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Peer Review

Busy Teacher's Cafe

Reviewed:

Jun 17, 2012 by Teacher Education
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Ratings

Overall Rating: 3.0 stars
Content Quality: 3.0 stars
Effectiveness: 3.5 stars
Ease of Use: 3.0 stars
Overview:

The Busy Teacher's Cafe is a site that teachers and preservice teachers can use for assistance with lesson planning for grades K-6. There are activities, assessment, and materials available for classrooms.
Type of Material:

The site is a learning object repository. Electronic files and links containing lesson planning materials for math, social studies, science, and literature for grades K-6 are posted there.
Recommended Uses:

The site can be used as supplemental resource when planning lessons or setting classroom bulletin boards.
Technical Requirements:

Modern browser, Flash, modern software and hardware.
Identify Major Learning Goals:

The goals of the site are to provide a one-stop site where teachers and preservice teachers can purchase supplies, classroom materials, and find lesson ideas.
Target Student Population:

Pre-service teachers in undergraduate and graduate programs and practicing teachers are the target population.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:

Membership fees are required to download some information.

Content Quality

Rating:
Strengths:

The reading strategy section seems to be the most developed of them all.
Concerns:

There was mostly holidays listed under the themes. Some of the content was not appropriate for social studies such as fairy tales. There are banner ads to augment income. Such ads are a distraction, particularly for younger users. Many of the links take you off-site without warning. Some links are broken. Is best if used with outside supervision, such as classroom teacher.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:
Strengths:

Divides material and links by grade level, allowing teachers/students to progress from level to level.
Concerns:

The contents of the packets are not able to be viewed. The packets consist of electronic files. Most of the web links are for outside vendors and college admissions websites. The site as a whole appears to be under development as many of the sections have no content or a limited amount of content posted.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:
Strengths:

Icons and words are used to label the different tabs. The back button on the browser can be used to navigate back and forth throughout the site. Hyperlinks are used for more information throughout the text.
Concerns:

First users should not think that when clicking on a tab such as themes, one must scroll to the links at the bottom of the page to access materials. Clicking on the links under resources will send the user to advertised sites categorized by the name of the link such as lesson plans. When a customer needs help with a purchase, they are instructed to send another email. There was no telephone number or address provided. A question forum or live chat function would be helpful.
Other Issues and Comments:

The site requires better organization and better instructions for teachers to integrate the learning objects in class.
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