Jeff Massey <br><b>Summary</b><br> Name: Let’s Count!<br><br> URL: http://math.rice.edu/~lanius/counting/index.html <br><br>Description: A math website dedicated to counting, comparing numbers, patterns/sequences, and adding.<br> <br>Audience: Kindergarten, first grade students, and teachers <br><br>Benchmarks, Standards, or indicators:<br> 1) Recognize and generate equivalent forms for the same number using physical models, words and number expressions.<br> 2) Model, represent and explain addition as combining sets (part + part = whole) and counting on.<br> 3) Extend sequences of sounds, shapes or simple number patterns, and create and record similar patterns.<br><br> <b>Content</b><br> The author is Cynthia Lanius who is the Associate Director of the Math Forum at Drexel University. She is a former high school math teacher who has also served at Rice University on the Excellence and Diversity in Education Board. She has gained numerous awards including the National STAR Award. The website is co-sponsored by Rice University. Lanius developed the lessons while at Rice and they have agreed to continue to host her website. The author does place her contact email on the site, but it is her Rice email, which may or may not still work. Although the website was built and updated between 1998 and 2004, the content is still relevant and appropriate for kindergarten or first grade students. The math materials are presented but are not covered adequately. There is not enough of the questions and there is little variance in each lesson’s questions. The site does offer links to other appropriate counting and math sites on the internet external to Lanius’ site which is good for variety. The language on the website is appropriate for first grade students but may be a bit advanced for kindergarteners. Some students may need assistance and as such, this would be a good website to have students work in pairs. While some of the material may be basic for first grade students, there is a good mix of easy and difficult questions. Particularly, the pattern questions may be tricky to students. The author has provided the content in both English and Spanish which benefits any classroom. The design of the site is both good and bad. The main counting page is a mix of ruin-on links which leads to confusion. Once on one of the math lessons, the spacing is much better. Overall, the navigation is not good. There is only a link home in the bottom right corner of each page after the user scrolls down.<br><br> <b>Structure</b><br> The site is useful for classrooms due to its size and content. The counting lesson can be short or long depending on how many of the sections a student opens. There are 8 math areas and an additional 7 accessed by hyperlink. The site needs no additional plug-ins and has a quick load time. Although the navigation is poorly developed, the site has no technical problems.<br><br> <b>Overall rating of educational Value</b><br> For a first grade class, I believe the students can greatly benefit from this website. Although the site is not overly unique, it helps the students (alone or in pairs) understand the math content that will be taught in class. Outside of the external links, the site does not have much return value after a student has worked the problems one or two times.<br> Overall (out of 100): 80 due to poor navigation and not having reuse capabilities.
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