Website Evaluation

I definitely do not recommend this website. Although it was meant for use in a K12 classroom, the layout of the site is so unappealing that students would likely dislike having to use it. The site could be useful as a quick reference for students who do not have a dictionary handy or who want to clarify who a certain mythical or historical figure is, but the information is often less detailed than that which can be found on Wikipedia, and there are far more useful Latin dictionaries which can be found online. This site might be useful for a major project, as it would allow students to use one source rather than skip around the internet trying to find multiple types of information; however, the best thing that could be said for the site is the teacher resources in the form of sample lesson plans and worksheets. Still, these worksheets are fairly uninspired and do not follow any particular companion text, so they would be inconvenient for beginner classes.


Before this exercise, I really hadn't thought about how important that it be that a website have a specific author. I had realized this abstractly, I suppose--we know not to trust Wikipedia very far due to the virtually limitless number of authors a page might have. Still, it hadn't occurred to me to apply this principle to other sites. The questions about the layout of the site also got me thinking about what would be appealing to my students in the classroom. In the end, the design of website will have a lot to do with how engaged they are in learning the material presented to them on a particular site.