Web+Exemplars

toc =Searching for Web Exemplars=

Purpose:
To examine best practices in web design/ Instructional Design To develop web searching skills

Instructions:
Using the search engine of your choice find 2 exemplar websites on the explorer Columbus (age appropriate for the level of student you will be teaching). One website should be great, the other horrible.

Post these websites below. Include a 1-2 short paragraphs for each site explaining why the site is great/horrible. Write up a description of the process you used to find these sites. Point out tools or tactics which make the search easier or more difficult. Present findings to Class.

Chase Ketchum
The Good

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9109621/Christopher-Columbus

This web page is great because of the amount of information that is found here. It is made by Encyclopedia Britannica which is a credible source. It also cites the source where the information is was originally found. As far as design goes, it has many different aspects of Columbus’s life listed on the side of the page. It has additional reading, written sources, and assessment tabs for easy access. There is a link to images, related articles, and maps on the left as well. This web site has enough information to do a full report on Christopher Columbus.

The Bad

http://www.allaboutexplorers.com/explorers/columbus.html

This web site has a very short summary on Columbus. The amount of information is only a fraction of that of the good web site. There are no tabs on the page to lead to more information. There is really no structure to the web site at all. As far as the page itself goes, it is ugly to the eye. The background colors and images used do not look professional at all. It looks like a junior high student threw it together in a matter of minutes. Pictures do not go well with the rest of the page and the heading is terrible.

The process I used to find these web sites was going to www.google.com and search Christopher Columbus. From there, I looked at each one of the web sites that it brought up. When looking for a good web site I looked for a credible website. This is where I found the good web site, which was made by Encyclopedia Britannica. It is easy to find a poor web site. I looked for a random web page that would be more likely to be made by an amateur.

Courtney Mense Good: To search for websites on Christopher Columbus I went to google.com and made sure to put his name in quotations so that I only had hits referring to his specific name. The first site that I saw was Wikipedia and I always like it for quick reference but a few pages down I found a link to the fact files of the National Maritime Museum. In the center there were headings like “What did Columbus Do?” or “What did he use?” so that the information I might have been looking for would have been easily located. There were also tabs on the sides that linked to other entries about Columbus and suggestions for additional searches that would lead to more information. There was a toolbar across the top with the sites information and also specific links for students or for teachers. It had a lot of resources and suggestions for online activities. [|http://www.nmm.ac.uk/server/show/conWebDoc.137</]

Laura Draxler http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761568472/Christopher_Columbus.html Using the Google search engine, I searched "Columbus, Christopher" and found this MSN encarta website. This website is your average encyclopedia article, but its easy-to-navigate features make it a great source. At the very top of the article, it has four options that would appeal to any student looking for research information: you can find it, print it, e-mail it, and/or blog it. Having a quick way to manipulate information makes source documentation much easier. This site also offers 21 links to other multimedia about Christopher Columbus, and the outline of the article is linked below that, making the page very easy to navigate. The outline presentation of the information makes it simple to find exactly the information specifics you are looking for. Also, certain sections of the outline can be printed by clicking the link. The text is easy to read, and there are also external links for select terms within the text that provide the reader with more information. At the bottom of the page, there is a link that will even tell you step by step how to cite this website as a source.

http://www.columbusnavigation.com/ Using the same search process as before, I found this website. Not only is this site created and run by some random guy, but also the site just doesn't catch my eye. The headings are pretty lame and none of the information really stands out. Sure, there are links at the top for a site map and site search, but all the blue text just puts me to sleep. The site does not use the screen space very well; everything is left justified, and it seems like the right side of the screen is just wasted space. Perhaps the biggest turn-off of this website is the fact that the biggest and most impressive link on the page (in giant red letters) leads to the list of website "awards" this guy has received. He might be a big deal, but his website doesn't live up to such standards. He also doesn't list any sources of where he obtained his information on Columbus, so I wonder if anything on the site is legitimate.

Alex Riemann The way I found my websites was by entering Christopher Columbus in the Google search engine. I found one really good website as well as one horrible website. The Horrible website http://gardenofpraise.com/ibdcolum.htm This Website called Garden of Praise was a horrible website that had a bad design. One of the major reasons I did not like this website was because it didn't offer a table of contents and it didn't let you click on a link to go further down the page. To find any information you just have to read the entire information that is only provided on one page. Also at the end of the website it offered a games link that would be very distracting for High School students. Also it didn't provide any bibliography information and it didn't seem very creditable. Also the site was just plain ugly.

The Good website http://www.nmm.ac.uk/server/show/conWebDoc.137 This website was created by the National Maritime Museum. This website offers a lot of information about Christopher Columbus but unlike the bad website it provides a headings for different information and it provides links for you to jump ahead to the information you want. This site also provides a side bar of other information related to Christopher Columbus that the students might need or find informative. The website also provides pictures, facts and a bibliography. It also looks nice and easy to navigate. Courtney Mense Good: To search for websites on Christopher Columbus I went to google.com and made sure to put his name in quotations so that I only had hits referring to his specific name. The first site that I saw was Wikipedia and I always like it for quick reference but a few pages down I found a link to the fact files of the National Maritime Museum. In the center there were headings like “What did Columbus Do?” or “What did he use?” so that the information I might have been looking for would have been easily located. There were also tabs on the sides that linked to other entries about Columbus and suggestions for additional searches that would lead to more information. There was a toolbar across the top with the sites information and also specific links for students or for teachers. It had a lot of resources and suggestions for online activities. http://www.nmm.ac.uk/server/show/conWebDoc.137 Bad: The other site I tried was some random information page probably completed as a school assignment. It had no addition links and was very plain and uninteresting looking. The information was in blocks and didn’t have headings and if I was an ADD school kid sitting around for 8 hours a day I wouldn’t focus on it at all. There were two pictures that were small and uninteresting.

http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/1492.exhibit/c-Columbus/columbus.html

Morgan Riley: http://www.nmm.ac.uk/server/show/conWebDoc.137 I would suggest this website for students to use if studying Christopher Columbus because it has a lot of information on the page as soon as you click on the site, it has many useful links that are easy to see and understand, the site is eye catching, and the site is easy to navigate. I used google to research this subject and as soon as I found this site, I explored it more because it was very easy to understand for students at the middle school age level.

http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/1492.exhibit/c-Columbus/columbus.html I would not suggest going to this site to my students because it is not eye catching at all, most students would exit out of the site because it does not catch your attention. There also are no links to other sites, there are no useful pictures, and there are only a few paragraphs of information. This website looks like a word document that was cut and pasted.

Travis Lindeman
I Googled "Christopher Columbus" to find these pages. Good example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus I am first of all a huge advocate for Wikipedia. Wikipedia’s content is notoriously easy to navigate and links are included within the content for further information on specific points. The site includes a clear table of contents after a brief introduction that makes the content easy to find and maintains a level of professionalism appropriate for use in an academic setting. Bad example: http://gardenofpraise.com/ibdcolum.htm This is a good example of a bad site. The content includes no table of contents or even headings to narrow down a quick search. Ads fill the margins of the page when it first opens that distract from the purpose, and the writing is a poor example of academic performance.

Alissa Ramsay

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9109621/Christopher-Columbus I chose this site as my good exemplar. I picked this site because the information came from a reliable source, it contained big print, and had links to unfamiliar people to avoid confusion. I think that these are all really important things because small print in very hard to read on a computer, especially when it is a long article. I also think links to unfamiliar people can be helpful if the student has never heard of that person.

http://www.columbusnavigation.com/v2.shtml I chose this as my bad exemplar. I picked this site for a variety of reasons. The first being the layout of the site. The width of the text is way too big, and it would be easy for a student to lose his/her place. The second reason I chose this site is the background picture and the map. The map has no border and just blends in with the background. The background itself is too buisy, and the graphics make the text really hard to read.

To find these sites I searched google, and looked for reliable sources with key words relating to what I was looking for.

I searched for “Christopher Columbus” in Google __Good Example__: http://www.kidport.com/RefLib/UsaHistory/Columbus/Columbus.htm This site is a good example because—although it has ads on the sides—it has a clean look to it so there aren’t many distractions. The page is set up in a question/answer format so students can be clear on what to expect from each section. The answers are also brief and to the point. The setup of this page is good because it has a table of contents (as links) at the top of the page and links to other information related to the topic in the right column. There are also links to outside sources and books at the bottom of the page.
 * Stephanie Filardo**

__Bad Example__: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/explorers/page/c/columbus.shtml

This site is a bad example because there is too much unrelated information at the top of the page. Any student wanting to find information has to scroll past the //insanely// colorful links. While the page includes good images (like a diagram of a ship with all the parts named), the majority of the page is dedicated to activity printouts. This could be useful to teachers, but not to students (I think it would create more of a distraction). There is also a fee to use the site without ads and whatnot...I'm not a fan of that.

Ryan Durant

Good http://www.columbusnavigation.com/ I used Google to find this website. I think that this website is a good website because it is very easy to navigate and find information. There are links to different pages that have different information, and with the link is small description of the information that is found on the linked page. There are a lot of facts, and numbers that I could work with in order to create math problems that relate to the material being studied. At the top of the page are links for site map, and site search. I like that this is at the top, so you can quickly type in a question, and get information instead of having to spend a lot of time looking over the whole page trying to find the information you are interested in finding. Bad http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/1492.exhibit/c-Columbus/columbus.html I used Google to find this website. I think this is a bad site because it is lacking in information about Christopher Columbus. I think that the site should be more specific on the information that it provides if it is not going to have a sufficient amount of information on the topic. I think also that this site has pointless links to enlarged pictures that are also presented on the page under the link. I wouldn’t be able to use this site very well for a math lesson due to the fact that it is lacking in information. I could pull a few questions from the information provided, but the questions would be lacking in content and difficulty for the level of students I am preparing to teach.

Stephanie Heady GOOD: FAMOUS PEOPLE site on the BBC Website http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/famouspeople/standard/columbus/learn/page10.shtml#focus

I think that this website would be really useful for students in Middle School. I found it by searching in the google.com search engine. I like this website because it is mostly interactive. There is some reading at the bottom, however, the students can interact with the pictures given. When students click on the pictures it explains in more detail about the subject. For example, when students click on the sleeping man on the floor, it explains to the students that deck hands had to sleep on the floor during the voyage across the see. This site also has a quiz for the students to take after going through the information. I think that it is really easy to navigate for students and would be good for younger students.

BAD: ENCHANTED LEARNING http://www.enchantedlearning.com/explorers/page/c/columbus.shtml

This website is really bad because it is really hard to navigate. When you first arrive at the page the top half is taken up by advertisements and some navigation tools, but you have to scroll down to get to any of the information. Another problem is that it is only a small bit of information with a lot of graphics. Normally I find graphics to be nice, however, there is not a lot of description to the graphics. The actual information portion of page is small, and then more than half of the bottom of the page is ads. The only type of information given is about his trips and then sends you to related topics, however, it does not send you to another page, it gives you images of the related topics, not the actual site. The only good thing about it, is that it gives teachers some activities for students to do. I simply googled Christopher Columbus and this website popped up.

Amy Gress
Good: [|www.columbusnavigation.com] I think that the Columbus Navigation Homepage is a great website. I like that the first screen is basically a table of contents with links to other pages that are specific about aspects of Columbus’ life. I feel that the website is designed well and that my students would be able to navigate the website well. I liked that the homepage was not cluttered and gave enough information to show what the link would lead to. I also liked that there was a link in which I could send messages to the author of the page. Overall, I enjoyed this website and believe that it is well organized and would be a good website to use with my students to do a project on Columbus.

Bad: [|www.enchantedlearning.com/explorers/page/c/columbus/shtml] I think that the Enchanted Learning website is a jumbled mess of information. I found that there were a lot of ads and too many ways of finding the information that you want in the website. As for content, the webpage is very light on information about Columbus but has a lot of links to different projects that involve Columbus. Overall, I found that the website was cluttered and disorganized. I do not think that it would be easy, or engaging, for my students to use this website. I could use some of the links to projects that could be done on Columbus Day but other than that it would not be a good website to use.

I used Google to search for Christopher Columbus. I found the good website by using his full name along with other really good websites. When I used 'explorer Columbus' to search, I found some of the worst websited about Columbus. I think that using his full name helped to better websites about him because it is more specific.

Carolyn Sears
http://www.education-world.com/a_curr/curr167.shtml GOOD: I really like this site. I found it by playing with all of the different combinations of things I could search for. With just Christopher Columbus in Google I came up with a bunch of information that was not organized for reasonable use in lesson planning. So, I started searching for units on Christopher Columbus and lesson plans on Christopher Columbus. This had some interesting info but it was mostly for little kids. Finally I went to “Christopher Columbus units for high school.” Tons of information came up and I looked at several sites. This was the first and it was also my favorite. It gives a background context for teaching an interdisciplinary unit that incorporates the world of Columbus into the classroom. The introduction is fresh and exciting. It is very helpful because as it moves through the explanation, each time there is an area that could be expanded on there is a hyperlink to an extension. On the side there are links to resources for professional development which is cool because all the additional information you would need to teach these lessons is readily available. I think that this is nice because everything is accessible and it is ordered in a sensible way. I also like the way that a mass amount of information is put together in a “story format” of how it would be used in class with additional resources under sub-headings at the bottom. It is easy to get onto this site and go right to the information you need and find additional information and projects that are complete quickly. There are a couple of lesson plans that heave been moved so do not go right to the hyper-link, but I think that the organization and usefulness of the rest of the site far outweighs this. I would definitely use this. BAD: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus

I hate this page. It comes up when you search Christopher Columbus on Google. It is difficult to navigate because there is so much information. Tons of words are hyper-linked, but they take you to other information on Wikipedia that is not directly related to Christopher Columbus. This makes using this site time consuming because any time you need additional information you have to search through lots of unrelated information to dig up what you need. I also don’t like that this is written in language that would have to be totally re-stated because it is too book-like. I think kids would get really lost using this resource because it is confusing and I don’t like using it because it has to be translated and then adapted to activities. The only thing I really like here is the pictures and they are not worth the annoyance of navigating this site.

Lindsey Jones
Good http://www.columbusnavigation.com/ I chose this page as my good example. I first noticed that there are no flashy ads or other distractions along the side of the page that could lead students to other places they are not supposed to be going. I also like the layout of the page. Next to the pictures it has links that students can click on to take them to the part of the page they want to see. It is also easy to see what links you have already clicked on because they turn a different color. I just feel like its a clean layout and easy to navigate. Additionally, I am a person that really enjoys seeing pictures of the person or objects related to him/her. This webiste has two pictures of paintings of Columbus as well as a picture of a cryptic signature he used. I tfind those things intriguing and I believe students would as well. To find this web page I searched Google for lesson plans on Christopher Columbus. It took me to a website for teachers. That website ahd a list of links to other websites about Columbus. All of the websites listed on this page were meant to be helpful specifically for teachers and classrooms.

Bad [|http://www.geocities.com/columbus_website/[[http://www.pampetty.com/seasonal.htm]|]] I chose this page as my bad choice. To find this page I went to Google and typed in "Christopher Columbus Websites". This page is titled "Christopher Columbus Website". The first thing I noticed was that to see the full title page/picture you have to scroll down. You don't really get anything out of scrolling down except to see the whole picture. The reason for this is simply beacuse the designer took up a lot of space at the top with a big blue strip. The right side of the page is dedicated to adds that you can take off if you choose. With the ads present the title section is cramped. The left side of the page was the only part I thought might be good, but I was disappointed. When you click on the links it takes you to advertisements or bullsearch.org, textlinks.com, or something totally unrelated and not useful. Even worse, when you try to hit the back button to get back to the Christopher Columbus Website, it won't let you. You have to re-type the web address or start your search over on Google. Basically, this webiste is not well designed and the links take you nowhere. I would not use this in my classroom.

Sarah Peterson
Bad: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/explorers/page/c/columbus.shtml This is a bad design because the first thing you see are ads for the website itself. So after you scroll down and actually find the part about Columbus you have fairly simple explanations of what he has done. This would be a good resource for teachers to pull from but not for kids to navigate. The information is presented without extra links for things that may not be there but does have worksheets and activities to do. The site really has very little design at all which is its biggest problem. There is all sorts of information all over the page instead of link to specific information regarding a different topic. The site does have an alphabet at the top so using it to explore several topics may be easier.

Good: http://www.columbusnavigation.com/ This is a better site because the first thing you see is a picture and main questions about things Columbus has done. Also, easier for kids to navigate themselves because the site has headings of what information is available in the site. Each section has questions regarding more specific information. The site also offers extra links for more information about Columbus. The site also has a link for awards and has been created by a historian so the information on the page can more or less be trusted.

I found both my pages by putting explorer Columbus in the search box on google.

Kristen Cunningham
Good: http://www.columbusnavigation.com/ I think this page is would be easy for students to navigate and unlike many of the websites I saw, it doesn’t have any ads along the top or sides of the page that would distract the students from the actual information. The information is organized into several different sections and has a site search, so students should have a relatively easy time finding the information they are looking for. Also, each of the links provides a sizable amount of information on the different topics about Columbus.

Bad: http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/1492.exhibit/c-Columbus/columbus.html This website is very is not very interesting to look at, with a white background, few pictures, and just blocks of text. There is not really very much information about Columbus, and the information it does have does not flow very well together. I do not think that students would get very much out of this website, especially since it does not even have a very good description of Columbus’s life and explorations. I found both to of these pages by putting “Christopher Columbus” into Google’s search engine.

Grant Noble
Bad: http://www.columbusnavigation.com/

The Columbus navigation website looks like a high schooler, with a basic understanding of html, made it. The Columbus navigation website has a site map, which allows the user to view every page within the website, but the site map is not interactive at all. The user is also able to search within the website in order to find information quickly. The homepage is a menu leading to facts about Columbus and has some pictures that seem to be ancient. The copyright for the website only extends until 2006 which means the information must be somewhere around a year and a half to two years old. The author's credentials are nothing more than that of an enthusiast of Christopher Columbus. The website has received numerous online awards and has been reviewed by the University of Alabama and Encyclopedia Britannica. This website should be used to share interesting facts about Christopher Columbus with the students.

Good: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/famouspeople/standard/columbus/index.shtml#focus

On the website's homepage, the user has the option to learn about Columbus or to take a quiz about Columbus. The educational part of the website is complete with pictures and an easy to understand story. The website is interactive and seems to be a great teaching tool for a classroom. The quiz is interactive as well with pictures and easy to understand questions. Overall this website is a much better website than the other.

Google: Christopher Columbus. I reviewed websites in the order they appeared within the search to determine which websites to use. This is the best way to find information quickly. The only way one could possibly make this search difficult would be to type Columbus' name wrong.


 * Cancel ||

Samantha Rist
Good Choice: [|http://www.columbusnavigation.com] This website is decent for many reasons. 1) It is easily navigable; not too much text, scrolling, or white space on the homepage; 2) Columbus’ name is in the URL, which may make the web address easier to remember; 3) There are many links you may follow, that are labeled with separate information so that the student may search for specific information, instead of his whole history/biography.

Poor Choice: [|http://www.enchantedlearning.com/explorers/page/c/columbus.shtml] This website misses the mark in many ways. 1) It is too colorful, which is distracting and obnoxious; 2) All of the information is in one page that you must scroll down for all eternity in order to see everything it has to offer; 3) There is too much white space and too much chaos (pictures, diagrams, and other links), which could hinder the students’ concentration.

I simply Googled “Christopher Columbus” and clicked around. I found a few choices for each criteria, then narrowed it down by which two were the best/worst.

Sarah DuPree Since i would be teaching a secondary history class (preferably eighth or ninth grade) a Christopher Columbus lesson might acutally be useful at times. From looking at the web i think that i found a good one and a bad one. Bad one- http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/christopher-columbus.htm In this webiste it contains a lot of good information within it about Christopher Columbus, his life, and voyages. At the same time though it is confusing because it seems to be hard to access certain information. Also, the facts of importance are all jumbled up and hard to make sense of since so much is in such a little space. It is also not helpful that there are many other links to other sites that have nothin got do with the explorer. Good one- http://www.columbusnavigation.com/ THis is a good site because it highlights the important parts, easy to access and gives brief but important information about the explorer. Also, the format is simple and easy to understand. There are also links on top to help search the site for what is of interest. The color of the writing pops out well, especially the importnat information that is also a link.

Richard Schilling
Bad Site - http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/1492.exhibit/Intro.html

This site is plain and boring. Also, it does not allow for easy navigation. There are no navigation icons at the top of the page and it does not have a search feature. Furthermore, when you click one of the links that it gives you towards the bottom of the page it continues navigation in the same window. I do not like this feature as then you have to keep clicking back if you want to get to the main screen.

Good Site - [|http://www.columbusnavigation.com]

This site is good because the initial page provides links to a whole bunch of different subtopics. This way if you were interested in only a specific aspect of Christopher Columbus, you could go straight to that aspect of the website as opposed to searching through out the whole site for specific information. Also, the site gives you a search option at the very top of the site to allow you to quickly find topics. Finally, the site is easy to read and provides visuals with a variety of images and graphics.

I started this search looking for “interactive Christopher Columbus” as I thought this would narrow down the search field and give me websites that would be good for students to interact with. However, this was not the case as “interactive” broadened the search field to things outside of just Christopher Columbus websites. So I simply used “Christopher Columbus” as a search term. This found more websites that were more of what I was looking for as far as web sites students could use.

=Hayley Harbert= http://www.columbusnavigation.com/ This website is on the verge of horrible. I was immediately confused when I came to this website on how to navigate because of the need to scroll down and find the links. I think if its hard for the teacher to navigate then it should be out of the question for students to use. You would hear complaints the entire class period the students are using it! While the links should be central to the website the pictures are huge and make the links seem insignificant in comparison. I think this website may have useful information, but the format of the page is confusing so I would not use it in my classroom. this website was found through the search engine google.

http://www.franciscan-archive.org/columbus/ I thought this website was fairly good in that the links were available at the top of the page. I hate when there are so many links that you have to waste time reading them all to find what you want. This website only had 4 main links which connected to a respective section that had useful information. It was nice to see the information was relatively easy to read and understandable. I think this would be important for a high school audience. While the website was a little elementary as far as appearance, I think simple is better anyway. I found this website through the search engine google.