about dinosaurs. Because the prompt is not extremely specific, ELLs will be able to complete the writing activity using the vocabulary that they already know since the prompt is essentially must "write what you know."

Overall, the website is a good resource for teachers to use in classrooms with ELLs, but I believe that it is necessary for the instructor to guide the children through the information and activities.

(evaluated by Ashley Milliken)

www.planetdinosaur.com/

The website that I found has a lot of informational text about dinosaurs therefore I would use this site with middle school students who are learning how to write research papers. The website has different links to learn about classifications of the dinosaurs, cool facts, and much more which I find to be a strength because a teacher can give a free range assignment and allow the students to explore what they specifically like about the topic. For my class I would make this a research assignment. It would have little structure enabling the students to explore the site. They would have to pick a topic that they found interesting and find out more information about it by using only this websites. After researching using only this site, the students would write a paragraph if they are in the beginning stages of learning how to write papers or if capable they can write a full report on the topic they researched. Like a few activities that we have encountered throughout the semester, it is an important part of an ELL’s education to interact with their peers and for their peers to interact with them. So the conclusion of this activity could be a presentation about why they picked a specific topic and tell the class something interesting about it. This allows the students to use a few of the new vocabulary words they found through their research, forming grammatically correct sentences, it could also work on sequence words. An example of sequence would be: first I clicked on this link and found this, so next I continued to read, and afterwards I found another link, and so on. So with this site an assignment could work on the students writing as well as verbal communication.

(evaluated by Yasmin McKnight)