Bill Z's Blog

Website Review, #1 of 5

Bill Zawacki
Ed 436 Technology Across the Curriculum
November 26, 2004

Site Name: Hermit.org

Site URL: http://www.hermit.org/Eclipse/http://www.hermit.org/Eclipse/why_lunar.html
Author Information: As stated on the site: Hermit.org is a non-profit organisation, owned and operated by me, Ian Cameron Smith. It's basically a forum for anything that takes my fancy: my own interests, friends' stuff... whatever.
This statement provides no information about the author’s motives and credentials. However, the site provides a clear and comprehensive description of a lunar eclipse, without an overwhelming (for a middle school audience) amount of unnecessary detail. This met my requirements. I am not worried abut the accuracy of the information. I am willing to accept it as accurate, because it agrees with my knowledge of lunar eclipses from other sources, and the information is easily obtained elsewhere if questions arise. I also have no reason to suspect that the information could be tainted by the author’s motives.

Requirements: Just Internet access with a browser, I used Internet Explorer running under Windows XP. No special plug-ins or additional software required.
Weaknesses: A weaknesses could be the limited scope of the information. For example, see my website review #2 of the Science U website. This website contains detail about how the orbits of the earth and the moon are on different planes, and the effect this has on when and how often lunar eclipses occur.

Strengths: The primary strength of this website is that it addresses precisely the information I wanted to deliver to the students about a lunar eclipse. The website went into considerable detail about the shadow zones (penumbra and umbra). The lab assignment involved constructing a model to measure the length of time that the moon would be in the earth’s shadow. It also pointed out that when the moon is in only the penumbral shadow, and no part of it is in the umbral shadow, the moon’s appearance is very little different from the completely unshadowed moon. It might not be detectable to viewers on earth. The information in the Oregonian gave the times of the beginning of the penumbral eclipse. When observing the actual eclipse, one (particularly an impatient middleschooler one) might have concluded that there would be very little to see based on what was visible at the beginning of the penumbral eclipse. The total eclipse was in fact very dramatic and easily visible to the naked eye that rare clear October evening in Oregon.
This information in the website was transposed and delivered to the students in the form of a lab handout. The website’s function or its application to the classroom was not particularly relevant.

Uses: I used this website as the source of information I wanted to deliver to the students about a lunar eclipse.

# posted by BillZ @ 2:51 PM