Name: Christine Wallace

Electronic Resources Evaluation

APA Citation of the Resource:
U. S. Mint. (2007). h.i.p. Pocket Change. Retrieved October 24, 2007, from
http://www.usmint.gov/kids/.
Brief Description of the Content of the Resource:
This web site, h.i.p. Pocket Change, is a section of the U. S. Mint. It was designed for
use by kids and teachers and is probably best used for elementary and maybe middle
school students, although there are some resources there that would be appropriate for
older students. It covers various math and currency subjects in video, game, and
commentary. There is also lots of information about the historical significance of U. S.
currency, their various origins and the subjects they depict. There are videos of the
minting process as well, which is one of the few aspects of the site that would be
appropriate for older students.
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Resource:
I was not surprised by the amount of information about U. S. currency, but I was
surprised to find out how much history was included. While the site is most
comprehensive about topics dealing with currency, but the addition of historical people,
places, and events is a real bonus for educators. This would be a good addition to many
lessons, such as one that covers the presidents, American Indians, or the American
Revolution. It would be very difficult to interest older kids in any of the activities on this
site, as they are clearly geared for younger students. This site did not offer many outside
resource links to compliment the information and activities they had available. I think
that is the one thing I really would have liked to see more of; those kinds of links can
save teachers a lot of time. This site does include some lesson plans, but I don't think that
I would not use it as a sole source; I think its value lies more in its ability to compliment
so many different lessons.
Suggested Use of the Resource:
Some of the games on this site would be good work well to reinforce lessons of currency,
math, or history. There are also some very good interactive activities that would be a
good addition to a history lesson, for instance colonial America and the Revolutionary
War. There are a couple videos on the minting process that are broken up into segments
and so could easily be showed all together or in sections as a talking point.
Evaluation of Five Criteria:
Authority
This web site is not its own address but a link off of the main U. S. Mint web page as can
be seen by the URL. There is no indication on the web site that the author has education
credentials; in fact, there is no person listed on the site at all, just a contact address.
However, there is a web page link that tells the user about the goals and purpose of the

web site. There is also a way to email the sponsor specifically about this part of the site,
and the main U. S. Mint web page has other contact information as well.
Design/Usability
This web site was very easy to use. The games are easy to access and with broadband
everything loaded very quickly. The instructions were clear for the games and interactive
activities that I accessed. The colors are a little loud, but they are not busy, and the
graphics are themed and reasonable in number. While there is a contact email address
listed it is not hyperlinked; it would have to be cut and pasted into the users own email
account. There is also a help screen for frequently encountered problems, although the
site was so easy to use I encountered no difficulties.
Accessibility
Nearly this whole section of the web site is in color, so it might be difficult for those with
colorblindness or black and white displays, although I have neither of those problems and
would have a hard time verifying this. Despite the fact that it is very bright, mainly
primary colors, it is still fairly uncluttered and easy to navigate. When this site was run
through WebXACT it came up with the fewest accessibility errors of the three web sites,
it also had no broken links or outside advertisements. This web site also came up with no
first or third party cookies. The interactive activities and games might be difficult for
those with dial up because they can take a long time to load.
Accuracy or reliability
This web site is run by a U. S. government organization, and generally factual
information can be trusted from these sources. Also, the majority of the information
deals with history and currency so it is easily verified in any number of ways, other
internet sites, library, encyclopedias, or general knowledge. The site also clearly claims
that it is run and updated by the U. S. Mint, and includes an email address to contact with
questions, or when encountering errors. Finally, I admit I am no history expert; but I did
not notice any obvious errors.
Objectivity
This site is run by the U. S. government. I would say that it was created to both inform
and promote U. S. currency. The reason that I believe the site is trying to promote
possibly more than just currency awareness is because there is a section of the kids and
educators site that is for coin collecting. This seems to be encouraging the buying and
collecting of U. S. currency. However, other than its obvious bid to interest kids in
currency I could not find any other bias. All of the graphics are animals, the colors are
mostly primary, and the dialogue discuses different gender and racial communities as
allowed by historical events.

Name: Christine Wallace

Electronic Resources Evaluation
APA Citation of the Resource:
Discovery Communications, LLC. (2007). Discovery Education. Retrieved October 24,
2007, from http://school.discoveryeducation.com/.
Brief Description of the Content of the Resource:
Discovery Education would be a useful resource for all primary education. This web site
includes many lesson plans, tips and ideas for science fair projects, and a spectacular
"curriculum center". This site offers video, interactive quizzes, project ideas, build your
own puzzles, and a collection of thought provoking questions. It mainly covers a wide
variety of topics although it is very strong in science.
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Resource:
The make your own word puzzles that the web site offered would be really useful for
spelling activities, or perhaps for memorization lessons like for states and capitals. They
also had a really fantastic step by step plan to guide students through the process of
choosing and completing a science fair project in a wide variety of topics. The main
thing that I thought really hurt the site was that a lot of the interactive activities were
really limited. They had a handful of fantastic lessons with activities for every age range,
but all the other topics were just lesson plans with links to outside sources.
Suggested Use of the Resource:
Discovery Educations section on science fair help would be great for students and
parents. It gives suggestions on how to pick a topic, formulate a hypothesis, determine
how to gather data, etc. There are lots of lesson plans on history, science, and health
topics that teachers would find useful. Many of those plans link to online quizzes and
activities. Also, many of these lesson plans are split up into topics and then each topic is
tailored to three separate grade ranges. This is great for teachers, because they don't have
to be concerned about modifying the lesson plan to their grade level.
Evaluation of Five Criteria:
Authority
Discovery Education lists copyright and parent company information at the bottom of
each screen. According to the copy write it has been updated at some point this year.
This site does not list individual names under the "contact us" link, but there are phone
numbers, office addresses, and email. However, as with the other web sites I found there
are no individual contributors listed and no mention of these individuals' credentials.
This site also has a link to a privacy policy and it came up clean on Watchfire for first and
third party cookies.
Design/Usability:
3

This site had a very nice understated color scheme with very few graphics. The links are
also orderly and well labeled in appearance. There is very limited outside advertising on
things that would interest educators and students, but they went well with the site and
were not distracting. This site does have search abilities; however I did not find them to
work nearly as well as some of the other sites I looked at. More often then not the search
term failed to bring back any search results; however, this could just be a testament to the
limited amount of material on the site.
Accessibility
As I stated earlier I liked the color scheme best on this web site, however as it is largely
white, grey and light blue I have a feeling that might affect the appearance to someone
who was using a monitor that only displayed in black and white. This site made good use
of captions and visual clues for the interactive activities; I like this because it helps to
reinforce learning by providing both audio and visual information. When I ran this site
through WebXACT it came back with three broken links, which I though was probably
generous, considering that I found two on one random lesson plan. Also, Discovery
Education was the best, by far, with providing contact information for users wishing to
contact the organization.
Accuracy or reliability
This site appears to deal in well known facts, and does not include a lot of opinion or
breaking news; even the section on current affairs was on topics as far back as 35 to 40
years. The information included in this site would be easily verified by outside sources.
It appears fairly objective as it deals largely with well know facts, and none of the topics I
looked at seemed particularly weighted in one way or another. All of the lesson plans are
credited to their creators. I also randomly chose a lesson plan and checked all the links
on it, two of the six no longer worked. This might be discouraging for teachers that were
looking for additional content to add to the lesson plan.
Objectivity
It seems that Discovery Education was built for the sole purpose of helping teachers with
things like find lesson plans or activities, create word searches, look for graphics, and
many other useful aspects. However, having said this there is also a lot of advertisement
for their products and information on their shows which I am sure they are promoting
teachers use. This is also a commercial web site as it is sponsored by the Discovery
Channel. I could not detect any bias in the many topics that I checked on this web site; it
deals largely with well know facts that would be easy to double check.

Name: Christine Wallace

Electronic Resources Evaluation
APA Citation of the Resource:
A&E Television Networks. (2007). The History Channel. Retrieved October 24, 2007,
from http://www.history.com/.
Brief Description of the Content of the Resource:
The History Channel web site has an amazing collection of video resources. This site
also offers speeches, study guides, quizzes and games. There is a neat feature that allows
the user to look up famous things that happened on their birthday, the results are in video
clip form. As its title suggests the site focuses mainly on history topics, but would
probably also be good for a civic or political science class, as well as geography.
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Resource:
The best thing about this site was the collection of historical videos and speeches. Some
of the games also had educational value, and would make good additions to many history
and geography lesson plans. The main thing that I didn't like on the History Channel web
site was that a lot of the videos ran automatically, so if this web site were brought up
during class extra care would have to be taken to keep the site from playing videos while
the teacher is talking. There was a section of the site for educators, but it use was limited
to a handful of history topics, and I didn't think it was nearly as helpful as the other
sections.
Suggested Use of the Resource:
The History Channel web site is great for students learning US geography; there is a
game to correctly place the states with three levels of difficulty. This is a great feature for
parents who are trying to help their children learn the 50 states. That is certainly not the
only game; there are more games that do state facts and several different kinds of history
games which teachers might use to reinforce lessons. There is also a section that tells
historical events for every day of the year and these could be used as a morning warm up
or even a "can you guess" kind of thing. They have an extensive collection of historical
video and speeches that could enhance almost any history, science, or civic lesson.
Evaluation of Five Criteria:
Authority
The History Channel web site has copyright and parent company information at the
bottom of every page. There is a section of frequently asked questions that includes
things like permission to use materials from the site. There is an email link to contact the
organizations, but like the other web sites there are no names listed. This site deals
mainly with historical events and recorded speeches, for this reason all information is
easily verified by a simple search to check accuracy. I am sure that the main reason that
the web site exists is to garner interest in watching The History Channel. However, this
in no way detracts from the overall potential use of this web site.
5

Design/Usability:
There are many wonderful design features for this web site, not the least of which is the
search function. The search function works great, and when having to sift through this
much information it is an invaluable asset. However, the web site does look busy. Much
of it is black, white, and red, but the way that the links and information have been put on
the site just seems a little jumbled together. I think this is because the users view consists
of so many visual subjects; there are at least two to three advertisements, most of them
for The History Channel products, and then start up shots of several of the video clips. I
had no problem using this web site with a broadband connection, but I would imagine
something with this much video could take a while on a dial up.
Accessibility
As I discussed earlier it is not the surfeit of color that mar the view of The History
Channel web site, it is that there are too many full color pictures of different topic in the
users view. It is very distracting and visually over stimulating. There are captions and in
some cases transcripts for video presentations, which is very helpful because it is not
always clear by the picture what the content of the video is. The site also has a contact
email address that can be used to notify the web site administrator of broken links or
errors.
Accuracy or reliability
The History Channel web site mainly deals with historical information; this is something
that is easily verified for accuracy using a plethora of outside sources. The parent
company is clearly stated at the bottom of each page, as is the copyright. There is even a
section to help users cite the information that they find on the web site, with many
examples. I didn't have any problems with accessing any of the information I was
looking for, and WebXACT turned up no broken links when I checked
Objectivity
The History Channel web site was created, in my opinion, to educated internet users on
the network shows past, present, and future as well as the merchandise offered by this
station. This is because it is a commercial web site and it is there to promote A&E and
The History Channel. If this site were trying to convince its user of anything it would be
to watch The History Channel and buy their merchandise. The content on the web site is
largely historical, and I saw a well rounded representation of gender and race in the
shows offered, so it would be hard to argue that the site was biased in some way.