Useful Biology Websites

Biology Website Evaluations

1. Name of Website: Khan Academy

2. Website Address: http://www.khanacademy.org/

3. Copyright date/Last Update: ©2008 - 2012 Khan Academy. All rights reserved.

4. Author/Organization Credentials: Khan Academy is a not-for-profit educational organization started and owned by Salman Khan in 2008. Users and submitters of this site are just asked to follow the Creative Commons Attributions-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License terms of use.

5. Website Design and Ease of Navigation: This website is extremely easy to use and navigate. The home page doesn’t overwhelm you with a large amount of options to click on or things to see. The design is very simple and not overly done which makes it accessible and easy to use for everyone of all ages. At the home page, all the different subjects are listed right there for you with specific topics below each subject. There are also tabs at the top that allow to access different videos, practice the things that you have learned, and tell you more about their purpose and background. There is also a huge search bar on the home page for you to search a particular topic or video if it isn’t listed. I really like the design because it is clean looking and organized which means less confusion on the user’s part.

6. Response and Recommendation for Use: I would recommend this website to all teachers and students. This isn’t just for biology/science related topics. It also includes math, computer science, humanities, test prep, and several other science fields. This website is great for students for learning about a certain topic they may be struggling with. Salman Khan created over 3500 videos that teach students all kinds of different material. The videos are wonderful because they are explained in a way that everyone can understand and go at a steady pace. During the video, he shows several examples and provides drawings and representations of what he is discussing. The videos also provide practice assessments and progress tracking. The science section alone covers a wide variety of areas including chemistry, physics, astronomy, and medicine. The biology section has a total of 72 videos. This site is a great learning tool for any classroom. If I had a student struggling, I would have them view these videos to see if it helps them with their understanding and I could check their understanding via the practice assessments. The best part is that students can use this outside of the classroom. If they are stuck on a problem, they can use the computer at their house or library and look at these videos for support. Khan Academy provides educational tools and supplements to everyone at no charge.

1. Name of Website: How Stuff Works

2. Website Address: http://www.howstuffworks.com/

3. Copyright date/Last Update: ©1998 - 2012 HowStuffWorks Inc. All rights reserved.

4. Author/Organization Credentials: How Stuff Works is a wholly owned subsidiary of Discovery Communications founded by North Carolina State University Professor Marshall Brain in 1998. There are several authors that contribute to the website.

5. Website Design and Ease of Navigation: The first thing I noticed on the home page is that there is a lot of stuff to look at and might overwhelm someone at first. All of the material is sorted into an organized fashion though so once you adjust to it, it isn’t that difficult to find what you are looking for. The tabs at the top are organized into the different topic areas such as auto, science, culture, tech, etc. There is also an area next to those tabs that include games, quizzes, videos, etc. The homepage also shows new items that have been added to the website and also has a list of the most popular links on their website. There is also a large search bar at the top right corner of the page which is easy to find for people looking for a particular thing. On the science page, it shows different current news topics. On the right hand side of the page it list the most popular topics and most watched videos. Overall, the website is well organized and is designed in a way that will be easy to use for majority of people.

6. Response and Recommendation for Use: I really like this website because it doesn’t just include straight out of the textbook definitions and explanations. It also has news articles, interesting facts, puzzles, games, videos, diagrams, photographs, and animation. It caters to every type of learning style. You have photographs and animations for the visual learners, videos and sound clips for the audio learners, and games and puzzles for the more kinesthetic learners. I just find this site to also be really engaging and fun. Like I said, instead of just reading articles you can actually see how it works and why it works. I would say this is one of the more fun and interesting websites. It also has a huge variety of science topics such as chemistry, forensics, nuclear science, engineering, matter, space, etc. This would be a great site for students to use when writing a report or having to give a presentation. They can get a lot of information about the topic they are researching but in several different formats and presentations. I could also use this site if I need to present a video or animation to the class. This site could also be used during free time in the classroom. Students could get on the computer and play on the interactive games and puzzles about science. The best part about this site is that it is for the curious minds. When students want to know why this happens, how that works, or how that is possible, this site can answer those questions.

1. Name of Website: National Geographic

2. Website Address: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/

 3. Copyright date/Last Update:  ©1996-2012 National Geographic Society. All rights reserved.

4. Author/Organization Credentials: This website is a collaboration of many authors associated or employed with National Geographic Society. The copyright serves as the organization’s credentials even though no editors are specifically listed on the home page. Each article generally lists its author, but there are many associated with the organization.

5. Website Design and Ease of Navigation: The home page is full of a lot of different items but it is very well organized and materials are easy to find. There is a search bar in the top right corner of the page for those looking for specific items. There are tabs at the top of the page dealing with different content areas and below each main tab is a smaller tab that includes every specific thing involved with that subject. They also list different daily news topics, editor’s picks, blogs, events, etc. Everything works and is up to date on the site. The only problem I encountered is that ads do pop up every once in a while when going to a new page but that is only a slight inconvenience. They can be immediately closed.

6. Response and Recommendation for Use: This site has a lot of great learning tools specifically dealing with animals, the environment, and travel. I would use this website primarily when discussing animal behavior, taxonomy, and ecology. There are a lot of great videos and pictures on the website. This would be great to use while teaching lessons. I could use the videos off the site to explain different animal behaviors or environmental issues. For example, when discussing the predators vs. prey concept in class, I could show the students a video showing how the larger cats such as cheetahs, lions, and panthers stalk their prey and camouflage themselves in the environment before attacking. This website provides several different attention getting and exciting videos that will definitely keep students entertained and pay close attention. The website also has a kids tab which includes photos and videos. This site can therefore be used not only at the secondary level but also at the lower grade levels. National Geographic also provides teacher resources such as maps, references, news, activities, and lessons. I will definitely use this website in the classroom because of its high quality and interesting videos of nature and abundance of resources.

1. Name of Website: Biology Corner

2. Website Address: http://www.biologycorner.com/

3. Copyright date/Last Update: ©2001 – 2012

4. Author/Organization Credentials: The author of the website is Shannan Muskopf. The users and submitters of this site are just asked to follow the Creative Commons Attributions-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License terms of use.

5. Website Design and Ease of Navigation: I find this website to be very easy to navigate. It is organized in sections which are laid out on the left and right sides of the site. It is divided up by classes, worksheets, tools, educational websites, news, etc. It is simple and easy to find what you need and you won't have to spend a lot of time looking. I also like how when you click on a class, it has all the chapters of the class listed on the next page. The site background has a couple different shades of light green which brings a little bit of life and color to the page. The website also uses normal font and a couple pictures which keeps the page appealing and interesting while also keeping it structured and painless.

6. Response and Recommendation for Use: This is a great website for any science teacher because it provides a huge amount of resources. I definitely can use this website in the future for my classroom when coming up with different lesson ideas. I find this site very helpful because each of the different classes whether it be AP biology, biology 1 or 2, or anatomy are all broken up into chapters. The chapters each include notes for the teacher and student, labs, assignments, worksheets, reviews, and quizzes. A teacher could get a lot of ideas for labs, experiments, and topics to go over with the class. There are also PowerPoint presentations available and final exam review guides. This website also provides a guide to different animal dissections. There are numerous high quality dissection photos of the typical animals used in classroom dissections such as rats, frogs, and pigs. These photos are labeled and the dissections are very precisely done. Biology Corner also provides a lot of tools for teachers. These tools are extremely helpful to any teacher. Some of the tools help with the conversion of documents, creation of graphs and diagrams, designing quizzes and tests, and building puzzles. Finally, it provides a great list of education websites. There are a total of thirteen sites listed and they are all very well known and helpful sites that provide a lot of information and resources for teachers in their classrooms. Overall, this website is an excellent tool for any science teacher.

1. Name of Website: Teachnology

2. Website Address: http://www.teach-nology.com

3. Copyright date/Last Update: © 1999—2012 Teachnology, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

4. Author/Organization Credentials: Teachnology is a collaboration of many authors, contributors, and editorial staff associated or employed with Teachnology Incorporated.

5. Website Design and Ease of Navigation: This website is fairly easy to navigate and find what you need. The only problem is that the design is a bit plain and boring. It doesn't look like a very interesting site visually although it contains a lot of great material.  The page is a bit jumbled with a lot of words and links so I would prefer it if it was a bit more cleaned up and organized. It is pretty straightforward though with different links so you can quickly find where you need to know. My only suggestion is making the website look a bit more lively and inviting to users.

6. Response and Recommendation for Use: This website is for teacher use only. It can be used for any content area. It provides a lot of resources for teachers to use in the classroom and some wonderful lesson plans. It provides worksheets, lesson plans, graphic organizers, rubrics, tools and printables. The only problem with this site is that not all of these resources are available unless you have a membership. It is an annual membership though and they can be found at a reasonable price. There are a lot of free things on the website though so a membership is not necessary. I think it is worth the price since it provides a wide variety of materials. Under the rubrics tab, there a ton of options and generators for creating your own rubric. Under the lesson plans tab, there are numerous different content areas available and they have a lot of lesson plans to offer for each field. I would use this when I start teaching for lesson ideas and worksheets for different units. I could also use it to generate my own rubric for different classroom assignments. Overall, the website is lacking but visually but it makes up for it with its ample choices of classroom materials.