Web Evaluations


  1. Website: International Children’s Digital Library
  3. Copyright/Last Update: 2011
  4. Author/Organization Credentials: The International Children's Digital Library Foundation: A non-profit corporation was created by an interdisciplinary research team including computer scientists, librarians, educational technologists, classroom teachers, graphic designers, and graduate students from the University of Maryland's (UMD) College of Information Studies (CLIS) and the UMD Human-Computer Interaction Lab (HCIL), a leader in children's interface design.
  5. Web Design and Ease of Navigation:   The ICDL works diligently to assure their   site is user friendly. The site clearly states they are targeting two audiences: first, children ages 3-13 and those who work with children of these ages (librarians, teachers, parents, and caregivers), and secondly, international scholars and researchers in the area of children’s literature.   Since the site is geared for children ages 3-13, it is no wonder that a group of six kids ages 7-11 work with adults in the lab, creating “a unique partnership between children and adults to develop and evaluate computer interface technologies that support children in searching, browsing, reading, and sharing books in electronic form.”
  6. Response and recommendation for use:The ICDL makes searching for books in many languages easy with pull down menus and linked pages. Searching can be simple or advanced by looking for a book by country. First time users are guided from the home page to Using the Library with one click. A teacher training manual has been developed to help teachers become familiar with the ICDL libraries and various activities too.

“Children can expand upon the stories to create games; parents can extract themes to help explain important lessons; teachers can utilize the multicultural nature of the collection to teach languages; librarians can enrich community outreach programs with tales from around the world and; of course, anyone can just open a book to read for pleasure.“





 
  1. Website: Adolescent Literacy: All About Adolescent Literacy
  2. Web Address: http://adlit.org
  3. Copyright/ Last Update: 2011
  4. Author/ Organization Credentials: AdLit.org is a national multimedia project that offers information and resources to parents and educators of struggling adolescent readers and writers. AdLit.org is an educational initiative of WETA, the flagship public television and radio station in Washington, DC, and is funded by the Ann B. and Thomas L. Friedman Family Foundation and Carnegie Corporation of New York.
  5. Website Design / ease of navigation: The tri-column home-page layout design provides specific page links (example: Hot Topics, Research, Webcasts, Ask the Experts, and Just for Fun) on the left, topical discussions (Writing Contests, Featured Strategy, and Featured Partner) in the center, and community based links on the right. Users can easily access information at a glance.
  6. Response and Recommendations for Use: Policymakers, researchers, graduate students, curriculum developers, and school administrators will find the Adolescent Literacy Research and Reports especially useful. Topics ranging from Literacy Programs, Gender & Diversity Issues, to Intervention and Writing can be accessed in this section.
    Classroom strategies are set up for “before,” “during,” and “after” reading use. Teachers will find the “explicit strategy instruction” library extremely beneficial. The most frequently researched strategies can be applied across content areas and are displayed in chart form, indicating at a glance if a graphic organizer is available and the focus area (vocabulary, comprehension, or writing) of the specific strategy.         





  1. Website: National Children's Literacy Website
  3. Copyright/ Last Update: 2011
  4. Author/ Organization Credentials: “The National Children's Literacy Website is a unique children's literacy initiative and is part of the Soho Center's National Children's Literacy Information Project - a not-for-profit initiative dedicated to advancing the literacy skills of young children, promoting literacy as an integral factor in the growth of society, and enhancing literacy in a variety of home and child care settings.”    I had to do a separate search to find anything about the Soho Center because an About Us link was not provided on the homepage of this literacy site. Jeanna Beker is the director of the Center that was in NYC but is now in Virginia. 
  5. Web Design and ease of navigation: The design is set on a light textured background with gray lettering/description of the organization's credentials, making it very hard to read on the home page. Users need to go from the first page with a Click Here to get to the real meat of the site that includes General Literacy Tips, Educational Activities, and How Schools Teach Reading to name a few. While the site is easy to use upon arrival to the index/menu page, it remains uninviting, amateurish and basic.
  6. Responses and Recommendations: I included this site in these evaluations for what it does wrong. I needed to do two separate searches to locate author and organizational credentials that should have been included on the home page of this National Literacy site. I couldn't find a physical location of the Center that received funding for a building addition. Wikipedia states this is a 38-year old non-profit organization that also includes the current project which has received funding “from two VA Attorney Generals”, Virginia Health Information Project.
    The National Children's Literacy Website should include specific information about the organization that created the site and the director whose credentials (supposedly) include being retained by the United Nations to help establish the United Nations Child Care Center.
    On the homepage states they are “Google's #1 for children's literacy.” I believe when you add the words “National” + “Children's” + “Literacy” to your site title, those spiders on the web crawl right to your site whether it deserves the attention or not.

  1. Website: You Are What You Read
  3. Copyright/ Last update: 2010
  4. Author/Organization Credentials: Scholastic® is committed to literacy and in this 90th anniversary year, they have launched the You Are What You Read site.
    Scholastic ® believes that the ability to read, write, and understand are the basic rights of every child and that “books play an important role in shaping who we are and who we will become.”
    You Are What You Read is part of Scholastic’s global literacy campaign, Read Every Day. Lead a Better Life. The social networking site centers around books that celebrate the “great reads of our lives.” Teachers, parents and students will enjoy the opportunity to submit the five book titles that have helped shape who they are in the area called “bookprint.”
  5. Website design/ ease of navigation: This site a safe and kid-friendly environment with appropriate content for kids. From the homepage, children can search for books by title, author, genre, or character. Within the character search link are further searches for games, authors and illustrators, videos, message boards, and a place to create their own profile. From the homepage kids can search for their favorite celebrity (like the Jonas Brothers) to read about their literary favorites.
  6. Response and Recommendations for Use: The Full Guide for Teachers is the best place for educators to begin understanding the extent to which this site can be used. Here you will find full explanation of the “social networking site around books.” I should note that there are two separate You Are What You Read sites: one for kids (as linked here) and one for adults. Both are exceptional ways to share “the great reads of our lives.” I especially like the template for students to create their own “book prints” to share with classmates or to discover if their favorites are similar to admired celebrities. I can see how the adult side of this site could be shared with colleagues for a campus-wide literacy campaign.


  1. Website: Pat Mora
  2. Web Address: http://www.patmora.com
  3. Copyright/ Last Update: 2011
  4. Author/ Organization Credentials: I first experienced El Paso, Texas native, Pat Mora, through her Southwest poetry. But she is more than a poet; she is a biographer, picture-book author, educator, advocate, and more. She has received numerous literary awards since 1982 and in 1996 decided to link the Mexican tradition of Children's Day (April 30) with Book Day: El Dia de los Ninos/ El Dia de los Libros . This year the 15th anniversary of Dia will be celebrated across the country as a day to celebrate books and literacy.
  5. Web design and ease of navigation: Pat Mora's site is an inviting, colorful celebration of the woman, her advocacy for bilingual literacy, and her works. The navigation is simple with artful fonts and menus to follow for information and inspiration.
  6. Responses and Recommendations: I have long thought about publishing a children's book I wrote 35 years ago and Pat Mora offers support and 20 tips for doing just that within the creativity link. Unfortunately, I was disappointed with the Teacher Resources page because the user is required to click too many times to unearth the hidden treasures. Once I did uncover the curriculum ideas, they were disappointingly presented. I would suggest the web designer give the resources page more pizzazz to make each link inviting and tempting. The user will get tired clicking through each link to discover whether it is useful to them or not. A brief summary is included for each source, but those are not sufficiently intriguing.   One gem I did uncover is the Using Reader Response Theory with My Own True Name. Readers write and perform their poems in public in response to Mora's poem, My Own True Name. Finally, writing an open letter to students is not something all educators would feel comfortable doing, at least in high school, but Pat Mora includes several examples of letters to her students that tell of holidays, word associations, and anecdotes about her family. This notion could easily be implemented in a teacher to student blog.  Subscribe to her newsletter and become a follower of her blog!



  1. Website: The Children's Book Council
  2. Web address: http://www.cbcbooks.org/
  3. Copyright/ Last Update: The copyright date on the homepage is 2009, but other pages are up to date and current to the month.
  4. Author/ Organization Credentials: “The Children’s Book Council is the national nonprofit trade association for children’s trade book publishers. The CBC offers children’s publishers the opportunity to work together on issues of importance to the industry at large, including educational programming, literacy advocacy, and collaborations with other national organizations...Membership in the CBC is open to U.S. publishers of children’s trade books, as well as in some cases to industry-affiliated companies.”
  5. Web design and ease of navigation: The navigation for this website is top notch in my book. The menu bar is clear across the top of the page and the tri-column layout is chock full of linked book covers within the specific categories of Hot Off the Press, Furry Winter Friends, and What's New. Further exploration within each of these pages leads to a wealth of information from CBC members, such as the International Association of Reading and National Science Teacher's Association to name a few.
  6. Responses and Recommendations: I am a big fan of using book covers whenever possible as a showcase of the book and illustrator(s). This site does that on the home page, intriguing the user. Kids will love the clickable book covers to explore, and educators will appreciate the Reading lists and News/events. A fun feature is the Twitter feed at the bottom of the homepage, showing real-time tweets from the CBC profile.



 


1.    Website:  The Children’s Book Press
·         Copyright date: 2009
·         Website is supported by AT&T
·         Press releases were last updated in Sept. 2011

2.    Author/ Organization: “We connect kids to their rich and varied cultures.”
This is a not for profit, independent publisher, that was founded in 1975 by Harriet Rohmer with a grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The publisher was the first of its kind to focus solely on quality multicultural and bilingual literature that offers children a cultural, historical, and important sense of themselves through the cooperation and understanding.  Children's Book Press is made possible, in part, by the following: AT&T Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, San Francisco Foundation, San Francisco Arts Commission, Wells Fargo Foundation, Stephen Santos Rico, Union Bank of California, Herbert & Nylda Gemple, Castellano Family Foundation, our Board of Directors, Anonymous Fund of the Greater Houston Community Foundation, Rose Guilbault, and many others.
3.    Web Site Design: 
·         Purpose: “Our books fill an urgent need.”  This publisher showcases new and emerging artists and artists who showcase their own communities.  The multicultural and bilingual books “affirm and validate a child’s identity, culture, and home language,” also helping to build literacy.
·         This site is user friendly with sidebar navigation and a page navigator bar across the top of the page.
·         The fact sheet about the publisher explains what makes the publisher different from others.
·         Artwork and graphics on this site is rich and bright, showcasing a celebration of diversity and the illustrators they publish.
·         Resources links support educators, teachers, librarians, parents, and care givers “as they help children make connections between our books, their lives, and the outside world.”
·         Teacher’s Guides: are thematic, cross-curricular while encouraging critical thinking and literacy.
·         Heritage Months and Celebrations: lists of Children’s Book Press titles offer a plethora of ideas to spark a child’s imagination.
·         Reading Levels:  Many of the publisher’s book titles have been leveled for classroom use with Accelerated Reader, Guided Reading Level, Lexile and others.

4.    Recommendation:  This is a site that supports authors and illustrations whose work celebrates their communities.  The children’s titles are culturally diverse and offer children an affirmation of their identity in a complex society that does not always support cultural heritage.  The resources offer higher level thinking, cross-curricular, and thematic units for parents, teachers, care givers, and librarians.  I will follow this publisher on Facebook and Twitter as well as visit the site for resources and book purchasing. 



1.     Website:  Jacqueline Woodson
·         First created in 2002
·         Copyright date: 2002-2011
·         All links are functional and the website is current.
  1.  Author:  Jacqueline Woodson.  This is the award winning author’s website that is up-to-date with first-person musings for the children and young adults that already love her books, or who may be discovering her for the first time. 
  2.  Website Design: Ms. Woodson’s interactive webpage is bordered by images/links to her books (that her audience is most assuredly already familiar); she uses language that is hip and in-tune with her audience and throughout the site Woodson includes graphics/photos that are personal, friendly, fun, and inviting.  In the bio section she tells the story of how she became a writer…
”I wrote on everything and everywhere. I remember my uncle catching me writing my name in graffiti on the side of a building. (It was not pretty for me when my mother found out.)”  
Woodson wants to inspire those who may be hesitant about putting their own stories to the page by answering questions about her process and providing autobiographical examples of what has motivated her to write.  Included are short videos too.
The sidebar navigation is descriptive and user friendly for her youthful audience.  Main page titles are:  Books I’ve Written; All About Me; Frequently Asked Questions; Some Awards I’ve Won, How to Contact Me, and Where I’ll Be.
Each brightly colored page contains three bullets with links for readers, teachers, and caregivers to whom she offers this advice:
·         To her readers Woodson says, “Keep reading and writing.”
·         To the teachers she says, “Encourage young people to ask lots of   questions.”
·         To the caregivers: “Teach them the value of reading early on.”

4.     Recommendations: Children and Young Adult readers will love this website for its interactive, colorful, informative, and personal qualities.  Teachers will find guides for suggestions in the classroom, and caregivers will be inspired by the fact Woodson understands that not every child is being raised in a home with a mother and father. Woodson gets her readers and those with whom they live and are taught.  Follow on Twitter @JackieWoodson.  I wish I was attending the NCTE Conference in Chicago this year so I could meet her.  



1.   Website:  Gary Soto
·         Copyright:  2008-2011

2.    Author:  Gary Soto is an award winning author whose picture books, chapter novels, short stories, novels, and poetry have delighted readers of all ages. Along with his many awards, he is an advocate for reading and was even named NBC’s Person-Of-The-Week.  

3.  Website Design: The website clearly is to give the author a presence on-line and I will go so far as to say it is easy to navigate; however, even with the inclusion of personal photos, the site overall  lacks a first-person narrative (like the Woodson website) so the user feels somewhat removed from the author. The only exception would be the Museum page where the author does describe why he has gifted his hometown of Fresno, CA with The Gary Soto Literary Museum.  The author could certainly improve this page easily with some interaction for the user. Instead, the message reads: 

“If you want to hear Gary Soto talking about the exhibits in the museum, call (559)650-0664. There are nine 'stops' on this audio tour.”

Seriously? Not good.  Students will not be rushing for their cell phones to dial up the audio. The other pages are a real snooze too. 

4.     Recommendation:  The site designers really need to reconsider their audience.  Students are more tech savvy than what this site offers.  While I may follow Soto on Facebook or Twitter, I will not revisit this site.




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