Design Squad is a wonderful website from PBS Kids which provides hands-on projects, games and videos to encourage middle schoolers to create engineering projects. The homepage is inviting and age-appropriate with bright colors, photos and animations. Students have choices to watch videos of student-presented projects, design their own projects, build a project, or play environment-related animated games. The hundreds of videos feature teens interacting with science, with topics ranging from watching the Design Squad build a skateboarding street course to using simple materials to lift heavy objects on a farm. In the design section, students are encouraged to submit their own ideas and drawings for projects or contribute to a project already submitted in the moderated online community. For example, one student submitted an idea for a waterproof backpack and 34 users uploaded drawing designs. Registered users can award a virtual sticker to student designs they like. In the build section, students choose a challenge project (e.g. design a toothpick bridge, build an earthquake resistant "house") and can submit a photo of their final creation. All projects are presented with an instructional video and clear step-wise directions, which include how to test their designs and ideas to think about if re-design is necessary. The projects could be good for home or classroom, however, most students will need help gathering the materials and getting started. Students who have difficulty with following multi-step directions or have weaker fine motor, spatial or abstract reasoning skills will likely need more hands-on adult support. The animated video games are all colorful, well-designed, start with a tutorial, and require users to use problem solving skills to win. However, they can be complicated and students might need adult support or not find them worth the effort. Overall, this is a fantastic site that can be used at home or at school to find engaging engineering and science projects for middle schoolers, but many students will need adult support, particularly in the design section.

• Provides sufficient and varied types of practice problems to maximize understanding and generalization of the targeted skill/concept
• Manufacturer claims alignment with Common Core/Known Standards
• Presents educational concepts accurately
• Explains answers so students can learn from mistakes
• Better for teaching the skill to new or struggling learners
• Better for practicing or refreshing the skill
• Skills are practiced through authentic, meaningful problems (not just rote practice)

• Appropriate for a broad age range to use and enjoy
• Subject matter and problems are relevant, interesting and authentic to students
• Visually appealing to children in the target age range
• Provides virtual rewards or incentives after meeting specified goals or objectives
• Provides a "break activity" between academic problem sets
• Offers ongoing, progressive challenge
• Overall - Enjoyable. Given the option, students would choose this option

• Has a free or trial version
• Provides teaching guidance for adults to support the child and set appropriate goals
• Provides an age-appropriate tutorial/first time users can work independently
• Student should be able to use independently after first use
• Has a multi-player option to foster in-person collaboration or cooperation
• Multiple users can save a profile
• Student graduates to the next level or topic only after meeting a benchmark
• Can play without sound and not distract others
• Students can save work between sessions
• Can effectively understand and monitor student's progress (email report or in product)
• Requires registration before using the first time
• Provides options to play in languages other than English/Good for ELL
• Presents information in multiple formats (voice over, pictures and text, etc.)
• Overall - Easy to use

• Abstract Reasoning
• Requires remembering and completing a sequence of visual steps
• Students might need support with navigation
• Auditory Processing
• Requires recall of spoken information without text or visual cues
• Audio cannot be repeated
• Audio is not clear or voice is robotic
• Listening Comprehension
• Requires recall of spoken information without text or visual cues
• Audio cannot be repeated
• Audio is not clear or voice is robotic
• Processing Speed
• Spatial Perception
• Requires remembering and completing a sequence of visual steps
• Working Memory
• Requires recall of spoken information without text or visual cues
• Requires remembering and completing a sequence of visual steps
• Audio cannot be repeated
• Audio is not clear or voice is robotic
• Students might need support with navigation