Etap 526
Summer 2007



Evaluation of four computer-assisted types of software


 

Drill and practice
Game
Tutorial 
Reference
Title  
“Learning Math”
http://www.learner.org/channel/courses/
learningmath/measurement/index.html


“Dinosphere”
http://www.childrensmuseum.org/
dinosphere/kids/gallery_games.html

“CMapTool tutorial”  
CMap      

“Wikipedia”
http://wikipedia.org/      

Operation 


Web based: internet explorer

Web based: internet explorer

Windows

Web based: internet explorer

Target population

Middle School


Second -third grade

High School, College

Middle, High School and
College

Skills. Subject matter 

Skills: improve students’ knowledge
resolving interactive exercises and questions. 
Subject matter: Science


Subject matter
: Science
Skills: Increase student’s knowledge about
dinosaurs and their characteristics. Improve
motor skills (hand-eye coordination)


Subject matter:
Concept Maps
Skills: Improve idea-organization  and synthesis abilities  

Subject matter: Retrieving information
Skills: improve student’s decision making skills and information retrieving.
Description

The site is offered by the WGBH educational
foundation.
It offers a compendium of practical
online mathematical exercises. They are
ordered by grade level and difficulty,
and the site is sequential and easy to understand, offering answers and some simulations 

This site offers four games about
dinosaurs, their environment and
characteristics. They are very easy
 to use and oriented to young kids.
It combines a match game, a memory game,
 a simulation game and a painting game.

Provided by the Institute of Human and Machine Cognition, the
Tutorial is very well organized and easy to follow. It provides answers to particular problems and the graphics are exactly the same as the real web-map program.
Also it provides examples of how to generate a whole new CMap.


Free Multimedia encyclopedia that anybody can edit.
It has around 1,800,000 articles.
It provides information and links to other sites, images, hypertext and offers to users the possibility to edit the page and add contributions.
It is available in more than 100 languages
Pros

It is a very organized web site and covers different mathematical topics using a variety of divers types of activities (simulations, videos, multiple choice and higher level questions for advanced students)
It offers PDF files that can be print and used in the class as a worksheet.

It is a web site oriented to young kids and the games and instructions are easy to understand and play.
All four games are available in the same page making it easy for the students to chose one of them and switch to the other when they are done.

Very well organized, easy to understand and to follow. It answers the main questions that a user can have the first times that he/she is using the program.
It offers extra information about key board shortcuts and its functions. 
 
I
t is very easy to use and intuitive. It has articles, definitions, examples, and good links that redirect the reader to pages with extended information

Cons  
It is not a very “kids friendly” page. It doesn’t have a lot of pictures, and the videos are very professional and content focused (remember that is a web site oriented to middle school students)

This page only offers four games. The graphics are not very well done and some of the games are a little bit static.
This web is only for young students, it is too easy for middle school students    

None. It fulfills the expectations of a tutorial and its function. 

Not 100% reliable because of the freedom that offers to edit the contents and change them.
If the information is not reliable is not a site that I would recommend to my students.

Overall recommendations   

Highly recommended. It fits very well the grade levels and it targets different abilities, learning styles and intelligences

Recommended for young students as a wrap up of a dinosaurs lesson or a paleontology unit.  

Recommended if is the first time you use the program, and always when the user  needs to do a new action, or incorporate and use new Concept Map applications

Only recommended when the student already know that the site is not 100% reliable, understands what this means and is not using it as his/her only source of information.
 It can be used as a complementary source.


 
    

E-PORTFOLIO