The document evaluates three literacy-based websites for different audiences: Starfall for early childhood, EducationWorld for teachers, and Duke University's EIS site for international students. It analyzes each site's audience, content, design, navigation, credibility, accuracy, objectivity and other features. The evaluation finds that while the sites provide useful educational resources, some could improve navigation, inclusion of author biographies, and opportunities for cultural exchange.

1. Website Evaluation
Assignment
EDP 601
Fall 2012
Katie Burkhart, Cong Cong, Su Jin, & Lauren
Smallwood

2. Websites
 All literacy-based websites
 Ranging from Early Childhood, to
Young Adult, to
Multicultural/Multilingual College
Students
 www.starfall.com (Early Childhood)
 http://www.educationworld.com/
(Young Adult)
 http://www.duke.edu/web/eis/ Internati
onal students

3. www.starfall.com
 Early Childhood based (free to public)
◦ Preschool-2nd Grade
◦ ELLs
◦ Special Education
◦ Home Schooled
 Content Area (Phonemic Awareness)
◦ Letter Identification & Knowledge
◦ Emergent Reading

4. Audience
 Preschool
 Kindergarten
 1st grade
 2nd grade
 English Language developing
 Home schooled

5. Creditability
 Developed by a husband and wife
◦ Husband struggled with literacy as a child
 Wife has professional educational
experience
 Husband has a PhD in Physics
 Joined with a group of educators to
create website
 Lacks biographies of educators

6. Accuracy
 Written in proper English, following all
grammatical, conventional English
language rules
 Pronunciation is also correct
◦ In young child‟s voice
 Aligned with current expectations of
students

7. Coverage
 Content is aligned with state
standards for the intended age groups
 Starting with phonemic awareness to
emergent reading

8. Currency
 Developed in 2002
 Added Kindergarten Reading and
Language Arts Curriculum in 2009
 Compatible with various internet
services

9. Aesthetic/Visual Appeal
 Kid friendly
 Free of ads
 Primary colors
◦ Aides in comprehension
 Home page is rather basic

10. Navigation
 Home page clearly states intended
content areas
 „Home Page‟ button present on all
links within website
◦ Rather small
 Possibly a good thing?

11. Accessibility
 Various internet services
 Able to bookmark page
 Able to create shortcut to desktop

12. http://www.educationworld.com/

13. Audience
 Teachers of all genre,
 No specific grade level listed
 Has nifty ideas for lessons
 It‟s more the teacher perusing the
internet for interesting things to do in
their classrooms.
 Able to look at the specific courses but
not grade level.
 It‟s written by teachers for teachers.

14. Asethetics
 The website is a aesthetically pleasing
purple.
 They use a sliding bar to draw your
attention to specific topics.
 Use of clip art to enhance the pages.

15. Navigation
 The navigation is meandering.
 Have to look around and explore the
website when you click on something
you don‟t know exactly what you‟re
going to get.
 I clicked on a link and was presented
with a hodgepodge of articles.
 Frequently you‟re more than three
clicks away, sometimes more like 6-8

16. Accuracy
 The information is only as accurate as
the educator that posts the
information.
 It‟s up to the educator to decide
whether the article is worthy of being
tried.
 The information is completely the
opinion of the author.

17. Objectivity
 There are commercials mostly for
online colleges and school supplies.
 Some of the articles state who they
are by and what type of educator they
are, some do not.
 Except for the occasional add I didn‟t
see anything that state what company
the website was created by, it‟s just a
reference tool for teachers

18. Coverage
 it is implied as to what the is
“teacher‟s best friend.” the website
covers a little bit of everything there
are some really good topics and there
are some duds but to find the good
ones you have sift through all the
other stuff. The website has links to
other websites that could be helpful.

19. http://www.duke.edu/web/e
is/ international students

20. Aesthetic Appeal
Under the dark blue background, the
whole website looks clearly and
identifiable.
 On the homepage, the three major
link set using different color that
making users distinguish them easily.

21. Coverage
 The website aims to support the
academic life of international students
whose first language is not English
 provides a set of resources and
training to help them improve
performance in their academic
programs.
 It provides oral communication and
academic writing both are basic and
useful skills for international students
study aboard.

22. Navagation
 There is a link form on the left side
 clearly show what three major programs it has
 make visitors realize what they could obtain from
the website immediately.
 There is a list about countries on the right, which
covers all the users‟ original nationalities.
 As a website shared by Duke University, there
are several links as access about graduate
schools and international house in the bottom.
 as a public website source, some of the links are
not available for users who outside Duke.
◦ it did not include website map
◦ confuses users when they are looking for materials.

23. Objectivity
 this website do provided a series of
professional methods and materials to
help student improve academic skills in
their own field.
 However, this website lacks interaction
and cultural communication.
◦ For instance, to build a community or
discussion group to share students personal
experiences to each other, people could
learn a lot of things during it, or hold some
event about American cultural to encourage
international students really engage native
culture, which would help students to actually
apply English better.

24. Accuracy
 This website provide professional
introduction about the online tests and
courses, and with links about
authorize documents which include
basic requirement for international
students how to applying programs
and career certificates. All those tests
and courses are updated timely.