A sample site evaluation - NASA's K-12 site

Each teacher will have his or her own specific needs based on the topics and grade levels taught. As a result, this sample is a fairly generic; your own review of the same site would be more specific to your unique class needs.

For this evaluation, we will be looking at NASA's "For Students" area.

While content is the most critical area for review, the usability issues are most evident when first visiting this site. The launch page for this area is eye-catching, with photos of the Space Station and students in headphones listening to podcasts. It is, however, a little intimidating at this level due to the wide range of content, photos, and links. Thankfully, links in the upper left of the site allow you to easily identify grade levels to hone in on the content appropriate for your students. Clicking the Grades K - 4 link opens a menu of several options, including Stories, Find It Fast, Play & Learn, Picture Dictionary, and Current Opportunities. These different links offer a variety of educational reinforcement opportunities, from the Find It Fast link that lets students quickly find links to specific topics and the Picture Dictionary that provide quick access to research tools to the Play & Learn area guaranteed to engage students in educational games. The Search for Spinoffs game, for example, lets students search for items like a cordless drill that has it's root development as a result of the space program.


Usability

This sites subdivision into age-group areas generally ensures materials are appropriate for different student groups and enhances the site's organization, some links in the K-4 area take the user to content beyond the abilities of most students at that grade level. Students comfortable at the higher level could continue their research, while others could return to the lower-level content with a single click of their browser's back button.

It also receives top ranking in reliability, but surprisingly is not as interlinked to Internet resources outside their own site as one might expect. Intense graphics and video could result in problems with bandwidth limitations, but were not an issue in our district. Since we repurpose our old workstations as terminal clients, there are some possible issues with the video cards in our oldest (1995) computers not being able to display the highest-end graphics.


Content

Given the "ownership" of the site, it is safe to assume quality content which is proven when visiting the site. Although at the K - 4 level most of the content is not attributed to specific a specific individual, authority can be assumed on this site due to the credibility of NASA itself. NASA is probably the ultimate authority in space exploration, it is also safe to assume the information it contains is current and unbiased.


Other Considerations

While the site offers a wealth of multimedia materials to reinforce student learning through engagement, this same consideration can make the site difficult or impossible to use for those students who require accessibility devices.


Overall, this site would be on the top ten list for almost all those researching space.