Kid Stuff

Computer Life column for 10/18/97 by
Richard Gordon

During this month's web walk, we'll stroll among some sites at which I'd feel safe pointing my third-grader.

Barbara Feldman's Surfing the Net with Kids site has a new feature every week (www.surfnetkids.com). This week's feature is a collection of underwater webcams; past features have included venomous snakes, alphabet games, word puzzles, and "Just for Girls." Feldman balances her selections between fun, neat stuff and educational sites.

The Science Learning Network (www.mos.org/sln/sln.html) is an alliance of 6 science museums around the country. All six of them are fascinating places to visit on line.

The Franklin Institute is one of the museums in this alliance. In addition to entertaining and educating themselves with some of the Franklin's on-line exhibits, students will find the Franklin's collections of "Hotlists" very helpful as they work on homework and research projects (sln.fi.edu/tfi/hotlists/hotlists.html).

Unlike Feldman's site, which provides direct links to interesting things, most hotlist sites are set up as research tools, as a way for kids to learn about the research process while they also find the information.

The Franklin's hotlists also includes some fun links to games and work that kids have done themselves. One of my favorite sites on the "Interactive Things to Do" page is Around the World in 80 Clicks (www.asb.com/usr/swfuchs/ateydays/80clicks.html)-webcams from around the world.

The most fun things at the Delaware Education Network web area (www.dpi.state.de.us/dpi/index.html) are teachers' field trips to Hawaii, a fossil dig, and other locations.

Delaware Kid's Page (www.state.de.us/kidspage/welcome.htm) includes Delaware facts and photos, school sports information, and other fun information. Using these pages, you can even learn which insect is Delaware's Official State Bug. A tour of the Governor's Mansion is coming soon.

One of my soccer parents sent me information about CyberSurfari '97 (www.spa.org/cybersurfari/). This Internet treasure hunt runs from October 21 through November 21; last year's contest had over 45,000 teachers, school teams, and families running around the Web looking for clues.

There are other family-friendly and educational contests on the Web, about thirty of which are listed at Yahooligans (www.yahooligans.com/Entertainment/Contests/).

Actually, Yahooligans main site (www.yahooligans.com) is a great place for a kid to start on the Web. It includes links to homework help; web sites, stories, poems, and artwork made by kids; information about sports, current events, and different cultures; games; computer goodies; cool science stuff; and artwork-enough to keep an inquisitive child on-line for hours.

As I poked around the Yahooligans site, I came across a site I'd heard about several months ago, but had not visited: CRAYON, or CReAte Your Own Newspaper (www.crayon.net). Using CRAYON, you pick and choose which news and information sources you want to look at on a daily basis. Or, if you are a teacher, you can pick and choose which sources your students go to every day.

Services like CRAYON aren't about to replace the News Journal or other papers that deliver local news and advertising. Nor will they replace national papers and magazines-think of the eyestrain of trying to read a 10,000 word essay on a computer screen. But they do provide a way to scan headlines quickly or get news from a distant locale.

There are lots of times I prefer a newspaper. For example, if you read the paper while eating lunch, it's no big deal if a slice of pepperoni lands on this column. But have you ever tried to clean pizza cheese from between the keys of an AppleDesign keyboard?

Write me with more sites you think my readers would enjoy visiting.

Copyright © 1997, The News Journal Company

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