#1 Site: InfuseLearning.com
This site is used as a response device between teachers and students. All the students need is a mobile device with a web browser. They go to the Infuselearning website and enter a classroom code. They are then linked to the site. The teacher can create quizzes and use interactive tools to use with their students. I had no trouble moving through this site. It is not at all challenging to use. This site has a great potential to be used in the classroom. If I had a classroom set of laptops or iPads, I would be using this site all of the time. It would be great to use in conjunction with a Promethean Board. It can be used as a creative tool to use with all students, or as a classroom response system. This site can be extremely useful to students and teachers.
Criteria to be Reviewed:
Ease of Use:
- Layout: The layout is extremely easy to use. When you log on, it tells you exactly how to connect student devices. These student devices can be a mobile phone, tablet or a laptop. Any device with internet access and a browser can use this site. It is very easy to create a quiz and find all the features. The main page allows you to create a quiz assessment, access the interactive tools and manage your classroom.
- Interactive/engaging: The whole purpose of this site is to be interactive. The quizzes, instead of being a hand out, complete and turn in type of quiz. Can be completely interactive. The students will get instant evaluations of the assessment and this program allows also for two interactive tools.
- One of them is the 'infuse draw' feature. This allows for mindmapping and hand written interactions between the students and the teacher. If a mindmap or a timeline is created by the class, it can be downloaded for later use. THis feature allows all students to interact with the medium. If there is a promethean board in the classroom, this feature could have even more use. The students could edit the mindmap and also see the creation on the promethean board.
- The next interactive feature is the Publish Link. This feature allows the teacher to publish links for the students viewing. This could make sharing a URL much easier. Instead of reading it aloud or writing it on the board, it can be instantly shared.
- Log in Required: There is a required log-in and the teacher must provide an email address. The students are also required to register.
- User Friendly: This site is extremely easy to use for both teachers and students. When navigating this site, I was never confused. It would be extremely easy to use for both students and teachers. I think the hardest part would be getting the student devices connected to the website and the room ID. That would be the most difficult thing to do, and that wouldn't be that hard.
- Ads- NO ADS! The site is not cluttered with Ads or pop-ups.
Academic Benefits:
- Content: This site is not content driven. There is no content specific material. It is a site that is designed as an interactive and assessment tool for the teacher and the students to use. It allows teachers to create quizzes with different types of questions. From Draw Response, true/false, multiple choice, sort and order, open ended, numeric and likert scale questions. This will vary the types of questions in an assessment.
- Interactiveness: VERY! The purpose of the site is to create interactive assessments. With the InfuseDraw and InfuseLink features, it allows all students to interact with each other and the teacher.
- Age Appropriate: I believe that this site and be used with all ages and grade levels.
- Validity: Not an issue with this site, the content is added by the teacher and students.
- Creative: While this site doesn't provide the creative outlet that glogster or prezi does, the Infuse Draw and the Draw Response allows a bit of creativity to emerge from this site.
- Security: This is a site designed for teachers and students. The students need the Room ID # in order to enter the site.
CIPA: No issue or conflict seen with CIPA.
#2 Site: http://www.atlapedia.com/
This site is a resource for political and physical maps. This site also has important statistics for various countries around the world. The site also has a school resource section that allows for reproduction of the maps and other materials for a fee. The site is easy to use and navigate. The only major challenge is that the site is copyright protected and requires a payment to print and reproduce the materials for classroom use. The material can be accessed on the web, but must be paid for to reproduce. I think this site has potential for classroom use, especially for social studies teachers. It can be used to teach the various regions of the world, and it provides a valuable resource for those researching specific countries.
Criteria to be Reviewed:
Ease of Use:
#2 Site: http://www.atlapedia.com/
This site is a resource for political and physical maps. This site also has important statistics for various countries around the world. The site also has a school resource section that allows for reproduction of the maps and other materials for a fee. The site is easy to use and navigate. The only major challenge is that the site is copyright protected and requires a payment to print and reproduce the materials for classroom use. The material can be accessed on the web, but must be paid for to reproduce. I think this site has potential for classroom use, especially for social studies teachers. It can be used to teach the various regions of the world, and it provides a valuable resource for those researching specific countries.
Criteria to be Reviewed:
Ease of Use:
- Layout: The layout is very easy to navigate. There are three sections to the website. Countries A-Z, World Maps, and Classroom Resources.
The Countries A-Z has a list of the countries of the world from A-Z. You select the first letter of the country and it brings you to a list of countries beginning with that letter. After you find your country, you click on the country and it brings up the countries important information and statistics. There is a ton of information for each country listed. It could be a great resource to students doing projects or writing assignments. There is also a link to world maps. These maps come in both physical and political versions. You may also select a region of the country if it exists. The maps have the website watermarked on them. This brings me to the next section: Classroom resources. This part of the site allows for the purchase of the classroom resources. This removes the watermarks and allows for the download and reproduction of all the materials on the site.
- Interactive/engaging: This site doesn't provide for any interactivity amongst the students and teacher. It would be up to the teacher to make the maps and materials interactive. They could by using a Promethean Board to project the map and then they can use the Promethean pen to circle important regions etc. The site itself isn't interactive.
- Log in Required: There is no log in required for the site. If you sign up to have reproducible classroom resources, there is a log in to that part of the website.
- User Friendly: The site is very easy and straight forward to use.
- Ads: The site is littered with Ads. There are up to five or six on each page of the website. I am not sure if the Ads go away with the paid portion of the site.
Academic Benefits:
- Content: This website provides a great deal of information on each country in the world. The content is Geography/Social Studies specific and would be beneficial to their classes. This content includes:
- System of Governments
- Area
- Population
- Location and Geography
- Climate
- Demographic statistics
- Languages
- Education
- And much more.
- Interactiveness: Site does not provide any interactive resources.
- Age Appropriate: The site can be used from middle and upper levels.
- Validity: There are no resources provided for their information. If there is, I can't find it. I don't know where they got their information and maps. The copy right date is 1993-2011. The information is at least 2 years old. I don't know which information is older. The population information is from 2000. The information could be outdated.
- Creative: The site does not allow for any creative uses. It would be up to the teacher to create a creative activity using the resources.
- Security: N/A- The site isn't interactive or require a student or teacher log in
CIPA: No Issues. The site has geographical information only.
#3 Site: http://www.amap.org.uk/
aMap is a very interesting site. This site helps people understand complex issues and also promotes critical thinking. The tagline of this site is "causing arguments since 2008." I believe that this could be a great resources in the classroom. It promotes "informal logic". This allows people to discuss issues and to be able to state their opinions, reasons why they they have this opinion, supporting arguments that back up the propositions and evidence to support the opinion. This could be a great resource that could be used in education. This could develop critical reasoning skills for middle and high school level students. It would promote student thinking and develop skills that allow students to develop their arguments and support them using evidence. The site has critical thinking worksheets and various guides to help teachers use this program in their classroom.
Criteria to be Reviewed:
Ease of Use:
#3 Site: http://www.amap.org.uk/
aMap is a very interesting site. This site helps people understand complex issues and also promotes critical thinking. The tagline of this site is "causing arguments since 2008." I believe that this could be a great resources in the classroom. It promotes "informal logic". This allows people to discuss issues and to be able to state their opinions, reasons why they they have this opinion, supporting arguments that back up the propositions and evidence to support the opinion. This could be a great resource that could be used in education. This could develop critical reasoning skills for middle and high school level students. It would promote student thinking and develop skills that allow students to develop their arguments and support them using evidence. The site has critical thinking worksheets and various guides to help teachers use this program in their classroom.
Criteria to be Reviewed:
Ease of Use:
- Layout: The layout if the site is average. There are a ton of options on the title page and it took me a few seconds to find the education page of the site. I immediately understood the purpose of the page but it might take a few second to find what you are looking for. You can immediately participate in the arguments that have been posted by other people. There are options along the top of the page and along the right side of the page.
- Interactive/engaging: The purpose of the site is to have interactive debates on issues posed by the user. This site is meant to have multiple people participate in the argument. It promotes the people to provide evidence that supports their argument.
- Log in Required: Yes, a log-in and email address are required
- User Friendly: It was fairly easy for me to move about the site. The purpose of the site is to start an argument, and you click on that link and it takes you step by step from there. It took me about 5 minutes to create my aMap!
- Ads: No Ads! There are no advertisements littering the site
Academic Benefits:
- Content: The content provided by this website are critical thinking skills. The students can create "I think.." statements, "because" statements (reasons that support your position) , "as in" statements (supporting arguments that back up each of your propositions), and "Supported by..." statements" (supporting evidence). This skill can be placed and used in any subject areas. English teachers can use this to discuss important themes and characters in books, and history teachers can use this to debate important issues in history, and also allows history teachers to explain the importance of specific events. I would show the aMap I created, and have them create one on a different battle. This is a tremendous website to use with any subject area to create critical thinking skills. This site would be great to use in conjunction with the new Common Core standards. They also provide classroom resources and a classroom site that illustrates how the site could be used in the classroom.
- Interactiveness: This site allows students and other people to reply and interact with each other's arguments and aMaps. The purpose of the site is to debate on a critical thinking level. Without the interactive features, the site wouldn't be able to promote the critical thinking skills as well.
- Age Appropriate: I believe this site could be used at all levels. It would be helpful to begin this early on to start develop the skills. The higher in grade level, the more complex the argument can be.
- Validity: There is no way to post sources on this site, as far as I can see. One would have to include them in their aMap on their own. It opens it up for people to post false evidence.
- Creative: This site presents arguments in a creative way! Almost like mind maps, hence the name, aMap!
- Security: Might be an issue. The site is open to everyone around the world and the students could get distracted by other's arguments, and others could interact with the student's arguments. I would want only my students to see their arguments. I wouldn't want someone from Japan or anywhere else intruding on my lesson. I emailed the developer to see if they had any plans to make a classroom aMap site that would prevent these issues. I will post if they respond. I would recommend a classroom ID similar to the infuselearning site.
- Cost: No cost- but guides and some resources require a purchase.
CIPA: The students will have access to other's arguments and visa versa. I haven't seen any obscene posts but it could happen. I wouldn't have a major issue using this in class but the student's access to unknown material could happen.
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