Summer+2007+Assignments

Becky's Websites
Bad Website: http://www.trivia-library.com/b/famous-family-history-christopher-columbus-children.htm Good Website: http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com/subjects/columbus.htm
 * I found that this website was not kid friendly at all. This is because it had a link on the web site that if you click it, it takes you to a dateing service. I dont think that this website would be appropriate for any elementary student to use. This website should be labeled that it will take you to a dating service so that parents and teachers are aware and so they don’t use it. The website is also very hard to navigate through. I don’t think that any kindergartner through fourth grade would be able to understand it. I think maybe a fifth and sixth grader good use it depending on their reading ability. The information on the website is correct and I do think the students good rely on it, but I don’t believe that any teacher should use it. I would not recommend using this website.
 * I think that this website would be great for fourth, fifth, and sixth graders.This website is a website that has a lot of other links that have information on Christopher Columbus. This website has a perfect amount of color to it. It has white on blue, blue and black on white. This makes the font easy to read. The descriptions are in small paragraph so that a child will not get overwhelmed by all the information. The website has one small picture at the top of the page. I believe that this information on this website is short and to the point. It brief and easy to read. I don’t think that this picture takes away from the website, but makes it more welcoming.

Amanda Payne
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/famouspeople/standard/columbus/index.shtml#focus I arrived at this website by going to www.google.com and typed in "Christopher Columbus for Kids." I typed this in because I wanted fun interactive sites. I did not want a bunch of adult sites to show up. It can be easily accessed by going to www.bbc.co.uk/schools/famouspeople/ and then clicking on Chirstopher Columbus. This site is also listed on www.4teachers.com. This site was developed for children ages five to seven so it is a good website. It is interactive in that kids can choose the learn icon and follow the story of Christopher Columbus' life. It has relevant pictures and uses simple sentences so that they are easy for young children to read. When the children are done reading about Columbus they can click on the quiz icon and take a short quiz about what they have read. This is a corporate website. It is run by BBC, so it is up to date and accurate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus This is not a very good website to use for elementary age children because it is too wordy. The reading on this site is far to advanced for younger children. There are some pictures but not enough to keep the child engaged. It is also wikipedia so there is no guarantee that the information we are giving them is completely accurate and written by trustworthy sources. This site may be fine for high school students but definately not for younger students. I arrived at this site by going to www.google.com and typing in "Christopher Columbus." It brought up a lot of sites for museums and Columbus Day when my intent was to find information that children could use for research. I should have narrowed down the search in order to get a more valid site.