Website Evaluation

This week in class, we did an evaluation on an educational website.  I chose to do mine on Starfall.com.  I loved Starfall and cannot wait to explore other websites that I can use in my classroom!  It was a very helpful activity that prepared me for how to evaluate websites for my classroom.

The activity gave me a number of things to look for when evaluating a website and deciding whether to use it in my classroom.  Is there an author?  Is the author credible?  Is all the information backed up with references?  Is this website biased or full of advertisements?  These are all important.  As a teacher, I will need websites that have true and reliable information.  I also wouldn't want a website that has a lot of distracting advertisements, etc. on it.  That might take away from the learning. 

It also taught me to look for websites that are easy to navigate and won't distract students with trying to navigate it.  I also want to make sure that everything is easy to read for them.  The information needs to be current as well.

Now when I am looking at a website for my classroom, I can remember what I looked for in this activity.  I will have a mental checklist of what I needed to check first, and if the website passes the test then I will have a great resource to aid in teaching!