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WEB RESOURCES FOR LEARNING INTERNET SEARCHING AND RESOURCES
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The Internet is a wonderful tool for learning, but is analogous to a flea market - some finds are treasures but others are junk. Navigating the Internet with purpose and safety in mind is important. The link I provided is a compilation of many sources recommended by the American Library Association on this topic. You can find out about all forms of media and their suitabilty for your child by accessing Common Sense Media, a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization that reviews and rates technology and media in all its formats. Their new site, Graphite, is dedicated to evaluating digital tools, i.e., apps, websites. It is searchable by age, device, cost and curricular area. The Parent's Choice Foundation is another nonprofit organization that serves as a clearinghouse for media and learning products. ~~~~~~~~~~~~INTERNET SEARCH TOOLS~~~~~~~~~~~~ There are numerous search engines devoted to providing appropriate content to children. Many search engines allow parents to set controls on content that is right for their families. There are several websites hosted by librarians and library schools that provide Internet access through prescreened, preselected databases. The ones I've listed provide age appropriateness and/or reading levels of the content. The American Library Association maintains Great Web Sites for Kids that provides links to websites with a key to age-appropriateness. The Internet Public Library (ipl2) is maintained by Drexel University's School of Information Science and provides a searchable directory of kid-friendly websites. Questions can be posed to an internet public librarian and answers received via email. KidsClick! is hosted by Kent State University and offers the feature of narrowing search results by reading level by grade range. ~~~~~~~~~~~~REFERENCE DATABASES~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~Subscription based resources~ Our school district subscribes to World Book Online. It is accessible to you at home. Our school subscribes to PebbleGo, a database comprised of four modules: animals; earth & sky; biographies and social studies. PebbleGo can be accessed at home also. ~Free resources for research~ Fact Monster is hosted by Pearson Education and though its intended audience is age 8+ it can be a useful tool for research. National Geographic Kids offers facts, photos, sound clips and video about animals and pets as well as countries of the world. |
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