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 Ratings
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| Reviewed: |
Jul 02, 2002 by Teacher Education |
| Overview: |
EvaluTech is a searchable database that contains more than 7000 reviews of
instructional materials recommended for classroom use in Kindergarten through
grade 12.
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| Learning Goals: |
Preservice and inservice teachers can use ths database to find information about
resource materials to integrate into their lessons and curriculum development.
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| Target Student Population: |
Educators of K-12 teachers and K-12 teachers.
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| Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills: |
None
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| Type of Material: |
Collection; searchable curriculum database
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| Recommended Uses: |
K-12 curriculum review and development; interdisciplinary instruction.
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| Technical Requirements: |
None
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| Strengths: |
The 7000 reviews for the learning materials include the basic publisher
information, a brief summary of the material, and a suggested method to utilize
the resource material with K-12 students. This site also provides evaluation
criteria for each of the different types of resource materials (i.e., books,
computer courseware).
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| Concerns: |
Teacher educators and student teachers will need to make their pedagogical
preparations and connections prior to using this site or afterwards.
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Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool |
Rating:   |
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| Strengths: |
This is a useful website for preservice and inservice teachers to find
information about resource materials to order or to integrate into their lessons
and curriculum development. The reviews and the evaluation criteria could be
used as models or examples for preservice teachers who are developing their own
reviews or evaluation of resource materials. With advance planning, teacher
educators could have student teachers conduct investigations and research for
curriculum development that is relevant to understanding and experiencing the
teaching process.
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| Concerns: |
Teacher educators and student teachers will need to make their pedagogical
preparations and connections prior to using this site or afterwards.
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Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty |
| Rating: |
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| Strengths: |
Access to a keyword list under EvaluTech Evaluations link is very helpful.
EvaluTech has links to other evaluation resource sites for additional
information about educational resources.
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| Concerns: |
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| Other Issues and Comments: |
From the author: The reviews on the Evalutech Web site are provided by the
Instructional Resources Evaluation Services Section of the North Carolina Dept.
of Public Instruction. For more than 30 years, Evaluation Services has been
reviewing instructional resources in all formats (print,
audio-visual, software,
and web-based) to provide building- and district-level educators with
recommendations of materials that meet established criteria (posted on the
Evalutech site) and align with curriculum standards. Resources are reviewed by
North Carolina educators who have been trained in workshops to apply the
criteria and determine if they meet instructional needs. Several years ago, the
Southern Regional Education Board approached us with a proposal to develop a
partnership so that the reviews could be shared among the other states in the
SREB consortium, since no other state has this process in place. SREB provided
the funding for the development of the database and Web interface as well as
agreeing to host the Web site on their server. On September 12, 2001 the
Evalutech Web site received the EdNet Pioneer Award at the EdNET 2001
Educational Technology and Telecommunications Market Conference, jointly
sponsored by the Heller Reports, the Software & Information Industry
Association, and Microsoft, "The EdNET Pioneer Awards recognize the
organizations contributing most significantly to the growth of the markets for
educational technology and telecommunications during the previous year."
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