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Links to Family Resources
Here's a growing list of links we recommend to families online. Many of these sites have been mentioned in the Net Family Newsletter.
Help for Homework
- From NJNIE (New Jersey Networking Infrastructure in Education), the "Ask an Expert Page" for original research (direct from the specialists themselves).
- "B.J. Pinchbeck's Homework Helper" on Discovery.com's School channel - a fund of links from a real middle-school student who's tested them out. What better source? Thanks, Beege!
- LibrarySpot just pulls it all together - it's just a giant, instant-access reference library all in one spot, just as it says.
- There's nothing quite like a reference page put together by librarians themselves, so check out Multnomah County Library's Homework Center (Portland, Ore., area).
- Information Please - Online almanacs, dictionary, encyclopedia, news, weather, and more, this subsidiary of the Family Education Network is a comprehensive resource. In the Homework Center, students can search all the site's reference material with "just one click."
- For the sciences, junior high science teacher Judy Whitcomb recommends some sites she's pointed her students to: CoVis's Geosciences Web Server and National Geographic's "Fantastic Forest."
- For statistics, here are two good sites, recommended by readers of the Wall Street Journal: The US Census's Web site and the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank.
- For social studies reports and research, there's nothing quite as complete as the CIA's World Factbook - economics, maps and flags, government structure, populations, geography, transportation, defense, and more for every country in the world! And the Factbook includes appendices with information about international organizations, including the UN, international environmental agreements, and other useful information. If you looked, you'd find the World Factbook in book form - worn and dog-eared from heavy use - at any newspaper editor's or magazine factchecker's fingertips.
- From Yahooligans!, a "Homework Help" page and a Reference page.
- Kids-Safe Search Engines/Directories:
- Ask Jeeves for Kids
- Awesome Library
- Dib Dab Doo and Dilly Too - a child-safe directory out of the UK that has links and topics for Web researchers of all ages
- KidsClick! - both search and directory of sites hand-picked for kids by librarians.
- Google.com - Before your child uses it, for this search engine, click on "Language, Display and Filtering Options," then enable SafeSearch Filtering at the bottom of the page. Most "grownup" search engines have filtering like this, which stays on (even if you disconnect or turn off your computer) unless/until the filtering is turned off. (The rule at our house is that only filtered search is used and no one is allowed to change the settings. So far so good.)
- KIDS.net.au - an Australia-based search engine and directory for kids
- MSN Search, Amazon's A9, Yahoo, and Ask Jeeves - Again, for these other great search engines, be sure to click on your preferred level of filtering before your kids use them (at MSN and Jeeves, it's on the "Settings" page; at A9 and Yahoo, "Preferences").
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- "700+ Great Sites" - safe and constructive for kids - from the 57,000-member American Library Association (mostly librarians), the oldest and largest such organization in the world.
- The American School Directory (ASD) claims to include "104,000 Web sites" and to be "the Internet home" to all K-12 schools (in the United States). This Internet project is sponsored by Computers For Education, Inc., in collaboration with Vanderbilt University, IBM, and Apple Computer, Inc.
- Camp directories: Allen's Guide to Summer Camps for kids and teenagers (summer travel programs as well) and MySummerCamps.com - a comprehensive international directory of summer camps for kids and teens, as well as summer-camp jobs (and camps for sale)
- CampusTours.com - For those who want to see what the schools they're considering look like, CampusTours says it offers "over 1 million [virtual] tours," plus interactive maps, and links to colleges and universities. In their FAQ, they describe a "tour" this way: It "usually consists of a series of still images of the campus with a text narrative."
- Childnet International - The site of a UK-based nonprofit organization that celebrates kids' constructive use of the Internet worldwide. The annual Childnet awards honor children (and their helpers) who are doing outstanding Net-based projects that help other children.
- Chatdanger.com - Another project of Childnet International, Chatdanger.com educates parents and children about how to stay safe in online chat rooms - an excellent resource we wish all families knew about.
- CyberTipline - Also available (with equally fast action) at 800.843.5678, this is a service of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. The Tipline takes immediate action with calls or Web contacts involving kids in emergency situations or at immediate risk; it also provides information to parents and other caregivers who have questions about child-exploitation risks. There is no other, more effective service like it in the world.
- DiaryofaMother.com - Web site of Christine Hohlbaum, mom, expat living in Germany, and author of Diary of a Mother (described as Erma Bombeck meets the 21st century"). You can subscribe to her free weekly newsletter, "Powerful Families, Powerful Lives," on her home page.
- DirectTextBook.com - online comparison-shopping for new and used college/university textbooks
- The Discovery Channel - a useful site that does a lot more than advertise the channel or repurpose TV programming. The site provides good educational family "surfing" and a resource page for educators (including parents and homeschoolers, of course).
- Disney's Daily Blast - their online service for families; includes family.com, another Disney product (targeting ages 3 through 12)
- Disney's FamilyFun.com - games, recipes, arts 'n' crafts, party ideas, parenting support, and travel tips
- The Eating Disorder Referral and Information Center - An important Net-based family resource, the Center is dedicated to the prevention and treatment of eating disorders and the "promotion of social attitudes that enhance a healthy body image and self-esteem." The site includes information on all forms of eating disorders and a Referral Center that helps individuals find treatment and support in their own locales.
- Scholastic.com's Families Page - Includes internal and external resource links for parents, as well as tips on "Cyber Safety" and ways to support literacy
- FamilyFunAbilities.com - links and resources to enhance the quality of life for families with disabilities. The site covers a huge range of interests, from fun and entertainment to health and spirituality to community support.
- FamilySource.com - a search engine and directory designed to provide families with "a simple way to access relevant, family-friendly information and services" on the Web. Popular topics include adoption, foster care, genealogy, home-schooling, missing children, etc.
- FamilyTravel.com - founded and run by parents, this site and newsletter has a fund of information, from cool pools to family ski trips to ranch vacations. You'll find a "hot deals" section, travel information/destinations by region, "travel tools" (info on immunizations, currency, etc.), and a free email newsletter.
- FunPlayDates.com - just what it sounds like, a Web resource by parents, for parents, that's all about creative child play. It includes gender- and age-appropriate tips and ideas for games, crafts, cooking, sports, etc. A family movie guide is coming, and there's a shop in the site.
- Games4Girls.com - a most unusual service to parents: an "e-zine" that reviews games and software strictly with girls in mind. More than 80 game reviews are archived in the site, and there are links to Web sites for girls that Games4Girls endorses. The editor, Genevieve Katz, is a game designer herself.
- Girl Tech - a company founded in 1995 "to encourage girls in technology use by creating products and services just for them." The site includes a chat area for girls, a "Girl Powered Search Engine" for searching the 'Net "without the danger of being exposed to inappropriate content," and "Tech Trips" that take members on "voyages" of recommended sites around the Internet.
- GreatSchools.net - the site of a nonprofit organization that says it provides profiles of all elementary, middle, and high schools throughout the US, "as well as resources to help parents support their children and improve their schools."
- Hey Terra! - Annie Fox, AKA Hey Terra - author of Can You Relate?: Real-World Advice for Teens on Guys, Girls, Growing Up, and Getting Along - helps teens create healthier relationships with everyone in their lives - including themselves. The site includes a sampler of Annie's answers to teens so they check out her advice. Hey Terra! is also part of The InSite, a larger Web space designed to empower teenagers and help them sort through issues important to them - relationships, body, the environment, spirituality, and justice and human rights - to "help [them] unleash the infinite power for positive change within us all."
- Internet Fraud Complaint Center, a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, "provides a convenient and easy-to-use reporting mechanism that alerts authorities of a suspected criminal or civil violation." Examples the IFCC gives include fraudulent investment offerings, multi-level marketing schemes, and failure-to-render scams (a favorite of unprincipled participants of online auctions). The difference between "real world" fraud and its Internet versions, the IFCC points out, is that, on the Internet, scam artists can literally vanish - "pulling down a Web site in seconds, leaving consumers wondering who or where to turn to for help."
- The Jason Project site offers the full scoop on the project founded in 1989 by oceanographer Dr. Robert D. Ballard as an educational tool. Since then the JASON Foundation for Education was created to administer the project and sponsor an annual scientific expedition, the focus of which is an original curriculum developed for grades 4 through 8. Many schools and cultural institutions in the US and overseas are involved.
- KeepSchoolsSafe.org has comprehensive information on the subject, with sections for students, parents, and schools. The site includes a School Safety & Security Directory of links to 400+ resources on the Web; it includes a Buyer's Guide to retailers selling relevant products.
- KidsCom aims to be a "safe place for kids [aged 4 to 15] to hang out online."
- MaMaMedia - This site, for 5-10-year-olds, is just plain fun to mess around in. It places more emphasis on playing (or learning through play) and creating than on real-time communicating (kids can send e-mail to Jessie, Devin, and other members of the "M Gang"). Other activities include creating pages (and viewing other kids' creations), customizing the way the site looks to the user, surfing through the Sandwich Shop (MaMa's database of 2,000+ screened and reviewed Web sites), pick and contribute your own favorite Web sites, and a heck of a lot more. For information on safety, vision, the MaMaMedia "family," etc., click on "MaMaMedia's Safeguards for Kids" or the "Grownups" button right on the home page.
- Canada's Media Awareness Network - a rich resource for parents and educators who follow digital media developments and want to help kids have constructive experiences with new media.
- Netmom.com - Great sites for kids and families hand-selected by Net-mom Jean Armour Polly, mother, librarian, and author of The Internet Kids & Family Yellow Pages.
- Nick.com - Nickelodeon's site for kids (slow to download with a 28.8 modem)
- Australia-based Parentbytes.com is refreshingly un-American :-), providing tips, products, book reviews, kid-friendly recipes, and parents' forum apparently mostly for parents of babies and toddlers. As editor and mom Lisa told me, "Parentbytes germinated in a playgroup setting when we found that other parents would seek us out about everyday and not so everyday parenting information and support."
- PBS Online - mostly geared to ages 2 through 12, but "Vietnam: A Television History," for example, is in there too
- ScholarshipHelp.org - This site explains "how college funding works, the types of scholarships available, how to find them and how to apply for them," but it does something most other such resources don't do, its publishers say: helps scholarship applicants work through the three aspects of successful applying (they're described right on the home page).
- Sesame Workshop - Once known as the Children's Television Workshop, the Workshop changed its name in 2000 to reflect how truly multimedia it has become. All our favorite Sesame Street characters are here, more interactive than ever possible on TV, plus lots of activities for children and parents to do together! That's the Workshop's online mantra: "interactive" means moms 'n' dads interacting with kids while kids are online. The site relaunched with many new features in November 2000.
- Student.com - a site for college/university students by students - founded in 1995 by Ivy League ones, apparently ("Except for Adam, who's a senior at Columbia, everyone goes to Yale," they tell us). Also according to them, 98% of the 8.8 million US university students reportedly have Internet access (we have seen conflicting reports, which did surprise us).
- Time4Learning - An online learning system for pre-K through 8th graders tied to state requirements throughout the US. Includes multimedia lessons, follow up exercises, printable worksheets, assessments, and reports - the kind of material schools pay thousands for but costs families $19.95/month. Founder John Edelson told me, "We differ from most of the free sites or learning games or other offerings in that we take the children through an entire curriculum."
- Traditional Wooden Toys - beautiful castles, figures, games, doll houses, etc. from England (they ship worldwide)
- Webmonkey for Kids - a wonderful resource for kids who want to design and create their own Web sites. It's designed for kids, but we think it's the best site out there for beginning Web builders who happen to be adults (almost of all of us, right?).
- Hardly anyone's left out at WholeFamily.com, home page to an entire suite of self-help sites. The focus is on improving and supporting relationships with information, hotlines, advice columns, chat, "radio," "crisis centers," and other resources for various interest communities: parents, couples, teens, and seniors. Founder and CEO, Dr. Michael Tobin, sees this award-winning Web service as "a vehicle for family conflict resolution."
- Yahooligans! - Yahoo!'s "searchable, browsable index of the Internet designed for Web surfers ages 7 to 12"; includes "Homework Answers"
Top Among these are MaMaMedia and KidsCom, mentioned in "Family Resources" above, because they offer more than comunications.
- Headbone Zone - Kids can play an interactive game and chat at the same time (Christopher would like this!). They can chat wherever they feel comfortable, regardless of rooms' designated ages. Their chat is definitely monitored. This is another site that gets a strong recommendation from CyberAngels [as of spring 2000, WiredPatrol.org].
- KidFu.com - a reliably safe place for kids 8 and up to chat, post messages on discussion boards, and have their own monitored brand of instant-messaging called "Note Passer." The site was launched in April 2002 by the same people who used to run the great kids communication site, FreeZone.com. We hope KidFu goes far!
- KIDLINK - a grassroots project aimed at getting youth of ages 10-15 engaged in a worldwide e-mail dialog (or would that be multilog?). Sponsors include universities, corporations, children's museums, and foundations.
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- The American School Directory (ASD) claims to include "106,000 Web sites" and to be "the Internet home" to all K-12 schools (in the United States) - a tremendous service, whatever the number. The project is sponsored by Computers For Education, Inc., in collaboration with Vanderbilt University, IBM, and Apple Computer, Inc.
- Classroom Connect is a remarkable multiple-format, online/offline resource for teachers, including everything from standards-based lesson plans, professional development ed-tech training, "Quests" whereby classes can follow educators on their expeditions around the world, and software tools for teachers.
- Consortium for School Networking - a national nonprofit organization, Washington-based CoSN's mission is to "promote the use of information technologies and the Internet in K-12 education to improve learning." Members represent school districts, state and local education agencies, nonprofits, companies and individuals.
- eSchool News - "Where K20 Education and Technology Meet," the tagline goes. a great ed-tech news site. Besides the news, the site has an Educator's Resource Center, aschool tech buyer's guide, a funding center, forums and much more.
- Edhelper.com is a straightforward, bare-bones Web-based teacher's aide, with ed news headlines, teacher-picked links, lesson plans (more than 6,000 right now - for math, science, reading, writing, social studies, and technology), WebQuests (more than 1,000), and other resources.
- The International Society for Technology in Education - ISTE is a nonprofit professional organization with offices in Washington, D.C., and Eugene, Ore. Its mission is to "provide leadership and service to improve teaching and learning by advancing the effective use of technology in K–12 education and teacher education." ISTE also runs the huge National Educational Computing Conference, among other things, and include a publishing arm.
- John Mullens's EdLinks - John, computer technologist for Spring Valley High School in West Virginia, created this rich and growing resource page "as a starting point for educators who are interested in researching educational topics on Internet." John says these links are just "a few of the better ones" he's found, but they haven't been updated since February 2003.
- KeepSchoolsSafe.org has comprehensive information on the subject, with sections for students, parents, and schools. The site includes a School Safety & Security Directory of links to 400+ resources on the Web; it includes a Buyer's Guide to retailers selling relevant products.
- NetAlert's CyberSafe Schools - an online-safety education program for schools from the Australian government-supported NetAlert. It's designed to empower students "by providing teachers with appropriate curriculum support materials to enable them to deliver effective education programs."
- TeAch-Nology.com - The K-12 ed-tech portal's tagline is "the art and science of teaching with technology." The site includes tutorials; educational lectures, workshops, seminars, demos for pre-service and/or in-service teacher education programs; and professional development consultations for planning programs about using technology in teaching.
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- A to Z Home's Cool Homeschooling - a very comprehensive homeschooling portal and community site with links to articles and books, updates on laws and legal issues for homeschoolers, kids' sites, how-to materials, and support groups. There is also a section for kids with links to multimedia sites and projects they can do offline at home. Site publisher and homeschooler Ann Zeise tells us "A to Z" has received 1.5 million visitors in the past two years.
- Home Education Magazine's Web site
- HomeEducator.com
- John Holt (1923-85) / Growing Without Schooling - information about the man known to many as "the father of the modern homeschooling movement" and his book. The magazine Holt founded in 1977, Growing Without Schooling, ceased publication in 2001.
- The Home School Legal Defense Association
- Learn in Freedom!'s homeschooling "hotlist" of more than 100 sites about education reform in the US and other countries, homeschooling resources on the Web, and other relevant subjects.
- The National Home Education Network - the home page of a national nonprofit organization which includes information and resources for homeschooling families, including a special section for new homeschoolers. NHEN provides legal and legislative information as well.
- Time4Learning - An online learning system for pre-K through 8th graders tied to state requirements throughout the US. Includes multimedia lessons, follow up exercises, printable worksheets, assessments, and reports - the kind of material schools pay thousands for but costs families $19.95/month. Founder John Edelson told me, "We differ from most of the free sites or learning games or other offerings in that we take the children through an entire curriculum."
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Information on online-safety software and services...
- Childnet International - a London-based nonprofit organization that focuses on online safety as well as the Internet's strengths where children are concerned (for the latter, see the remarkable projects by and for children linked to at the Cable & Wireless Childnet Awards page).
- ChatDanger.com - a kid-friendly site by Childnet that helps young people stay safe in online chat
- GetNetWise.org - Internet safety resources for parents, the only online-safety resource that has a searchable database of filtering, monitoring, computer time-out, and other tools and services for families (it's kept fairly up-to-date, too!). Sponsored by an Internet industry coalition and advised by a number of nonprofit children's advocacy organizations.
- The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's CyberTipline - immediate help concerning online kids at risk - and NetSmartz.org (online-safety ed for kids).
- NetAlert's CyberSafe Schools - an online-safety education program for schools from the Australian government-supported NetAlert. It's designed to empower students "by providing teachers with appropriate curriculum support materials to enable them to deliver effective education programs."
- Netmom.com - "100 Hot Sites for Kids and Families," hand-selected by Netmom Jean Armour Polly, mother, librarian, and author of The Internet Kids & Family Yellow Pages.
- The Parents' Guide to the Information Superhighway in Spanish and English, by The Children's Partnership, a nonpartisan advocacy group that publishes information about "the needs of America's 70 million children."
- SafeKids.com and SafeTeens.com - Resource sites created for online families by Larry Magid, author, educator, former PC magazine editor, and syndicated columnist. He includes numerous resources, including helpful rules specifically for kids as well as parents.
- WiredPatrol.org - a huge site with all manner of online-safety information and resources.
- Software4Parents.com - the top picks in filtering and monitoring software products of a programmer (someone who creates products like these)! Software engineer Joshua Finer tests the products, provides advice on what to buy, and sells the software right in this site. (Josh tells us monitoring software is now more popular with his customers than filtering is.)
- Many more are listed and searchable at GetNetWise.org site (see the "Tools" page to search).
- The Australian Broadcasting Authority's 90-page report on 14 filtering software products (in pdf format), based on careful testing. About the best set of reviews we and our colleagues have seen.
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- The three networks: ABC, CBS, and MSNBC (this last one gets, by some measures, more traffic than any other news site on the Web)
- The Christian Science Monitor - not just "good news," as many people think, and not as comprehensive as CNN or the New York Times, but says its objectives are clarity, balance, fairness, and solution-oriented journalism. The e-Monitor also offers email newsletters, from general news headlines and summaries, linking to full stories on the Web, to major news alerts.
- CNN - This news site seems to have it all, including the latest delivery technologies.
- The New York Times - to many, the best and most comprehensive presentation of news - but, also to many people, with a certain left-leaning bias. Not surprisingly, you have to register to get into this site.
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- The BBC's Tech coverage, for a welcome outside-North-America perspective
- News.com - CNET's popular tech news site
- The Washington Post's TechNews.com
- Wired News - a much-used daily source for us. They do a great job.
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