Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Website Review #4
Website Review, #4 of 5
Bill Zawacki
Ed 436 Technology Across the Curriculum
November 30, 2004
Site Name: Census Bureau
Site URL: http://www.census.gov
Author Information: The federal government.
Requirements: Just Internet access with a browser, I used Internet Explorer running under Windows XP. Some of the information requires an Adobe Reader. Microsoft Excel would be useful as some data is provided in Excel format where it can be further analyzed or manipulated using spreadsheet functions.
Weaknesses: Information overload. It’s reminiscent of the old accounting slogan, “figures lie and liars figure”.
Strengths: An incredible amount of data from the 2000 census. This site contains social, economic, racial, ethnic, education level etc., information. The detail levels include state, county, city, zip code, and many others. There is a section specifically designed to be a teacher’s resource. The link, http://www.census.gov/dmd/www/pdf/schoolstate2.pdf, for example has a worksheet for a class research project using census data available at his site.
Uses: I could see this site used as a source of research information for grade school on up. Several academic topics including economics, politics, government, geography, and of course statistics could use information from this site.
Bill Zawacki
Ed 436 Technology Across the Curriculum
November 30, 2004
Site Name: Census Bureau
Site URL: http://www.census.gov
Author Information: The federal government.
Requirements: Just Internet access with a browser, I used Internet Explorer running under Windows XP. Some of the information requires an Adobe Reader. Microsoft Excel would be useful as some data is provided in Excel format where it can be further analyzed or manipulated using spreadsheet functions.
Weaknesses: Information overload. It’s reminiscent of the old accounting slogan, “figures lie and liars figure”.
Strengths: An incredible amount of data from the 2000 census. This site contains social, economic, racial, ethnic, education level etc., information. The detail levels include state, county, city, zip code, and many others. There is a section specifically designed to be a teacher’s resource. The link, http://www.census.gov/dmd/www/pdf/schoolstate2.pdf, for example has a worksheet for a class research project using census data available at his site.
Uses: I could see this site used as a source of research information for grade school on up. Several academic topics including economics, politics, government, geography, and of course statistics could use information from this site.
# posted by BillZ @ 9:38 AM 
