·      Key words in bold

·      Key points in bullet point which is easy for children to read 

·      Uses clear and relevant pictures

·      Good use of a videos

Limitations

Could go into more detail for children who are older such as key stage 2.

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PlantNet is a great way to teach children about the wide variety of plants and flowers we have in the world around us. Children can go outside during a lesson take a photo of a plant, flower or tree they can see, and the app will use this photo to identify the name of the plant, the main features of the plant and information on which family the plant belongs to. This is helpful to develop children’s understanding of different types of plants and their characteristics, whilst also supplying a fun investigative activity to do.

However, a limitation of this app is that it is not always 100% accurate and the app may identify the plant as different to what it actually is. Therefore, the app may be supplying children with the wrong knowledge and making them confused with what they have learnt and what is actually correct.

 

However, google maps can sometimes be a little confusing to understand when looking at world view. This may be difficult for some children to navigate around as they might be unfamiliar with all the different countries.

One limitation of BBC bitesize could be the limited use explanations and reasoning for those children in KS2 moving towards KS3. They may need to use different websites to gain a more detailed understanding of Geography. 

Strengths - This website is full of useful information for children of all ages, it is really interactive and offers a lot of different subject topics. The website also has children’s competitions and is a great way of engaging children with the website to learn more about the world around them.

Weaknesses - Possible weaknesses of the website are it may be a little overwhelming for younger children. There is a lot going on and they may get a little lost looking through the website if they are not given a specific page to look at. 

-       Animated video that helps explain the text underneath. For example, the structure of the earth and what causes earthquakes to happen.

-       Children love videos. The fact that this page starts with one is more likely to engage the child with the activity.

-       Key words highlighted in bold text which should help understanding and break the text up slightly.

-       A quiz at the end which checks understanding and can be fun.

-       There is quite a lot of text which could put the child off reading and engaging with the page.

-       No pictures besides the video. Children tend to love pictures which engages them, helps understanding and can break up the text even further.

Strengths: provides an interactive and fun way to engage in geography and it teaches children about geography on a global scale. 

Weaknesses: based upon trivia questions so doesn’t develop any key geographical skills like map reading as well as not including local or regional geography.

Limitations: It doesn’t cover many particular geographical skills, only knowledge, which is still important but the two should go hand in hand. Some of the features just display information which is not particularly exciting, it might be more interesting if there were videos to play as well. Also the ads are annoying.

  

Few words but still informative, making it clear and easy to read. Explains it well, using an animated video which can be engaging and a good visual tool to help them gain a basic understanding. Explains how a map works, why there are symbols etc. in a child friendly way. Has activities which puts the learning into practice so they can try it for themselves. Uses many images as well if they struggle to read. 

However, children may get distracted by the videos and photos, may find it hard to pay attention to the words on the screen. Also the information given is quite small so this isn’t the only site that can be used if they wanted more content to be taught. 

 

Website: Topmarks.co.uk.

This is an interactive white board games and activity website with educational games and activities which makes learning fun.

 In my previous setting we used it for math's, simple counting of sea animals or the buttons on the gingerbread man.

The great thing about it, you could differentiate the number of sea animals the children had to count to, e.g. 1-5, 1-10.

The website also offers lots of other activities to support other areas of the National Curriculum including, Geography!

I don’t feel there are any limitations as such as it has so much variety, but if unsupervised, children may not stick to the assigned activity.

 

BBC Bitesize is a great website for children to learn. Especially during the pandemic Bitesize played a crucial part in providing children with adequate learning resources and keeping them on track whilst they weren’t physically in the classroom. Bitesize provides fun interactive activities to help maximise the children’s learning as well as quizzes and videos. It is important that they have various ways of giving the children the information because every child is unique, and they don’t all learn in the same way. Although BBC Bitesize is useful but as highlighted by the pandemic not all children may have access to the internet so they may be at a disadvantage. Also Bitesize does have information but they don’t tend to go in depth with the information so children may have to go elsewhere to gather information.

Strengths:

There are lots of different interactive activities, such as quizzes, games and videos that the children can engage in, without having to complete lots of reading, keeping science different from typical academic subjects.

There is a warning when clicking different buttons to alert the user that they are leaving the website, which allows children to be aware of what they are using and not be transferred onto random websites without their permission or understanding.

The information is up to date, and the website even covers relevant topics such as COVID-19 and provides correct advice.

There are plenty of topis to choose from, and these are clearly labelled and easy to identify which means the older children of Key Stage 2 could possibly use this resource independently.

Limitations:

Because of the easily recognisable subject topics, the children may become distracted off task, or could choose a topic they already know, rather than something that will challenge them.

The website is very busy, with a lot going on. This could potentially overwhelm a child and they may feel lost or confused, especially if they are not advanced on technology. 

 

Strengths – 

Using kahoot means that you are engaging the whole class into the lesson and therefore increasing attention and participation. 

Another strength is that you can refine kahoot quiz search down to the subject area that you want to focus on.

 

Weaknesses – 

If children do not have their own device to play on they would be made to play as a whole class which could discourage children from playing.

Ducksters is a great website which explains geographical topics in good detail with accurate, relevant, and interesting facts. The website is colourful and has large text and categorises each fact into colour-coded bullet points so therefore the website is legible and easy to understand for students. Furthermore, it includes good quality images of the landmarks. The website outlines key human features such as famous people, population, and currency, as well as key geographical features such as the tallest mountain, climate, and longest river. Despite this, Ducksters uses some complex language so could potentially be harder to understand for children.