I have been asked to visually critique a website based on the rules presented to us in Chapter 6 of our Tech Tactics textbook. I've chosen to evaluate the online educational gaming website, funbrain.com! I used this website many times as a kid and was excited to have to go back through its contents. I notice right off the bat that the website complies a lot with the first rule of using General Design Principles; there are many pictures that are immediately corresponded by captions with explanations or game titles, making it easy to comprehend. Rule 5 talks about limiting colors, which this website doesn't do much of, but I believe that this is because of the younger audience it is striving to reach. It does stay consistent with a blue background though. The website follows Rule 23, Placement Matters, very well by categorizing all of the hundreds of games into 5 main categories. This makes searching through the material much easier! Here's the link to the website I evaluated: 

http://www.funbrain.com/

     

     This idea of open source, open content, and open software is totally new to me! I love the idea for educators, especially for secondary school educators. Many schools are very limited in their budgets so this idea of free or reduced prices for software programs and educational classes is a steal! Literally! If I were going to be teaching, I would definitely use these types of programs for my students. The more programs you are able to incorporate into your teaching, the better your student will be prepared for using technology in the future! It's like buying the Publix brand food instead of the expensive brand name stuff. The only difference is in the name.

     Skill Check #2 was extremely helpful for me! I had never even heard of such a thing as Mail Merge! Down the road, sending out newsletters, invites, and the like will be so much easier! Our professor, Ben, does a wonderful job being patient with our class, as this assignment was much more difficult than those we have done previously! By the end of it, I knew exactly what I was doing though and I believe I could repeat this task if asked to! I definitely need to practice a couple more times with the Mail Merge option, but overall I was excited to learn a different skill in technology!