Web 2.0

First I went to WhizKidGames, hoping that I could find some online games that my future students could play. Because I would like to teach middle school with a math focus, I am hoping that the game is somewhat sophisticated and also educational. However, as soon as I saw the main site, I knew that this would not work for my students. It is obvious that the intended audience is young children first exploring how to use the internet and gaming systems. I think this could be used in teaching for very low grades and as a time filler. I believe that there is no real educational value other than students who are being first introducted to technology and the internet. What worked well was the dinosaur once you have reached the main site, showing that the site is focused on younger students. What didn't work well was the misleading name of the site. I was hoping for some educational value and instead there was none. I don't think I would recommend this site to anyone.

The next site I tried was GameClassroom. Because it has "classroom" in the name, I was hoping that it would be more applicable to my classroom. Upon the main page I clicked on "math games" and then played the game Math Millionaire. While it was not up to the grade level that I had wanted, it still is a fun math game that reviews fractions, percentages, factors, and money. What was interesting to me, however, was the website was not mainly for the students but for teachers. There were worksheets, lessons and possible videos to show the class. This is a great website and I would definitely use it in my teaching, maybe by having the students play the math game if they need a review in the subjects or just to make the idea of math fun. I was honestly hoping for a site that was only for kids but I do understand how hard it is to have that when parents permission is required for child to search the internet. The intented grades for teachers appeared to be 1st through 6th. There is nothing that was poorly done with this website, I am quite a fan.

Lastly I went to a site titled Scribbls. It was the only site that a log in was necessary. I expected it to be just this site where you can draw anything and somehow send it to people electronically. However, it appeared to be quite a specific set of drawings. What you do is draw two things and then an outcome. Many are hilarious. I do not expect to use this in my classroom. It can be used for art projects, using creativity to add two things to make something unknown to the world. I think this could be used for many grades, depending on the creatitivity and humor levels of each individual child. I think this site is cool because it allows people online who share a love of drawing to share their combinations. However, I was suprised, and slightly dissapointed, to see that was all their was to the site.