Technology+Toolbox


 * Criteria Summary: **

The following Web 2.0 tools are evaluated on the basis of four criteria: usability, security, relevancy and cost. Usability is determined by how user friendly the tool is: How easy is it to use for first time users? Are there many complicated steps or does it walk you through them? The next criterion is security. Is the tool usable or viewable by anyone with internet access or can it be secured with a password? Relevancy is another important criterion for evaluated web tools. This term refers to how relevant or practical the tool is to a given person, class, subject or curriculum. Because of the nature of this criterion, it is a subjective evaluation. My evaluation is based on an English Language Arts classroom. The last criterion is cost. Does the tool have certain start-up or operating fees or is it free? Answering these questions helps to give a score for each criterion examined for every web tool. Each web tool criteria is given a score from 1 to 5. The higher the score, the better it is. For example, I scored Protopages’ cost at a 5 because it is free for anyone who has internet access. Protopage received a score of 4 for relevancy because, while it has many potential uses, there are limitations to what kind of widgets you can use and how much students can interact with it. Please refer to the following rating criteria for further details.

1: Very difficult to use 2: Difficult to use, training needed 3: Usability depends on users’ familiarity with technology 4: Fairly easy to use with some help needed 5: Easy to use without much assistance
 * // Usability //**

1: Can be viewed/edited by anyone with internet access. 2: Can be viewed by anyone with internet access. 3: Has some security measures but not enough to be secure. 4: Has some security measures (e.g. password protected) 5: Full security: password protected and user can control who views content.
 * // Security //**

1: No free trial and have to pay to subscribe 2: Free trial but have to pay to subscribe 3: Minimal cost subscription 4: No cost for general use but some features require subscription 5: Absolutely free
 * // Cost //**

1: No classroom application 2: Little classroom application 3: Some classroom application 4: Quite a bit of classroom application 5: Definitely has classroom application
 * // Relevancy //**

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