Bucknell Russian Studies Department
URL: http://www.bucknell.edu/departments/russian/index.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Curious about Russia? Start your search here, where eager Bucknell students of all things Russian have compiled links for everything from the Œ96 elections (don¹t miss the schematic of who is considered left, right and center in the old country), to Russian jokes (in Russian!), cartoons (in English), Russian folklore, and music. You can even jump to Cyrillic fonts while you¹re at it, or listen to the Voice of Russia Daily News using RealAudio. There¹s also course and faculty information and news on Russian major alums.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

CCCnet
URL: http://www.cccnet.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
Look out, Sesame Street, make way for the Internet and CCCnet. While CCCnet may not sport the likes of our yellow feathered friend, it¹s got just as much educational and entertainment value, and it¹s interactive! A leading publisher of multimedia education titles, Computer Curriculum Corporation wins the honor of being the first Web site to provide original, interactive curriculum online. And it¹s accomplished this task with exceptional grace. For starters, it looks great. CCN teamed up with the outstanding crew at vivid studios (http://www.vivid.com) in San Francisco to create a high-resolution, creative, and astonishingly quick site. It¹s powered by a monster SGI server to add to the speed factor, so even those with slower connections can reap the benefits of nice graphics. CCCnet offers lesson plans to teachers on a subscription basis ‹ though no fees have been set yet. It also supports these teachers with a message board to interact with other teachers and post questions (both technical and subjective). The super bonus: For two hours everyday, there¹s a tech person live, online, to answer questions immediately. CCCnet also encourages parents to get involved with a ³school-home² section. This way, parents get to participate in what their kids are learning and offer help and encouragement. My favorite part about the site: It strives to teach children not only about the subjects at hand ‹ math, science, the environment, art, etc. ‹ but also how to use the Internet and maximize the Web. Many of the assignments involve children using the Web actively to complete projects ‹ using search engines, libraries, and other online resources to hunt down information. Students are also encouraged to network and communicate with students at other schools involved in the program. Very cool. The current online project, Energy Flow In Amazonia, teaches kids about life forms in the rainforest. The final assignment is to pick an organism (of the millions living in the Amazon, from protozoa to tiger), learn about it, and post its biography online, in a templated Web form. Kids from all across the country will be adding to the real-time food chain. Outstanding! This site is one of the most innovative Web accomplishments I¹ve seen so far, and I can only hope it¹s positive precedence will be replicated many times over. Teachers, pay attention to these kats.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

General Organic and Biochemistry
URL: http://odin.chemistry.uakron.edu/genobc/
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
There are lots of Web sites designed to supplement college courses, but most of them fall just short of the mark. Not this site! Designed to supplement the textbook ³Chemistry for Today,² it includes dozens of concise and illustrative slides the professor used to compliment his lectures ‹ and his use of frames in presenting the material is inspired. He even includes a summary and form-based test! Visit his other classes via The Virtual Classroom at http://odin.chemistry.uakron.edu/classroom.html. And don¹t miss his ³favorite excuses from students² page at http://odin.chemistry.uakron.edu/excuses/.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

The History Channel Classroom
URL: http://www.historychannel.com/classroom/classroom.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Lauren Guzak
If you¹re a teacher looking to incorporate more engaging material into your curriculum, The History Channel Classroom is a good place to start. There are resources to help teachers plan classroom discussions and research projects based on The History Channel's shows, with a convenient Classroom Calendar for planning. The network sponsors awards¹ programs are designed to support quality history education in America's schools; to wit, the History Channel Awards for National History Day honor the Best Senior Media Project and the Outstanding Contribution in History Education. A very good site, even if it does smack of self-promotion.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

MayaQuest Œ96
URL: http://www.mecc.com/mayaquest.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Lauren Guzak
MayaQuest began in 1995 as an attempt to merge hands-on exploration with online interactivity. A team of five people bicycled to ruins in Mexico and Central America, met with on-site archaeologists, and shared their experiences via the Web with over 1 million kids, teachers, and regular netizens. MayaQuest is intended to include and empower those who cannot physically participate in this adventure through chat, team updates, news, and the multimedia experience. The site is Shocked for those who have Netscape or Internet Explorer, and a new expedition will begin in March, 1997.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

Exploratorium Exploranet
URL: http://www.exploratorium.edu
Category: Education
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Leave it to the Exploratorium, San Francisco's renowned interactive science exhibit, to come up with a site as informative and creative as Exploranet. Surf through hundreds of cool science links, check out the science behind the news in The Why Files, follow along with the onscreen tutorial of a cow's eye dissection (one of the Exploratorium's most popular exhibits), or take on any number of show-stopping brain puzzlers, niftily reconfigured for the Web. There are dozens of do-this-at-home recipes to help you recreate Exploratorium fun at home. There is a lot here, so give yourself plenty of time investigate.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

Family Education Network
URL: http://families.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
FEN is one part of the highly esteemed Education Publishing Group's multimedia strategy for helping parents and children prepare themselves for an increasingly competitive world. This is a thoughtful, technologically literate and exceptionally well-designed site featuring articles by Ivy League educators; topics range from browsing the web with your kids to managing your teenager's finances, and balancing your career with your family life. A superb BBS points you to numerous concurrent discussions, and a section on exceptional parents tells the stories of families that endure grave or uncommon situations, and enables them to find their peers around the world.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

The Global Schoolhouse
URL: http://www.gsh.org
Category: Education
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Say what you will about Microsoft. I know all about the insidious corporate tidal wave washing over the world, the evil juggernaut, Bill Gates, monopolizing the industry, crushing the little guy, etc., etc.. I¹ve heard it all -- and won¹t argue with you -- yet sometimes the software giant throws its considerable weight behind some good projects. To wit: The Global Schoolhouse. A project from the people at Global SchoolNet Foundation (<http://www.gsh.org/gsn>), a non-profit corporation from California, Global Schoolhouse endeavors to provide educators with a central Web resource, from which they can connect with other teachers and students around the world. A beautifully understated web site, the page is broken down into three simple categories: The Connected Educator, The Connected Classroom, and The Connected Learning Community. As the site¹s principal sponsor, Microsoft, of course, figures largely into the scheme of things. A section called Microsoft Resources for the Educator calls up exactly that: Encarta Schoolhouse and AutoMap Road Atlas, to name a couple, plus activity plans designed around software products like Creative Writer and Fine Artist. MCI and Microsoft have teamed up to offer schools free Web pages; there are templates available for automatically created pages as well as web authoring tips for custom pages. Which web authoring software should you use? Microsoft has a suggestion: ³Although there are many authoring tools available, Microsoft has an authoring tool called FrontPage that allows you to develop and maintain a first-rate web site without programming.² Well, that¹s life in the free market for you. But Microsoft is only half the story in what is, finally, a great resource. Global Schoolhouse also gives teachers in classrooms across the country and the world a platform for meeting in cyberspace, to conduct lessons, share information, and initiate projects. The site is a missionary project, in a sense, encouraging teachers and schools to take up the mantle of technology in the classroom, to get ³wired.² Schools that have made the leap are featured in a section called Twentieth Century Schools. The Schools Database lets visitors search for schools online, by name or state. As yet the project still lacks momentum; some sections, like the CuSeeMe Schools Database, are nought but a promise. But it¹s a sweet promise, nevertheless, the notion of kids able to video conference with their compatriots a continent or an ocean away. And the resources are in place for the promise to become reality.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

Mount Wilson Observatory
URL: http://www.mtwilson.edu/
Category: Education
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
The Mount Wilson Institute is devoted to realizing, for public benefit, the maximum scientific and educational potential of the Mount Wilson site and facilities. The observatory's online presence links scientists and students to databases containing papers on High Angular Resolution Astronomy, Adaptive Optics and the like. Remote visitors can take a well-designed virtual tour of the mountain and all of its telescopes and attendant facilities. The spiffy interface links you to the home page, a search engine, and a help page from anywhere on site. Stargazers will appreciate the star maps they can generate online, while astronomy teachers will want to check out the Telescopes in Education distance learning project.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

Digital Education Network
URL: http://www.actden.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
The Digital Education Network provides education resources and learning opportunities online for both students and educators. NewsDEN highlights current events and leads students to a more complete understanding through examination of the event's geographic location, historical context, related discussion topics, and vocabulary terms. MathDEN offers math tests/challenges for junior high and high school students, along with a teacher's guide and math tips. InternetDEN provides detailed yet accessible descriptions of Internet topics, ranging from a brief history of cyberspace to transferring files using FTP. This site is an excellent resource for kids, parents, and teachers, combining rich educational content with sophisticated graphics and activities.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

The Electric Library
URL: http://www.elibrary.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
EL is a hot idea that has a short way to go before it really catches fire. The service conducts topical searches through the full text of some 150 newspapers and 900 magazines, as well as newswires, books, etc. It¹s a great way to get a roundup of reviews or articles on a topic that interests you. But after a two-week trial period, you¹ll have to pay $9.95 a month for the privilege; and the searches bring up articles randomly, not from newest to oldest or most mentions to least. With smarter search mechanisms and alternate pricing schemes (how about one month and three-month increments?), I¹d say bookmark EL. Right now, it¹s worth a look.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

Brooks Landon's Horizon of Invisibility Homestead
URL: http://www.uiowa.edu/~english/landon.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Prof. Landon teaches modern literature and sci-fi at the University of Iowa. He seems to be an affable and thoughtful sort who keeps busy studying Web culture, interactive lit, and the zine scene. Predictably, his page features links to those zines and personal sites that reveal this culture. His students are encouraged to make Web pages, too ‹ samples available here. And about that title: it¹s from a book on technology and culture and represents the lofty philosophical stance of this professor.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

The Chronicle: Academe This Week
URL: http://chronicle.merit.edu/
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
The Chronicle is the proverbial Bible for college-level teachers and administrators. The Web page is well-organized, pointing you to news and resources on information technology, academic research, government programs and legislation, professional development, and more. But you must subscribe to the paper version ($75/year) to get Academe Today, the daily online features and links publication, (with a registration and password scheme that insures that no one else gets in.) If you are a Chronicle subscriber or are thinking about it, Academe Today is a definite plus. If not, this is just a nice brochure describing what¹s on paper.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

NetNoir Education
URL: http://www.netnoir.com/emp/edu/index.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Following precedence set by the rest of NetNoir¹s Web space, it¹s no surprise that the education section of NetNoir.com is pleasant to look at with insightful content. This area hosts a wonderful archive of African folk tales, as they were told originally, with colorful artwork and an interesting weave of hyperlinks to connect them all. Also found are ³classes online.² These classes have a mini lecture, recommended readings, and mention something about online discussions (though I couldn¹t find the discussion area.) There¹s still room for improvement, but NetNoir¹s off to a nice start.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

Princeton Review
URL: http://www.review.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
The Princeton Review has gained a dedicated following by helping students exploit weaknesses in badly-designed standardized tests. Their iconoclastic methods translate well in this Web site, where you¹ll find information about standardized tests, college entry requirements, and potential careers. While the content and technical presentation ‹ including search engines and alphabetical indices ‹ is first-rate, the scant graphics aren¹t, nor will you find all the information that¹s available in the books. But then, they have to get your money somehow, don¹t they?
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

Arts Edge
URL: http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/
Category: Education
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Targeting students, teachers, and artists, ARTSEDGE is the Kennedy Center¹s Web presence. The site is packed with links for those wishing to network with others, those looking for work, those looking for art-related web sites, and those interested in all aspects of the arts ---- music, dance, theater, film, TV, the fine arts, literature, poetry, education, etc. A surfer could get lost for hours in this hyperlink metropolis. And there are as many links for adults as there are for children.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

STUDIE'
URL: http://205.118.0.33/oes.html/studie'.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
It's so cute, with its rainbow colors, and to the point! Officially called School Teachers Using & Developing Internet Expertise or STUDIE' (pronounced Stoo'-dee-ay), the web site gives local educational information for the Alpine School District in Utah as well as general information for all educators seeking to learn about the Internet. STUDIE' provides links to HTML lessons, email emoticons and acronyms, and a growing list of educational hyperlinks. Links lead to sites on the core subjects, the arts, foreign language, health, government, religion, weather, shopping, newspapers and newsgroups.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

Kaplan Educational Centers
URL: http://www.kaplan.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Kaplan ‹ famous for helping underachievers earn admission to their parents¹ swanky alma maters ‹ has an extremely useful Web site. To be fair, there are plenty of people who chose educational paths to law and medicine a little late, and definitely benefited from Kaplan testing materials. The site features summaries of the current climates for admission into professional college programs. Kaplan books and software can be purchased online, and a special feature section displays an offbeat sense of humor. Though a commercial site, Kaplan offers invaluable free resources for those interested in professional development.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

Media Literacy On-Line
URL: http://interact.uoregon.edu/MediaLit/HomePage
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
Media Literacy is a movement to educate youth and adults about the media ‹ how to use and maximize its benefits, and how to guard against its tricks. The Web site is a stockpile collection of, you guessed it, media literacy-related information available online. While there isn¹t an extreme amount of original content filling up the bandwidth (nor will you find snazzy graphics or HTML 3.0 wizardry), it is outstanding as a collection of resource links in one convenient place. With smart organization and enough color to keep us from getting the ³Netscape Gray² blues, this is a very valuable site.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

Washington Gifted School of Communication
URL: http://www.misha.net/~desktop/washschl.htm
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
Can we talk adorable for a moment? This site is absolutely fun fun fun by way of enchanting graphics. Unfortunately, there isn¹t really much of interest otherwise, unless you¹re already involved with the school. The schedule of events, mission statement, and student bios are well done and seem helpful enough, but it¹s missing the original content that makes a site interesting and worth repeated visits. I say, post the student artwork and stories, and up the ante a bit! After all, it¹s a site for a school of communication whose students are gifted.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

Distance Learning Laboratory (DLL)
URL: http://stargate.con-ed.howard.edu/WebPages/dll/
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
This site is part of a project to get historically black high schools and universities online with distance learning programs. The DLL wants to teach educators how to get online, set up Web servers, archive curriculum and so on. Good idea! Unfortunately, you have to call DLL or register online for the seminars and workshops in order to actually learn something. The site is merely an informational pamphlet. Perhaps DLL staff might consider practicing what they preach, and offer the seminars online.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

Global Online Adventure Learning Site
URL: http://www.goals.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
John Oman, a sailing adventurer, left the port of Seattle in November 1995 with the hopes of sailing around the world in 150 days via his 60-foot yacht. He may be alone at sea, but we¹ve been invited to follow along via this Wev site: Read his logs, check the current sailing conditions in his location, see pictures he¹s taken, and even consult maps indicating his position. As a result, we get a superb background in the nautical sciences. His isn¹t the only travelogue on the Web, but it¹s one of the most ³realistic,² with hard data augmenting his lyrical notes. This site is a must for all would-be seafarers.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

College Board Online
URL: http://cbweb1.collegeboard.org/index.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
The College Board oversees tests such as the SAT and AP exams, administers financial aid programs, suggests standards among its 3,000 member schools, and acts as a general intermediary between students and colleges. And now, many of its services are available via the Web, through colorful image maps, clever forms, and genius-level search engines. Separate indices direct students, guidance counselors, faculty, and member schools to the most relevant information. The technical level is high, making this a user-friendly entry to the intimidating world of college admissions.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

This is Mega-Mathematics
URL: http://www.c3.lanl.gov/mega-math/
Category: Education
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Number news and notes from our friends at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. But rather than bog us down with odd symbols and complicated formulas, Mega-Mathematics throws down visual problems, twisted games, and strange anecdotes to teach the rules of logic, graphing, and other mind-bending mathematics. Beautifully-designed and organized so you can go as deep as you want into each subject or lose yourself entirely in this seemingly infinite collection. Infinite? What does that really mean? Look here to find out. Allegedly the site is geared for elementary school children, but I learned more than a few things.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

Access Excellence
URL: http://www.gene.com/ae/
Category: Education
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Minda Sandler
If you thought all biology was about dissecting frogs, you should visit this site immediately. Sponsored by biotech firm Genentech, it¹s an online network designed to both provide students with a better understanding of the praxis of biological sciences and to help science teachers who have ³a wealth of ideas² but no way to share them. The site¹s use of a beehive metaphor as its organizational structure is appropriate, given an array of resources and activities so rich, it¹s hard to know where to start. Want to get a hold of creative lesson plans? The Activities Exchange area offers ideas developed by Access Excellence Fellows. Here you¹ll find everything from how to conduct acid rain research and do a nutrition analysis to backgrounders on plant anatomy and the means for identifying Streptomycetes with antibiotic properties in local soil samples. There¹s a nifty graphics gallery with clip art and photos to download, and text files with all kinds of interesting lesson strategies and information. The Probeware section is a perfect example of what this site does best. A problem is presented: Biology students collecting data have to deal with the limits of a 45- or 55-minute class period, which interrupts their experiments and inhibits their understanding of biological processes . Solution? Computer technology ‹ in this case, computer-assisted data collection ‹ is the one suggested here, followed by equipment list, and numerous classroom experiments and activities to take advantage of it. Frequent visitors stay abreast of the latest developments and breakthroughs in science in the What¹s News area, which also gives monthly updates of science programs and events on TV, radio, and the net. Then there¹s the Resource Center, with links to other biology sites, plus information on events, competitions, and conventions from science education resources nationwide. Living up to its mission of being an online biology teaching network, the site offers discussions designed by teams of Genentech and other scientists ‹ a recent one focused on the science of amber ‹ and the chance to post messages to other educators in the Teachers Lounge area (registration required). There¹s also a career center, in-depth articles on the biotech ³revolution,² explorations of the ethics of biotech research, and real-world applications for biotechnology (e.g., the creation of new drugs, the clean-up of damaged ecosystems). All is presented with a clean look that¹s easy on your eyes, and there¹s a great search engine to help you find what you want quickly. This is a fascinating spot, even for non-educators and those whose student days are long gone.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

FishNet
URL: http://www.jayi.com/Open.html
Category: Education
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
The lover of low puns who named FishNet didn¹t do it justice‹this is a meaty site, rich in resources for high-achieving, college-bound teens. The extensive College Guide has a few weaknesses, but makes up for them with great features such as Dear Admissions Guru, an advice column written by admissions officers. Edge e-zine is substantive but not eggheadish, and KnowBase lets users find online articles on a range of topics. Even if higher education is only a dim memory, FishNet is worth a visit for Street Speak, a user-compiled dictionary of slang that will help you sound hip again‹or at least understand what the kids are saying.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

Pathways to School Improvement
URL: http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/pathwayg.htm
Category: Education
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Pathways provides teachers, administrators and parents with resources for improving education. Information is divided into major sub-heading: Critical Issues, New Products and Services, City Schools, and Emerging Technologies. Each category contains articles, and suggested reading material. In an era of declining funds for education and escalating violence and drug use in schools, Pathways provides a valuable forum for educators to share insights with each other on how to improve the education process for students, parents, and teachers.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

Truth, Lies, Rumors, and Rumbles
URL: http://www.cris.com/~Awolinsk/
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
³As the Board Churns² is the subtitle of this text-based saga, about the tensions between teachers, parents, and citizen-players with various agendas in a southern New Jersey school district. Our ³netitor² is Abe Wolinsky, a technology teacher who decided to publish Web reports on the community squabbles. All the details may not interest you, but this will: the original arguments (about building a new high school vs. saving money, and a subsequent teachers¹ contract) were quickly eclipsed by new crossfire because Abe put the story on the on the Web. You can even join in via e-mail if you¹d like.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

CyberEd
URL: http://www.umassd.edu/cybered/distlearninghome.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
We¹ll be seeing a growing number of ³cyberclasses² soon, essentially extension courses that lend themselves to online study. A small southern campus of the University of Massachusetts now offers a few grad and undergrad classes ‹ composition and technical writing, American politics, and astronomy ‹ as well as a non-credit Web page design class. You register online, pay for the class, and then do the reading, studying, practicing on your own. This no-frills site is an indicator of what¹s to come; a trend other small or remote campuses will plug into soon.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Doty's Education Page
URL: http://www.netaxs.com/people/rdoty/
Category: Education
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
There are two extremes in WWW catalogs: huge lists of links with no commentary (à la Webcrawler) and annotated lists with too few links (à la most personal pages). Educator, Robert Doty, has found the middle ground in this site, a page dedicated to education links (separated by grade-school subject) with some original content, i.e. articles he¹s written on education and technology. There are a few minor technical problems: no ³back to home page² buttons, for instance. Still, not bad for someone who says he got into public education for the free Internet access!
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

THE STUDY PLACE
URL: http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/academic/index.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
A budding philosopher's mecca, The Study Place is an online academic resource managed by the Institute for Learning Technologies of Columbia University. The college¹s faculty and doctoral candidates provide good critiques of ancient and modern philosophy. The site also includes links to brief biographies on ancient and modern philosophers including Aristotle, Dante, Descartes, et al.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

College Money Matters
URL: http://www.infi.net/collegemoney/
Category: Education
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Patrick Joseph
I know it¹s crass to speak of education in strictly financial terms, but sooner or later you got to admit: It all comes down to money. There¹s no guarantee that a college degree improves your financial worth, but one thing¹s for certain: You have to ante up just to get in the game. This site from Signet Bank provides a pretty extensive overview of the whole higher education money game. Especially useful is the book *Don¹t Miss Out: The Ambitious Student¹s Guide to Financial Aid* , which lays out the basics of finding funding and planning your finances over the long haul. Not only is the entire text presented online here (read ³free²), but it¹s updated for to coincide with the coming academic year. You can browse the chapter contents quickly, gleaning the information you need and disregarding the rest. Simple as that; no outdated book left moldering on the shelf, no trees sacrificed to your momentary needs, just the info you need now, on your monitor. Of course, this being a corporate site as well, the bank has its own interests. Electronic forms are provided for ordering student loan applications and the like; there is no pressure to do so however. The biggest benefit for Signet is probably just the good reputation the largess garners, not to mention the dollars the publicity could mean farther down the road. A square enough deal, seems to me. Also useful to the college hopeful is the Financial Aid Time Line, which gives a prescribed chronology for securing tuition dollars, a concise budgeting worksheet , some tips on managing your cash flow, and a brief tutorial on building credit (tread carefully over that one, kids). When you¹ve exhausted the resources here, there¹s a page of associated links to keep your surfing on track. There¹ll be plenty of time for distraction when you¹re basking in the cool shade of the ivory tower.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Internet College Exchange
URL: http://www.usmall.com/college/
Category: Education
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
This is a resource primarily geared toward high school seniors and juniors who are trying to find a good college ‹ although it would also be helpful for parents who are trying to nudge aging progeny out of the house. The concept behind the site is solid, although content is sparse. It¹s certainly a page that¹s aching to grow. A snazzy search utility provides names of colleges based on entered criteria. The best content on the site can be found in The Dunce¹s Cap, an informative and irreverently written newsletter about college admissions.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Library of Congress
URL: http://www.loc.gov/
Category: Education
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Amazing content. If you want to feel one with the democratic process, go here and peel through the Thomas legislative database. Read the actual text of the bills that you *think* you know something about. There is also a great bibliography of published works that can be searched by title or name. The library features exhibits on specific themes, such as women in World War II. And if that weren¹t enough, there¹s also a great image archive. The main drawback is that the site isn¹t very intuitively organized; it does require some effort to locate points of interest.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
URL: http://www.uiuc.edu/
Category: Education
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
OK, Web users, lets collectively bow in the direction of UIUC, host to the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Without the bright boys and girls at NCSA, the Web would not be what it is today. Sadly, I can¹t say if that¹s a good thing or bad thing. But for a site of such distinction, UIUC lacks wild HTML tricks. It *is* big and fast, however, and provides so much information, you could spend a few days just finding your way around. You¹ll find complete college catalog-type information, plus the university¹s library site.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Princeton Review
URL: http://www.review.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jon Phillips
High school juniors and seniors who simply *must* attend the best universities would do well to visit this site presented by the ³nation¹s leader in test preparation.² That¹s right: The Princeton Review offers classes on preparing for standardized tests like the SAT, GRE, and MCAT, which will later get you into ‹ guess what? ‹ more classes. Study, study, study. Achieve, achieve, achieve. That¹s the Princeton way, but there¹s no disputing the Review¹s attraction if you aspire to a career in law, business, or medicine. A search engine eases navigation, but lengthy download times of frivolous graphics may leave you peeved.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Urban Education Web
URL: http://eric-web.tc.columbia.edu/
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Learning about learning: that¹s what the Urban Education Web is about. It¹s part of the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC), a well-known and highly-respected database of studies on education. It, in turn, is funded by the U.S. Department of Education. All these layers of support point to two attributes of this Web site: it¹s densely academic, and it¹s excellently supported. Here, you¹ll not only find out if the government has published information about gangs in the schools, you¹ll probably find the monographs themselves, hyperlinked internally and with other documents. I don¹t know what poor souls are sitting in a windowless office doing all this, but they deserve to be thanked.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

University of Washington
URL: http://www.washington.edu:1180/
Category: Education
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
I did some time at this institution, so I come to this site occasionally just to see what the weather¹s doing back home. The UW site, however, is far more impressive than the inevitably dreary image from the view cam. A big campus, the ³U Dub² is a city in its own right, and the magnitude of this site reflects that fact. Links connect to all the various departments, to campus radio, to student and faculty directories, campus publications, museums, ...there¹s even a virtual tour of the medicinal herb garden. Anyone interested in the U -- especially anyone considering enrollment -- should come here first. And pay special attention to that weather.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

School House
URL: http://www.worldvillage.com/wv/school/html/school.htm
Category: Education
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Pat
It ain¹t Schoolhouse Rock (remember *Conjunction Junction*?), but it rocks nonetheless, with in-depth reviews of a full spectrum of educational software. I don¹t use the word in-depth lightly, either: screen shots and lengthy criticisms are offered for a growing list of titles that already includes somewhere around, ...let¹s see, one, two, three, ... a hundred titles. A sub page of the larger World Village site, this one should be bookmarked by any parents with school age kids and a CD-ROM drive.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

World Game Institute
URL: http://www.pacificrim.net/~wgi/
Category: Education
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
Despite its playful-sounding title, the World Game Institute is no joke. Inspired by noted scientist and social philosopher Buckminster Fuller, the Institute was founded to "provide the perspective and information needed to solve the critical problems facing global societyŠ" The site probes all these problems (famine, disease, overpopulation, deforestation and more) with incisive, well-documented research and data. Even skittery surfers should stop to check out the "What the World Wants (and how to pay for it)"chart. It's a powerful representation of the mixed-up priorities in our military-minded global economy. The institute also conducts workshops and conferences in the corporate and educational communities.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Lattitude 28 Schoolhouse
URL: http://www2.opennet.com/schoolhouse/
Category: Education
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
Sponsored by OpenNet Technologies, Lattitude 28 is really just a page of links to educational resources by subject; that is, except for two sections devoted to the Internet in the classroom. While there is no mention of screening the links, a quick quality survey suggests that they are. Additionally, visitors to the page are invited to submit their favorite education urls. Links are organized by category, and there is also a listing of other schools on the Internet. Like most such sites, the links make it worth the bookmark, even if the page itself is nothing special.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

College Board Online
URL: http://www.collegeboard.org
Category: Education
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
The College Board administers the Standard Aptitude Test (SAT), and the Advanced Placement (AP) program. Their site confirms every paranoid notion I ever had about the SAT and other standardized tests, with statistics detailing mean scores, standard deviations, percentiles, and calculations of scores as a predictor of college grades in every subject. For anxious college hopefuls or veterans of the test with unpleasant memories this site will be a source of nightmares for weeks to come. But, on a positive note, students can register for the SAT online, and get information about the College Board's other resources for college applicants.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Explores! World Headquarters
URL: http://www.thunder.met.fsu.edu/explores/explores.html
Category: Education
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Explores! World Headquarters, the Weather Channel watcher's Internet alternative, was developed by two meteorology professors at Florida State University as a resource for kids with an interest in the space and earth sciences. Want to know what the weather's like in Scranton? Precipitation estimate for anywhere in the U.S.? Tracking Hurricanes strike your fancy? This site exemplifies the enormous, almost overwhelming, amount of information available on the Internet (300 links on U.S. weather alone) and would be best viewed with an experienced meteorologist on hand to explain the more arcane concepts.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Testprep.com
URL: http://www.testprep.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Too bad this resource wasn't around when I was suffering through SAT preparations. This is a truly useful site which provides a free SAT course. Diagnose your weak areas by taking a complete version of the SAT and then choose from 1000's of review lessons including answers and explanations. You can shop to order SAT guides at the Testprep Superstore or purchase the Stanford Studyguide software disk. But it¹s refreshing to see free information so readily offered in an area which has become an industry in itself.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Education Place
URL: http://www.eduplace.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Created by Houghton Mifflin, the Education Place is packed with fine activities for grammar school students, plus ideas for teachers and advice for parents on helping kids learn. But to my mind the site¹s most delightful feature is its update of Mad Libs, called Wacky Web Tales. These things will always be funny‹what else produces phrases like ³After handing our toes to Leonardo Da Vinci at the door Š²? Enjoy them with your friends and family. Other games help kids hone their skills in science and math, and the Project Center gives teachers access to online projects as well as non-Internet-based classroom activities.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Building Blocks to Reading
URL: http://www.NeoSoft.com/~jrpotter/karen.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Karen Potter offers a real public service for parents of 3-6 year-olds ‹ lots of activities, word games, and puzzles to encourage little kids to start reading. There¹s an excellent A-Z list of activities that focus on reading and vocabulary building. There are also tips about how to reinforce reading and words throughout the home every day. As a bonus, there are a couple of other useful pages, like a home safety checklist and tips on finding good childcare. BLUE LIGHT
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Mister Rogers Neighborhood
URL: http://www.pbs.org/rogers/mrr_home.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
The comfortable, and awfully nice sweater-clad guy beckons us to sample some tasty bits from his long-running public TV show on this easy to use page. You¹ll find some of his wisdom (and suggested activities) about separation anxiety, competition, disabilities, and fears. There are also lyrics to a number of Mr. R¹s songs (³Parents Were Little Once Too² is but one), and a bibliography of books the nice man recommends. From here, you can link to PBS program schedules, stations, and previews.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Adventures in Education
URL: http://www.tgslc.org/
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
The nice folks at the Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corporation bring us Adventures in Education, a useful overview about how to get into various federal programs, what it will take to repay them, deferments, current interest rates, and so on. Then it goes a few steps beyond the basics, providing career guidance advice, info for parents and guidance counselors, financial aid officers, and even tips on selecting a college or university. No heavy pitches for Texas or the corporation, either ‹ just a good shot at public service for the educationally-determined.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

College Money Matters
URL: http://www.infi.net/collegemoney/index.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
While many ³informational² sites sponsored by corporations are just slightly veiled marketing attempts, Signet Bank should be applauded for their soft sell approach on this guide to funding a college education. There are Signet Bank loan applications and information, but a lot of the content (which mostly seems lifted from printed guides) does not bear Signet¹s stamp. One of the best resources here is ³Don't Miss Out, A Student's Guide to Financial Aid.² A good portion this book is available online.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Educaid Online
URL: http://www.educaid.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
A lot of places offer general information on college entry requirements and government student loan programs. But where do you go to actually get the money you need? Educaid is one such place. With FAQs, quizzes, application forms, as well as background information on the company and the loans they offer, this site is the epitome of a corporate ³advertising² entity. As such, there are no external links, which is disturbing. (Are they afraid you¹ll get information elsewhere?) Colorful image maps dress up every page, making the site attractive but slow.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

UK Lifelong Learning
URL: http://www.transcend.co.uk/LIFELONG_LEARNING/
Category: Education
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
The Brits seem to have a ministry for everything, with sub-ministries and rooms full of clerks endlessly shuffling papers. Well, some of the clerks have turned in their green eyeshades for PC¹s at the Department for Education and Employment, Individual Commitment Division. (Yes, that¹s really its name, bureaucratic lex for ³the state wishes you to stay in school and stop being a worthless git.²) While the site is extensive, it suffers from a bone-dry officialdom that subverts the intended message: Learning is fun.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

AcademicNet
URL: http://www.academic.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Instructors should welcome this site, which fosters a marketplace of ideas specific to education. Now educators can collaborate on projects that focus on using technology to enhance student achievement. Teachers can congregate here, and bypass the aging administrative hierarchies that don¹t employ computers. Call it the ³education underground,² if you will. The site requires registration to obtain the full resources available.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Invention Dimension
URL: http://web.mit.edu/invent/
Category: Education
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Besides finding some crucial information I needed about the inventor of Bakelite (Leo Baekeland, known affectionately as the ³Father of Plastics²) this site offered little of interest. I expected to find profiles of wacky inventors and their crazy projects ‹ you know, the inventions we laugh at today, but can¹t live without tomorrow. But no, the site just offers information on a few famous inventors, and links to invention information, plus winners of the prestigious Lemelson-MIT Prize.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Worcester Polytechnic
URL: http://ee.wpi.edu:8080/EE535/
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Most online education fails because it tries to transplant subjects to the screen that are best-suited for the classroom. But Professor Cyganski¹s class at Worcester Polytechnic Institute has an edge of relevance here, as it¹s all about telecommunications transmission technologies. Since I¹m not an electrical engineer, most of the highly-technical content of this site eluded me, but its basic ³learning is as learning does² mission comes through loud and clear: Engineers should not be afraid of their tools. Or, as the prof says, ³This course is not for WIMPs (Whining Internet/Multi-media Phobes).² Some of the meatier areas of the site are available only to WPI accounts, alas.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

School Is Dead
URL: http://pages.prodigy.com/S/C/D/School_is_dead/Learn_in_freedom.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Not only are kids rebelling against formalized schooling, their parents are, as well; and, as sites we¹ve reviewed in the Blue Pages have shown, there are plenty of Web resources out there for those interested in home schooling. But what about ³no-schoolers²? For both groups, Karl Bunday's site is a convincing (although ugly) collection of quotes and arguments emphasizing that the one who learns best schools least. The points are presented as one heavily linked screed, making the site great for browsing, but it¹s hard to find specific information unless you use the index.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Thomas Edison State College
URL: http://www.tesc.edu/
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
What home-schooling does for the under-18 crowd, ³distance learning² colleges like Thomas Edison State do for those seeking higher educational degrees. According to the college¹s Web site, ³students in any state or nation can earn credit for college-level knowledge acquired outside the classroom.² It¹s a pity the college hasn¹t done more with its Web pages: considering how far-flung the students must be, the potential for Internet-based instruction is tremendous. Indeed, the site isn¹t nearly as deep or interesting as many other colleges¹, and the occasional misdirected link mars the experience.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

K12 World
URL: http://www.k-12world.com/home.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
If you are a K12 teacher with a fair amount of patience, amble on over to K12 World, a very tidy and useful site packed with Web resources of interest to you. You¹ll need patience because there are two top pages for each topic, and the download can be mighty slow. But once you¹re in, you¹ll find classroom goodies; (Internet) library information; funding sources; lesson plans; and more. Especially cool is Internet Live, a page of live camera links and exploration events geared to eager net students. The Classroom area features several disciplines, so whether you teach science, journalism, or art, there are helpful links for you here.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

North Hagerstown High School
URL: http://www.fred.net/nhhs/nhhs.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Get acquainted with students and teachers at this central Maryland high school, population 1,000. A modest effort, the site promotes net education and communication. The ninth grade Prejudice Reduction Project, for example, invites classes and students to send essays, bios, and URLs ³that will help gain a better understanding of the world around us.² There¹s also an Environmental E-Mail Project the lets readers report on environmental concerns ³faced by your region or state.² This could be a good resource for other teachers to use.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Tulane Financial Aid
URL: http://www.tulane.edu/~finaid
Category: Education
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Pat
Full time undergraduates at Tulane are looking at a cool $21,236.00 per annum, not including books, room and board, or future tuition hikes. This site lays it all out for you in unflinching terms. Parents and students may flinch, but not the Tulane Financial Aid Office. For those without trust funds to tap into, there are links to other resources here. In fact, the page called ³other resources² is a probably a good stop for any college bound folk, paupers and ³trustafarians² alike. For those seriously considering Tulane, there is info for visitors, including maps and links to the New Orleans regional transit authority (streetcars!).
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Whole Frog
URL: http://george.lbl.gov/ITG.hm.pg.docs/Whole.Frog/Whole.Frog.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
The Whole Frog Project offers an online alternative to a classic high school biology experience: dissecting a frog. Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley Labs use high-resolution MRI images and sophisticated 3D rendering software to create a virtual amphibian whose parts can be viewed at a variety of depths and angles. The site is jam packed with information about both the biological and technological details of the project. It also includes study guidelines to help teachers create engaging lesson plans (which combine physical and computer sciences). Best of all, the Whole Frog Project is completely free of scalpel hazards and the queer smell of formaldehyde.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Armadillos Guide to the Internet
URL: http://riceinfo.rice.edu:80/armadillo/
Category: Education
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
This server will give you every imaginable angle on K-12 education in the state of Texas. Armadillos provides links to a variety of educational resources for teachers and students, including Texas Studies, information about collaborative efforts between students and teachers, and resources on a variety of K-12 subjects (useful for teachers everywhere), as well as access to TENET which has job listings for educators interested in working in the Lone Star state.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Minnesota Preparatory Schools
URL: http://www.mps.org/
Category: Education
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
You ever stop to wonder how many college prep schools could be found in Winona Minnesota? Probably not, eh? Well, this server connects Winona's three preparatory institutions and their offerings, giving profiles of each school, the student life there, course selection, etc. There¹s even a resident dorm which provides housing for out-of-town students. If you¹re already prepared, collegiately speaking, link up to St. Mary's home page, a private Catholic University in, you guessed it, Winona, Minnesota.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

C-EdRes
URL: http://cnet.unb.ca/c-edres/
Category: Education
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
C-EdRes claims to be a "one-stop site" for finding and evaluating education-related Internet resources. Joining its e-mail list will get you a weekly set of new reviews written by teachers. These aim to keep others in the education industry apprised of what's new and worthwhile on the Internet. The results are diverse and growing, and you can search the regularly updated online database. If you're an educator, and would like to publicize an online resource among your peers, C-EDRes is a good place to do it. An added feature is the the list of arts-related links. Aesthetics: 2 Content: 2 Smarts: 2
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Accepted
URL: http://www.accepted.com
Category: Education
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Linda Abraham, the author of *How to write an OUTSTANDING Personal Statement.* maintains a website that aims to help you do just that. Her rather plain page offers concise, useful pointers on how to advantageously turn your personal statement into a "human interest" piece starring yourself. Separate strategies are outlined for Medical, Business, Law and Graduate schools. You can also read the endorsements of applicants whom Abraham has helped to gain admission with her editing services, to which she devotes the rest of her site. If you're interested in professional help, send an e-mail or call her. Aesthetics: 2 Content:3 Smarts: 1
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Fairmodel
URL: http://fairmodel.econ.yale.edu/
Category: Education
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Fairmodel is a macroeconometric model of the U.S. economy that lets you forecast the economy, do policy analysis, and examine historical episodes. For example, you can change government policy variables and examine the estimated effects of the changes on the economy. Fairmodel is a resource for business forecasters, government policy analysts, macroeconomic researchers, teachers, and students. You can access data sets that chart the economy from 1952 to 2003. You can even read an analysis using the model of the Clinton and Dole economic plans, and if that doesn't calm you down, you can discuss it on the bulletin board. Aesthetics: 1 Content: 3 Smarts: 2
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Bagheera
URL: http://www.bagheera.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Rain forest imagery contextualizes Bagheera's introduction to the issues surrounding endangered species. A series of cross-linked "modules" provides information from different points of view. The central classroom node offers a high school curriculum that focuses on conservation biology and extinction. The endangered species database is built to explain endangerment and to provide links to relief organizations. Camp 41 is developing an online presence for research being done in an actual camp in the Brazilian rain forest. Since these beautifully designed "modules" have yet to be "launched", it's impossible to judge them, but they look promising.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Virginia Cooperative Extension
URL: http://www.ext.vt.edu/
Category: Education
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Virginia Cooperative Extension is an educational outreach program of Virginia's land grant universities, Virginia Tech and Virginia State University, as well as being affiliated with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This organization's Web site provides information, articles, and other resources for topics related to agriculture, families, and 4-H. Information related to agriculture is fairly technical, but more general information is available on parenting, finanical management, nutrition, and forestry and wildlife. The Information Resources Database, allowing you to search by topic, is a nice touch.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Bell Atlantic World School
URL: http://www.bell-atl.com/wschool/
Category: Education
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
The West Virginia Bell Atlantic company has compiled a comprehensive collection of resources for educators. Collaborative Classroom Activities and the Electronic Lesson Planner feature lesson plans that make use of the Internet, as well as links to other education sites. Exploring the Internet contains useful information for more novice Internet explorers, including a tutorial on using the Web for K-12 teachers by the Global SchoolNet Foundation. An impressive list of 318 West Virginia Schools is connected to this site, and you can really see how the education community is using the Internet creatively to communicate with one another.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Arkansas Little Rock College of Education
URL: http://www.ualr.edu/~coedept/index.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
You don¹t have to attend the U. of Arkansas to appreciate its meta-page of educational resources. A big box of Frames provides links for undergrads (calculate your GPA!), grad students, teachers, and parents (links to good educational sites that might inspire Net-oriented moms and dads). You¹ll find out plenty about the UA educational programs and class schedules, lots of library site links, pointers to other Arkansas pages, even investment planning sites for teachers. BLUE LIGHT
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

Library Project: African-American Culture
URL: http://www.wsu.edu:8000/~dee/LibraryProjectsIV.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
The content here is a collection of essays about African-American Culture that cover ground from the slave trade to 20th century literature. The essays were written by students of a class titled ³General Education 101,² and take the form of mini-book reports. The site is really only useful as a reference for books about African-American Culture as the essays are too short to provide any substantive information. It also suffers from a poor use of Netscape Frames; the only way to get back to the table of contents is to reload the whole site.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

NCRVE Home Page
URL: http://vocserve.berkeley.edu/
Category: Education
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
While The National Center for Research in Vocational Education's (NCRVE) Web site could stand some good editing and a dose of spirit, it nevertheless provides useful information and progress reports on an alternative form of secondary education. Based at the University of California, the NCRVE Web site is linked to documents on the history and the future of vocational education, all organized like a standard high school report and about as interesting.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

RAND Institute on Education and Training
URL: http://www.rand.org/centers/iet/
Category: Education
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
IET is part of Rand's, a non-profit public policy research organization, larger web site. The site's purpose is to improve American's public policy through research and analysis, and to train policy analysts. IET provides links to summaries on more than 55 Rand research papers. Some topics covered include worldwide communications, economics, education, crime, NATO, housing, game theory, terrorism, and water resources. Full-text for some of these papers are free, others are not.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

Technology and Learning: A Planning and Implementation Resource
URL: http://www.ncrel.org/ncrel/tandl/techandlearn.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
This is a guide for learning technology, taking readers from the goal setting and initial research stages to the implementation and revision for improvement stages. It is not light reading. It offers diagrams and provides information in an outline format.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

Theatre Education Literature Review
URL: http://www.aaae.org/theatre/thfront.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Theatre... is a home page of 59 theater-educational questions or topics with links to their brief answers or explanations, including footnotes. Simple. Kent Seidel, of the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program of the University of Cincinnati, asks questions, such as "Why study theatre?," or introduces topics, such as "Theatre for at-risk students," as the points relate to scholars' views of theater's positive effect in education.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

eWorld Learning Community
URL: http://www.eworld.com/education/resources/
Category: Education
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
The eWorld Learning Community has gathered an impressive set of quality links under categories such as News Rack, Apple Education Resource, Museum, and School House. Unfortunately, links are pretty much all this site has to offer. It¹s a misnomer for eWorld to claim that this is its Learning Community. The links belong to the Internet; the site should be called the Internet Learning Community. But enough on semantics. The design is tasteful, but , save a search engine, there are no cool technical devices to add any pizzazz to this site.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

Nellie Mae Loan Link Resource for Student Loan Info
URL: http://www.nelliemae.org/
Category: Education
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Nellie Mae runs a tight ship with no loose ends, and no extraneous information or pages. It¹s a very streamlined site ‹ and this is not my ironic way of saying there¹s little content. You¹ll find a number of pages filled with very practical information about student loans, focusing on the student loans Nellie Mae specifically offers. There is also a page on when to start applying for loans, and some brief explanations of the different kinds of loans. This site *could* be more in-depth.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

Career Explorers
URL: http://www.futurescan.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
This site, launched by United Multimedia, a CD-ROM publisher, is designed to let (presumably young) visitors with an eye toward the future learn about various careers. Well... one career, anyway: right now, there¹s not much here. But the sole area, I Want to be a Veterinarian, covers quite a bit of territory: what training is needed, typical tasks, helpful skills, and so forth. The long blocks of small type may be daunting to young readers, though, and there are some minor HTML errors throughout. It will probably improve, though, soon enough, as more careers are added.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

Baylor School
URL: http://www.chattanooga.net/baylor/
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Being a public school kid from a moderate-income family myself, I¹ve had little knowledge about prep schools like Baylor, save what I extrapolated from the ³preppie² fad of the early 80s. But you know, from this home page, it looks kind of nice. Nestled in the woods and fields of Tennessee, the school¹s 850-odd students practice their English, music, and skeet shooting in a ³Judeo-Christian² atmosphere (huh?). But beyond pretty pictures, a mission statement, and general palaver about excellence, the cupboard is pretty bare. What you won¹t find out is the cost ‹ but, as I learned in the early 80s, preppies don¹t talk about such things.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

CyberLearning Center
URL: http://www.usa2100.org/
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
This core project of the non-profit National Education Foundation sets out to distribute educational software, promote motivational techniques, offer online courses, and spread the word about tennis star Monica Seles. Huh? What¹s she doing here? Information about Ms. Seles (whom USA2100¹s President claims to have mentored) is, unfortunately, the most complete part of this site, which seems to be the home page for a computer-equipped private school in the D.C. area. The online courses aren¹t up, nor is the software area. So what makes this school a ³CyberLearning Center²? Beats me.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

Stolkholms Universitet
URL: http://www.su.se/
Category: Education
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Pat
The info here is available in Swedish or English, an important first step for us monoglots. Unfortunately, in either language, the content is a little sparse. The most involved page is the one dedicated to the university library, (with frames, an online card catalog, and navigational links to the rest of the site) but the menu gives no indication of this. It is a smashing piece of architecture, the Stockholm U *bibliotek*, but that in itself hardly sells the site to prospective students or visitors. There are no under construction signs, but I have a feeling this site will improve.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

University of the Phillipines
URL: http://www.upd.edu.ph/
Category: Education
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Pat
This is a pretty generous site, with superfluous but interesting material like photos of the Manila campus circa 1933. Most of the information is in English although some segments, like the news briefs, are in Tagalog. Interested in enrolling? U.S. students need a minimum combined SAT of 1200, though exceptions are apparently made on occasion for ³mature² students. Visually, the site is a bit dull (The Webmaster apologizes for a busted color scanner), but the info is all here and straightforward.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

Whales
URL: http://curry.edschool.Virginia.EDU/~kpj5e/Whales/
Category: Education
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Whales (and dinosaurs) intrigue kids everywhere, and some industrious teachers in Virginia have tapped into that phenomenon here, where all lessons originate from and revolve around the same subject: whales. Lesson plans range from math word problems involving whales, to the history of whaling, and whale literature. From humpbacks to blues, baleen to toothed, all young marine mammal enthusiasts, parents and teachers will like this one. It¹s a simple, yet creative example of educational possibilities on the Web. Hopefully, with time, the creators will add more sound and images, and bring the standards up to match the content.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

Cliffs Notes
URL: http://www.cliffs.com/cliffs/cliffs.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
So maligned by teachers, so cherished by students, the infamous Cliffs may now be on the Web, but don¹t expect to download the goods via modem. The best you can do here is sample some bits, then place an order online. The ³free stuff² the blinking text refers to is bunko: in exchange for some marketing info (name, rank, and serial) you get a screen saver and study tips (oh boy). And then there¹s a lot of patronizing stuff about how the notes are meant only as a supplement to the books. Yeah, ... and cigarettes are just an after-dinner thing.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

Harvard Business School
URL: http://www.hbs.harvard.edu
Category: Education
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Straight forward information about Harvard Business School, including admissions, curriculum, research projects, and alumni. Check out the HBS Publishing page to peruse the 6,000 books, videos, and multimedia programs available for order. The site is a gateway to a number of HBS resources such as the Baker Library online catalogue, but you need to be a Harvard student to use it. In the shocked version the university shield rotates in 3-D, which as about as exciting as this page gets. But then, how much fun is business school?
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

Diversity
URL: http://execpc.com/~dboals/diversit.html
Category: Education
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
This is a bare-bones list of links to all kinds of organizations representing the interests of communities often described as diasporic, subaltern and/or multicultural. As always, the great thing about the Web is the speed with which it enables people to make their messages globally accessible. And the sites linked here, sometimes with brief descriptions, are truly diverse, ranging from a page of traditional Jewish recipes (sponsored by Israeli Intelligence) to a node for South Asian-American female novelists. Basically this site speaks to anyone who isn't a straight white male - a redundant strategy in cyberspace.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

The Condition of Education 1996
URL: http://www.ed.gov/NCES/pubs/ce/index.html
Category: Education
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
A search engine lets you fish this site for statistics on the "conditions of education." The idea is to provide a means to report on where progress is and isn't being made, to draw attention to emerging issues, and to inform the ongoing policy debate. A numbered list of blue links on a blinding white page points to a mountain of predictably disturbing data. These focus on educational issues ranging from "Access, Participation, and Progress" to "Climate, Classrooms, and Diversity." Aesthetically speaking, only a bureaucratic stooge or a Zen monk could stomach these pages for long.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

Nizhoni School for Global Consciousness
URL: http://www.nets.com/nizhoni/
Category: Education
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
This is a one-page information board for a school located in Santa Fe, New Mexico. There isn¹t much reason to go here unless you feel a strong need to attend classes that teach people to ³follow their hearts to their purest source of intelligence, the Higher Self.² That¹s about all the information this page offers, but there is a book you can order (offline) that will tell you more about this Navajo-inspired course of study.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

Word Page
URL: http://users.aol.com/jomnet/words.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Well, let¹s award Word Page an ³E² for effort ‹ although I don¹t know how to factor an ³E² into a GPA. The purpose of this site is to help people learn 10 new words a week ‹ an admirable enterprise. Unfortunately, it doesn¹t help if you already know the words the site¹s editor happened to pick. Also, the definitions provided are a little weak, consisting of a short phrase or sentence. It wouldn¹t take much effort, and certainly not much space, to include full dictionary definitions. And, finally, the misspellings littered throughout the site aren¹t going to impress any educators out there.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

College Edge
URL: http://www.collegeedge.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Pat
College Edge claims to be ³the only solution that has everything you need.² Solution to what exactly? I have no idea. And the home page did nothing to settle the question either. Under the heading, ³Cool Quotes,² all I got were gems like, ³the graphics are cool and it¹s really easy-to-use.² And though the site admonishes you to ³Realize Your Future Today!² it neither explains how to do that nor does it give you ideas for tomorrow. There is one semi-useful feature here: a map index of college home pages around the country. The problem? Schools are listed in purple letters on a purplish background. Readable, but barely.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

Sidney Lanier Middle School
URL: http://www.rice.edu/armadillo/Schools/Lanier
Category: Education
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Pat
The kids at Sidney Lanier are a lucky bunch, if this site is anything to go on. The ubiquitous puppy icon aside (come on kids, let¹s mix it up a little bit), the activities featured in the Houston school¹s home page made me a little wistful for the days of field trips and science fairs. Some of the sub-pages need work: the Hyper-history of seventy year old Lanier left me wanting more links, and the images, by and large, were of poor quality. Time to hit up the old PTA, maybe throw a bake-sale for scanners or put the principal in the dunk tank at a buck a shot.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

Apple Education Worldwide
URL: http://www.education.apple.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
What you¹d expect, but hope not to, find: A sales platform, Apple pushing Apple -- on students, on educators, on everyone. There is precious little in the way of resources here and a whole lot of worthless mumbo jumbo: product release announcements, letters from the President, self-congratulatory crap -- Apple-this, Apple-that. It is the opposite of the no-nonsense soft sell: it¹s the all nonsense blitzkrieg. I can¹t think of one good reason to come here unless you¹re trying to solicit a grant or look for educational discounts. Even then, bring along the hip waders and pitch fork. There¹s an awful lot of muck to claw through.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

World Education Exchange
URL: http://www.hamline.edu/~kjmaier/
Category: Education
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
World Education Exchange, a graduate student project, bills itself as a site that "explores the world of reform and information technology." It's a lofty description for a site which is little more than a repository of links (albeit interesting ones) on virtual education and Internet resources for teachers and kids. I suppose it's useful for someone to have done the research for you, but without a single shred of commentary or analysis, it feels like someone trying to profit from other people's work. After all, aren't Yahoo!, Lycos, and all the other search engines out there, for the purpose of categorizing and cataloguing information on the Internet?
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

U.S. Civil War Center
URL: http://www.cwc.lsu.edu
Category: Education
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
From Louisiana State University comes this ambitious, if somewhat dull, page devoted to collecting and making available every scrap of information concerning the nation¹s costliest war. Scholars and students will of course find the site helpful in researching the conflict, and genealogists will appreciate the short tutorial on researching individuals from the era. Like most link-driven sites, it¹s all very straightforward, and a little bit daunting.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

The Biosfera Project
URL: http://riceinfo.rice.edu/~solis/bioesfera/bioesfera.home.html
Category: Education
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
The title project was undertaken by Carlos Solis, a professor at Rice University, to help train school teachers simultaneously in Spanish and Conservation Biology. This humble site describes the experimental program conducted in the Peten, a rainforest region of Guatemala. There are essays by some of the participants, links to sites related to Meso-America, and a somewhat crude map of Guatemala. It would be nice to see this site expand and refine. The map could be interactive, the pages made more attractive, etc. More importantly, there should be more emphasis on the people of the Peten.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

Pitsco Technology Education
URL: http://www.askanexpert.com/wel.html
Category: Education
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
You'd expect more than a scroll-it script and a "weird science" graphic to announce the site of a company claiming to be the "leader in innovative technology education." And what Pitsco's site lacks in the whiz-bang department, it doesn't make up for anywhere else. Judging from the quality of its hubristic copy, you'd think poor spelling and grammar were cutting-edge educational strategies.The online version of its much-touted catalog provides descriptions of popular products like "Shuttle in Orbit Wall Mural," and "Tower Tester," as well as links to related sites, but this one needs work before it fulfills its own promises.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

MOO, an Educational Tool
URL: http://mbhs.bergtraum.k12.ny.us/moo.html
Category: Education
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
MOO in this case refers not to cows (although if you¹re one of those who just can¹t get enough of bovines, there are plenty of irrelevant cow pics here), but to MUD, Object Oriented, as in a type of multiuser environment. The site is simply a list of links to papers, FAQs, and resource collections containing general information on MOOs, as well as discussions of their social and educational uses and connections to MOOs themselves. The page was due for an update when I visited‹several of the links weren¹t working‹but if this is your particular interest, you¹ll probably find something you can use here.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

Collegiate Choice Walking Tours
URL: http://www.register.com/collegiate
Category: Education
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
There¹s not a frill in sight here, just a good idea presented plainly and honestly. Collegiate Choice Walking Tours is a collection of videotaped student-guided tours of more than 300 college and university campuses. The developers, a group of independent college advisors, are quick to point out that these tapes are not professionally produced, but, they say with admirable restraint, the student guides are ³perhaps a bit more forthright than some admissions and marketing departments.² In addition to a list of schools visited and ordering information, the site provides a helpful tip sheet for prospective students who plan to make in-person visits.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

AP Institute
URL: http://www.gnacademy.org:8001/~tuttleri/tuttleri.htm
Category: Education
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Maybe you can¹t judge an online correspondence school by the quality of the course catalog¹s prose, but in the case of the AP Institute, there¹s precious little else to go on. And sentences like this one, from the Creative Writing course description, do not inspire confidence: ³And, as writers, one always needs non-judgmental input into how the writing sounds and comes across.² Indeed. The course offerings, ranging from Ancient Greek to Esperanto, are appealing, but with no instructor biographies or information about the ³institute² at last visit, I¹d be leery of signing on for any of these ³interesting and dynamic² classes.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

American University, ESL Information Service
URL: http://www.iac.net/~conversa/S_homepage.html
Category: Education
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
This Web site provides information for foreign students considering studying in the U.S. Topics include the American university system, frequently asked questions, the university application process, descriptions of colleges, universities, and vocational schools, and additional information useful to foreigners interested in studying in the U.S., such as housing, insurance, and academic schedules. This is probably not a bad place to start for foreign students thinking about applying to universities in the U.S., but don¹t expect anything particularly new or interesting here.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

Nebraska Social Science Resource
URL: http://www.nde.state.ne.us/SS/ss.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Pat
For educators specializing in the social studies this service from the Nebraska Department of Education may prove useful, but despite it¹s claim that it is ³just an example of what can be accomplished on the WWW,² the page has a long way to go. The only segment which strikes me as important is the one devoted to Teacher Resources and Programs, a listing of events, seminars, and services having to do with teaching the social sciences. Other content, such as the addresses of foreign embassies, is lackluster, at best, and available elsewhere.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 12

The Riggs Institute
URL: http://www.riggsinst.org
Category: Education
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Pat
The Instiute is a non-profit corporation in Beaverton, Oregon specializing in literacy issues. And if the blurbs cited here are any indication, it is well-regarded by both educators and policy makers. That aside, the presentation here whiffed a bit of fakery and snake oil. All the explanation points and relentless pitching make me wary. I¹m not saying it¹s a fraud, by any means -- I wouldn¹t know. It just comes off that way. You can judge for yourself.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 12

SPAM
URL: http://aaron.gcn.uoknor.edu/spam
Category: Education
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Norman, Oklahoma is the unlikely nexus for the Schools of the Pacific Atmospheric Monitoring project. From the mainland U.S. and Hawaii, all across the lonely atolls to New Zealand, monitoring stations have been set up at schools to collect data on rainfall, uv radiation, and the like, every fifteen minutes, twenty-four/seven/365. Back at mission central, the University of Oklahoma, all data is plotted and analyzed for the benefit of atmospheric science. The Web project is lagging a little; interactive maps are mostly inoperative, with mock data only. Nevertheless, this is one of those sites that puts the worldwide in WWW; look for it to grow and improve.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 12

The Cheat Web
URL: http://pages.prodigy.com/evilash/cheat.htm
Category: Education
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Here's a site for high school students needing a paper fast, and willing to cheat in order to pass a class. With the permission of their respective authors, webmaster Chris Salyers offers a few dozen essays in English (*The Scarlet Letter*), Science (earthworms) and History (Pompeii). According to the classification system, the material here is mostly B-level work by sophomores and juniors. In theory, you just add your name and presto -- a day at the beach. However, the files are poorly formatted, riddled with garbage and annoying to decipher, which makes doing homework seem appealing in comparison.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 12

The University of Michigan
URL: http://www.umich.edu/
Category: Education
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
The University of Michigan has long been famous in the Internet community for its vast file archive site (find more info about this by going to http://www.umich.edu/~archive/). But there¹s more to U. Michigan than free software. Like, a top-ranked university! The site gives the usual information about its academic programs and such, beautifully linked and annotated via search engines, tables of contents, and clickable image maps. One coincidence makes the site aesthetically pleasing: U.M.¹s logo blue matches the ³unfollowed link² blue in Netscape¹s browser. Not to mention my eyes.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 11

Peterson's Education Center
URL: http://www.petersons.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Wow. It¹s not often that information resource companies give you full access to their material via the Web: There¹s still no effective way to make money off of it. Peterson¹s does, however, providing a huge stock of info about schools, summer programs, and business management. As with most pages, this site is under continual construction; you¹ll frequently be greeted by a ³We¹re sorry...² message. But the areas that *are* fully implemented ‹ such as those with Graduate School information ‹ are gorgeous, complete, and easy-to-use. Peterson¹s Education Center is a gem that will only get better ‹ until you have to pay for it.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 11

Mr. Trockman¹s Earth Science
URL: http://www.minnetonka.k12.mn.us/mme/trockman/earthsi.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jon Phillips
Sure, this may just be the humble Web page of a humble eighth grade earth science teacher in humble Minnesota, but without a doubt, one may safely say: The Trock rocks! (all puns intended). Dan Trockman is obviously one wacky dude who knows how to make science fun. You¹ll find playful backgrounds of lava and snowflakes, as well as photos of volcanoes and blizzards (the Trock, in a flurry of photo-journalistic inspiration, even posted local Minnesota photos from last winter¹s arctic snow storms). All the levity is balanced with concise lecture notes for home-bound students. This is a model for using the Web to augment traditional curriculum.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 10

The World Lecture Hall
URL: http://wwwhost.cc.utexas.edu/world/lecture/
Category: Education
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
This is the ultimate Web resource for the independent student. Providing links to online course materials posted by universities all over America in subjects ranging from ³accounting² to ³zoology,² the site lets students interested in self-study but not in relying on local college schedules get guidance on just about anything. Of course, lab work will be kind of difficult for the science courses, unless you happen to have a particularly well-equipped kitchen.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 8

UC Berkeley Home Page
URL: http://www.berkeley.edu/
Category: Education
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
In a region known for compromise and reason, the University of California at Berkeley¹s Web pages are elegantly reasoned and make compromises so they¹re both user-friendly and fast. The contents can be access via nicely arranged text choices rather than by image maps, so the site is as useful to someone on a Unix box as on a Mac. The content is deep and varied, from the Naval Architecture school to the click-to-zoom-in campus map. If you¹re into general Web search engines, be sure to add Berkeley¹s ³Inktomi² (http://inktomi.berkeley.edu/) to your list.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 8

Web 66
URL: http://web66.coled.umn.edu/
Category: Education
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
The mission of Web 66 is to provide resources to help K12 schools get on the Web. This may seem a questionable goal with all the hype about whether the Internet is a safe place for kids, but the Web master clears that right up by quoting headlines in his personal rants section that indicate how much more dangerous the outside world is for kids. Web 66 has instructions for educators to set up Web servers, and a very impressive list of K12 schools from around the world that are online.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 8

Welcome to CNU ONLINE
URL: http://cnuonline.cnu.edu/
Category: Education
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Christopher Newport University, located in Virginia, is trying to push the envelope of modern education practice by offering a substantive number of classes online. It¹s even offering a degree in governmental administration through online course work. Unfortunately, the Web site is just a front for a Telnet gateway, and at least one of the Telnet addresses given on the Web site is wrong, which made it impossible to get course information. The Telnet gateway that I could get to run was so slow, it could turn a four-year degree into a six-year degree.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 8

Yale University World Wide Web Front Door
URL: http://www.cis.yale.edu/index.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
The Yale University site is everything the Harvard site isn¹t. Just kidding! Though, quite honestly, Yale¹s Web set-up beats its historical nemesis¹. At the top level are listings for P.R. information, search engines, maps, academic department pages, student activities... Lots of stuff here. Thank god it¹s so well-organized! Running a search shows just how much there is: the word ³racquetball² returned 10 pages, including news of the sports team, a description of the athletic facilities, and someone¹s experiments with the Connectix QuickCam, a video input device ³about the size of a racquetball.² Pretty good search engine, that!
Overall Rating (out of 18): 8

Home-Ed-Kids
URL: http://sara.zia.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
So, you think you¹re going to find treatises on the advantages of home schooling at this site? Not on your noodle. This page is dedicated to the kids themselves. It is an area for home-schooled youths to meet and interact, just as their public school friends interact on physical playgrounds. Much of the site is developed by preteens. The content is uneven, but when it is good, it soars ‹ and the technical sophistication is astounding (chat rooms, bulletin boards, image maps, and search engines all play a part.). Get bowled over by incredible depths of information by visiting the parent directories as well.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 8

Ethnologue Database
URL: http://www-ala.doc.ic.ac.uk/~rap/Ethnologue/
Category: Education
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
One of my favorite books is *Languages of the World*, by the genius lexicographer Kenneth Katzman. It includes information on several hundred of the world¹s 6,500 languages, with ‹ and this is the good part ‹ examples of each. The Ethnologue Database is a similar project, minus the examples. On this web site, the world¹s languages are cataloged according to name, linguistic family, and region in which they are spoken. Despite the shallowness of information on individual languages and some inaccuracies, the Ethnologue Database belongs on every linguist¹s hotlist.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 8

UT Austin Web Central
URL: http://www.utexas.edu/
Category: Education
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Austin can be considered the birthplace of the ³slacker² archetype: a center for high-tech companies, one of the few progressive cities in Texas... and, rumor has it, there¹s a university down there, too. Well blow me down. UT is a gargantuan university, and its WWW presence reflects its size. The site¹s internal search engine bears this out: A search for the word ³racquetball² returned 17 references, mostly on students¹ personal pages. Altogether, there are more than 25,000 web pages on 170 servers (so they say, anyway), including everything you ever wanted to know about UT. Beware the badly designed image maps.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 8

Carnegie Mellon University
URL: http://www.cmu.edu/
Category: Education
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Carnegie Mellon has long bragged of its strong computer sciences department, and from this site¹s depth, it¹s clear that its pride is deserved. Interested in studying drama at CMU? Check out course descriptions, and even see when classes are meeting, thanks to some clever links to the registrar¹s office. Some improperly linked image maps marred the site¹s effectiveness, however. Whatever faults it has, though, Carnegie Mellon gets my praise for its Lycos program, one of the better free Web search tools. You can reach it through these pages or directly at http://lycos.com/.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 7

Classroom Connect Educational Links
URL: http://www.wentworth.com/classroom/edulinks.htm
Category: Education
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
This is primarily a site full of links, which can be useful, but if every site just had links to other sites, the Web would be pretty empty. O.K., as a site focusing on educational links, Classroom Connect is pretty good, since it¹s packed, although some of the choices are a little bit odd. This may be due to a lack of focus. Is this a site for K12 students, educators, or parents? A link to ³Pooh Corner² on the same page as a link to ³British Poetry: 1780 to 1910² is a little bit questionable.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 7

Stanford University Home Page
URL: http://www.stanford.edu/
Category: Education
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Stanford University was one of the first sites on the Internet. Though it¹s no longer a leader in Internet connectivity, its WWW pages show it¹s kept abreast of the net¹s dynamic changes. The site¹s centerpiece is ³Portfolio,² which links Stanford¹s extensive but old-fashioned Gopher and FTP sites with a snazzy new Web interface ‹ pretty clever! (This mixture of sources tends to make the content a bit uneven, however.) As with most university servers, there¹s a directory of student Web pages. Also find good links to info on getting around the South Bay/Silicon Valley area.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 7

Washington University in St Louis
URL: http://www.wustl.edu/
Category: Education
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Washington University¹s Web pages have a clean, crisp organization and some useful features lacking at some of the larger sites. Want to check your e-mail? Click here. Want to do an Infoseek search without leaving university property? No problem. Add a bit of surreality to your visit by clicking on the ³What¹s This?² button, which leads to a page of basic information about using the Web, site statistics, etc. So, even if they¹ve never been to W.U., first-time users are already getting an education. Still, this handsome site lacks the content depth found at some other universities.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 7

Princeton Review
URL: http://www.review.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jon Phillips
High school juniors and seniors who simply *must* attend the best universities would do well to visit this site presented by the ³nation¹s leader in test preparation.² That¹s right: the Princeton Review offers classes on preparing for standardized tests like the SAT, GRE and MCAT, which will later get you into ‹ guess what? ‹ more classes. Study, study, study. Achieve, achieve, achieve. That¹s the Princeton way, but there¹s no disputing the Review¹s attraction if you aspire to a career in law, business or medicine. A search engine eases navigation, but lengthy download times of frivolous graphics may leave you peeved.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 7

Canadian Homeschool Resource Page
URL: http://www.flora.ottawa.on.ca/homeschool-ca/
Category: Education
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
This site proposes an alternative to public schooling in Canada while offering information and resources parents may need if they intend to teach the kids themselves. Wish to talk with other homeschooling parents? There are local contact addresses for some (though not all) of the provinces. Generally speaking, the site is less thorough than some of its U.S. counterparts (such as http://www.ICtheWeb.com/hs-web/) and the FAQ is somewhat incomplete. Still, an admirable start.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 6

Harvard University WWW Home Page
URL: http://www.harvard.edu/
Category: Education
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
At first, the Harvard University site looks pretty drab: a few choices linking you to ugly, text-only Gopher sites, phone numbers, historical information, rah rah rah. But underneath some of those links are profound pools. Take a gander at the map of Harvard, for example, which zooms in on any building in the university¹s expansive campus. Similarly, there's gold under some other links, including admissions and registration information. And Harvard¹s not too proud to include several links to one of its local competitors, M.I.T., in its ³resources.²
Overall Rating (out of 18): 6

Journal of Distance Education
URL: gopher://gopher.acs.ohio-state.edu:70/11/Journals%20%26%20Newsletters/OSU%20Libraries%27%20Electronic%20Serials/Journal%20of%20Dist.%20Educ.%20%26%20Comm.
Category: Education
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Although only a Gopher site, the Journal of Distance Education is an example of some of the great, free resources available on the Internet. For this particular site, it helps if you have some kind of administrative or theoretical interest in distance education. The journal is published twice a year, and covers a topic that is shifting into high-gear because the Internet is making long-distance learning a lot more practical.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 6

Middle of Nowhere
URL: http://gopher.gmu.edu/bcox/index.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Middle of Nowhere is an experiment by Professor Brad Cox in building a site with depth on the Web, something he claims is an impossible task. Various thematically oriented sets of articles in the warehouse section of this site seem to prove him wrong. The themes focus on the Internet and current social issues. The site also has the online portions of classes Professor Cox teaches, so the unenrolled can follow along at home. The organization of the site leaves something to be desired.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 6

The EdWeb Home Room
URL: http://edweb.cnidr.org:90/resource.cntnts.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
EdWeb comes off as uninspired. Most of the subject matter has to do with the use of technology in K12 education, which doesn¹t have to be such a dry subject. The articles on EdWeb have some good statistics you can throw around at cocktail parties, but they¹re so buried by banal design and endless text that most people will fall asleep before reaching them. This site is probably best suited to parents who know nothing about the Internet and want to know whether it would be a good thing for their kids to learn to use.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 6

American Montessori Society
URL: http://www.seattleu.edu/~jcm/montessori/menu_link.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Most parents and educators have, at one time or another, become disgusted with the state of education in the United States. A small but significant minority has opted for innovative montessori schools, which follow the lead of Italy¹s Dr. Maria Montessori. This site fulfills three purposes: It promotes (endlessly) the montessori method; acts as conduit to the American Montessori Society; and provides a list of public montessori schools. This last 76K tidbit (probably the most useful for most visitors) is found at the bottom of the home page. But wander about: You¹ll be surprised at what you¹ll learn!
Overall Rating (out of 18): 6

Homespun Web of Home Educational Resources
URL: http://www.ICtheWeb.com/hs-web/
Category: Education
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Homeschooling ‹ do-it-yourself education, if you will ‹ is how a select few parents gain more control of their kids¹ education. This site is a clearinghouse on that subject, with special emphasis on archival data like FAQs, newsgroups, and lists of contact people. While a high percentage of homeschooling proponents teach their kids at home for religious reasons, the site is mostly unbiased on such matters. It *is* heavily Texas-oriented, though, as that state seems to have the most active homeschooling movement. While its content isn¹t terribly deep, the Homespun Web is a good place for concerned parents to start.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 6

The Student Guide 1995-96
URL: http://www.ed.gov/prog_info/SFA/StudentGuide/
Category: Education
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
For most students, the most difficult hurdle of higher education isn¹t the course work ‹ it¹s finding the money to pay for it. A lot of college funding ultimately comes from the federal government in the form of loans and grants. But how can you learn more about financial aid? That¹s where The Student Guide comes in. Released each year by the Department of Education, it tells you how to qualify, whom to contact, and how you can expect to repay the loans. This web site is really just a more ³browsable² form of a 126K document, which is also available for downloading. Regardless of how you view The Student Guide, every prospective college student should check it out.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 6

LearnWorld Welcome Page
URL: http://www.webcom.com/~larkin/LW/LWWelcomePage.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
LearnWorld is a great idea. Anybody who wants to can set up a course on a topic by outlining a series of texts to read, and including their own notes on their position on the topic. Anyone who would like to learn about the topic can use this as a course outline. Unfortunately, the LearnWorld pages focus too much on the list of texts, and don¹t have a structure for the course creator to guide the students through the texts.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 5

The MIT Home Page
URL: http://web.mit.edu/
Category: Education
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
To me, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will always be known primarily for the witty pranks of technically minded students, but you¹ll have to dig hard to find that info here (try http://fishwrap.mit.edu/Hacks/Gallery.html instead). You will find just about everything else about MIT. For a bunch of geeks, though, it¹s rather pedestrian: no image maps or search engines worth mentioning, cryptic icons, and mostly just text. Be sure to check out the ³fun stuff² area, which includes tips for hacking the campus security cards. Cool! Let¹s get user-friendly, folks!
Overall Rating (out of 18): 5

VLC.Homepage
URL: http://www.snowcrest.net/villcen/vlchp.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
The Village Learning Center bills itself as a new type of school that will ³preserve and nurture the yearning for learning that everyone is born with.² This doesn¹t explain why it became an online school, but the lack of accreditation might have something to do with it. A mere $1,195 buys a semester of work at home ‹ e-mail assignments in course work for the seventh to ninth grade set. Use at your own risk.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 5

World Association for Family and Education WAFE
URL: http://www.stria.ca/wafe/
Category: Education
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
WAFE¹s Web site is primarily a resource for the group to disseminate information on its conferences. Because WAFE is international, the Internet is probably a pretty good medium for it, saving substantial amounts of money on printing and mailing costs. WAFE¹s mission statement, which is published on the site, is a little bit spacy, and seems pretty narrow-minded with its emphasis that ³Marriage, the only proper context for full expression of the love between one man and one woman, is the rock upon which the family rests.²
Overall Rating (out of 18): 5

AcademicNet Home Page
URL: http://www.academic.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
AcademicNet looks promising: nicely rendered image maps, plenty of places to click, a fancy registration system, and a statement that it is *the* resource for ³educators interested in technology-mediated instruction and learning in higher education.² Unfortunately, there¹s very little to see until you register, and not much after that. Many of the internal links were broken, and the stuff that was present was self-serving and written in a dry, uninformative tone. Some of the collections of external links are worthwhile, though ‹ if you can find them among the chaff.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 4

PUBLIC TEACH IN
URL: http://www.peacenet.org/Teach-In/
Category: Education
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Missed New York¹s International Forum on Globalization last November? Well, you can still take a trip to its Internet audio archives, which has four speeches given at that event. Unfortunately, that¹s it! There¹s no information about the teach-in itself or about the one coming up, nor are there links to groups and events with a similar weltanschauung. Make up for some of these lacks by visiting the site¹s parent directory, at http://www.peacenet.org/. Note: If you don¹t have the free RealAudio player, this site is completely pointless; download it at http://www.realaudio.com/.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 4

Elementary Spanish Curriculum
URL: http://www.veen.com/Veen/Leslie/Curriculum/
Category: Education
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Are you looking for an online source for Spanish language instruction? Well, you won¹t find it here. Instead, educator Leslie Veen outlines her method of teaching Spanish to elementary- and middle school-age children. The one-page document includes goals for grammar, vocabulary, and cultural understanding, from the point of view of the teacher. It¹s not that this site is badly done ‹ the curriculum is as good as anything you¹ll get from your local high-school teacher. But that¹s all there is to it, and, as such, it¹s of limited interest.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 4