DIY can provide a unique and wonderful hands-on learning experience for children, provided they receive the appropriate level of adult support for any given activity. This website is designed to help children develop valuable life and academic skills around their personal interests. Students begin by selecting from over 100 different skills of interest ranging from bike mechanic to duct tape ninja to puppeteer. Once they select a skill, they can view the specific challenges for that skill ranging from easy to difficult. For example, someone interested in puppeteering can start off by making shadow puppets and graduate when they make a marionette. Children learn the skills by viewing a You Tube video embedded in the site and browsing the project videos and pictures posted by other children. Once they do the activity they earn badges, and six badges in the same skill earns the title of "master" at which point parents can purchase an optional $4 patch as a reward. For many children, parents may need to sit with the child or view the video in advance and provide supplemental instruction and support. Other children may find this as a wonderful opportunity to explore and engage on their own. All the activities can motivate children to find and develop their interests through new avenues. The site has appropriate privacy controls, so parents can monitor their children's online behavior and progress. Overall, this can be a great site for students wanting to take the initiative and learn independently.

• 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

• Auditory Processing
• Requires recall of spoken information without text or visual cues
• Listening Comprehension
• Requires recall of spoken information without text or visual cues