Plugged In
URL: http://pluggedin.org
Category: Kids
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
There is a lot of talk about the haves and have-nots with respect to society and the Internet, sociologists speculating that the underclass will be left behind in this so-called information revolution. The folks at Plugged In are trying to do something about that. A community center in East Palo Alto, Plugged In is trying to bridge the chasm between the wealth of Silicon Valley and the blight of its next door neighbor by offering computer classes to kids and teens. The fruits of their labors are exhibited at the center¹s Web page, where kids develop and execute digital projects with the help of their teachers and corporate sponsorship. It¹s a model program, well worth a visit.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18
The International Kids Space
URL: http://plaza.interport.net/kids_space/
Category: Kids
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
"Of the kids, by the kids, and for the kids," The International Kids Space uses the Internet to its best advantage by providing a place for kids to interact with each other in a meaningful way. The graphics are a bit coy at first glance, but they aren't representative of the challenge and creativity involved in the activities. Particular highlights are the Kids' Gallery, Web Kids' Village, and Story Book, where kids can write original stories, or take part in an interactive writing exercise in which they assign meaning to a fixed set of symbols and incorporate them into stories they create (sort of a rebus in reverse).
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18
Science Friday Kid's Connection
URL: http://www.npr.org/sfkids/index.html
Category: Kids
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
What an utterly cool site! Supplementing a show on public radio, this
site allows children to perform fun experiments while learning about
gravity, inertia, the brain, plastics, insects, emerging diseases and,
yes, even human reproduction. Every week's edition of the radio show
has two topics and this site is updated weekly during the school year to
provide additional information, every bit of which is entertaining and
thought-provoking, even for adults. In fact, forget the kids and wander
around for yourself. You'll have a blast just following the related links
in their archive. Cool, cool, cool.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18
Nye Labs Online
URL: http://nyelabs.kcts.org/
Category: Kids
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Patrick Joseph
Bill Nye *is* the Science Guy.
Folks in Seattle also know him as Speedwalker, Captain Flanker, and Rainbow Man the Refrigerator Magnet from the local comedy show, *Almost Live*, but his principal persona, the alias that has propelled his syndicated TV-show is Bill Nye, the Science Guy.
A former Boeing engineer-turned comedian-turned TV-host and science educator, he¹s the guy we all wish had taught us chemistry (or physics, or biology, or you name it) in high school. This site is packed with the kind of stuff that should have been in the curriculum back then, but wasn¹t -- or was, but was rendered about as interesting as leftover meatloaf by some well-meaning but soporific instructor (sorry, Mr. Mills). As with most so-called ³kid¹s sites,² I found myself learning plenty (one of the bonuses of the job, I suppose: remedial education).
There are a number of ways to navigate the site. The one I found most useful was the Nye Labs Online Map. A clickable flow chart, the ³map² gives the lay of the land while providing some good insight into how information is organized on a website.
Go to Nye TV to ³see something very cool.² (You¹ll have to download and install the VDOLive plug-in to do so, but it¹s worth it. You can link to VDO from the site). If your system isn¹t ready for that, no worries; even without the fancy technology, you¹ll find plenty of cool stuff. The Demo of the Day, for instance, serves up random experiments you can try at home. Don¹t have all the stuff you need to perform the demo on screen? Just hit reload for a new one. Each experiment is backed up with related links to supplement your newfound knowledge. And if its links you want, go to Web Search or have a look at Bill¹s Top Ten. The first link is the Disney site -- the folks who pay the bills (the Science Guy is no fool) -- but the other nine are non-aligned and excellent.
Fans of the television show can check here for schedules and info on upcoming episodes. And if you still can¹t get enough, there are Quicktime clips in the Goodies section plus a sound file of Seattle rockers, *Mudhoney*, doing a cover of the theme song. If you want to own some Nyeage for the home library, you¹ll find the Disney video series in the Nyestore.
Science, kids: It¹s a whole lot more fun than you thought.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18
Just for Kids
URL: http://aone.com/~mrbill/kids.html
Category: Kids
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
This visually delightful page does a fantastic job of reviewing Websites
produced by and for kids, ages 18 and under. Every week, those of the
highest caliber receive Digby's "Four-Paws" Award for Excellence. The ones
that I saw were stylishly designed, and ideally suited to kids who want to
connect with each other. A select few, like Katie Prunka's Pooh Pages prove
that some of the most charming design is coming from the minds of 7th
graders. In building this page Webmaster Bill Earles has added rare value
to the Internet. You can join him by nominating your favorite sites.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18
ThinkQuest
URL: http://www.advanced.org/thinkquest/
Category: Kids
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
ThinkQuest is an annual contest that challenges students, ages 12 to 18, to use the Internet as a collaborative, interactive teaching and learning tool by joining in teams of two or three and competing to build Web tools or materials that will help educate other. The winning team (one in each of five subject areas) receives college scholarships and its coaches and schools receive cash prizes. Browse through a library of past entries to see what past ThinkQuest participants have come up with: the results are impressive. Advanced Network & Services, who sponsors ThinkQuest, provides workshops in various towns to give students the skills to design their own Web pages.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18
You Can with Beakman and Jax
URL: http://www.nbn.com:80/youcan/
Category: Kids
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Jok Church teaches kids science with his characters, Beakman and Jax, in a weekly comic strip and on the television show Beakman¹s World. The Beakman approach to science is wonderfully practical, answering all those perfectly perplexing questions that kids ask like, ³Why do feet smell?² and, ³How do you make paper?² The explanations stress the importance of each question up front, accompanied by experiments that kids can perform in order to grasp the concepts themselves. Perhaps best of all, the experiments and questions are all archived on the Web site making it a worthy addition to any kid¹s bookmark list. The site broadcasts two positive slogans, ³You can² and ³A good question is a powerful thing,² which encourage kids to follow their curiosity to its most favorable end: Knowledge.
The site begins with a ³You can² experiment designed to give kids some insight into how a computer monitor works. This particular demonstration employs a graphic with 8 horizontal white lines against a green background. Visitors are instructed to stand across the room and blow a raspberry while looking at the screen, making the image jiggle. Beakman explains that the monitor is constantly redrawing the image, and that rattling your head like that allows you to see the normally invisible redrawing action.
Another section features 50 questions that kids have sent in, with appropriate experiments and explanations. One question asks ³Where do dreams come from?² Seems like a pretty tall order, but Beakman¹s answer is simple: they come from you. Two experiments lend considerable insight into the workings of the unconscious. In the first one kids are told to write the name of an object on one side of a piece of paper, then, on the other side, a list of all the things that object reminds them of. The disparity gives kids a hint at the difference between the conscious and unconscious mind. The second experiment involves active dreaming, which, although it may seem like a pretty self-aware exercise for kids, is handled in a way which is easy to apprehend.
Other sections of the site include pictures from the Hubble telescope and links to good science sites on the Web. All in all, this is a rich resource that not only teaches kids facts, but teaches them how to learn and reason for themselves. Excellent. Now someone tell me why the sky is blue.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17
Kids¹ WB
URL: http://pathfinder.com/@@DNMKigYALeycHoX*/KidsWB/home.html
Category: Kids
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Kids' WB, a.k.a. the Warner Brothers¹ TV network¹s children's programming service, sports a nice mix of parent and child info about its regular Saturday offerings. These include four ³Steven Spielberg Presents² productions (Animaniacs, Freakazoids, Pinky and the Brain, and the Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries). You¹ll also find a nicely-illustrated ³How We Make Cartoons² page; the history of Warner Brothers¹ classic animation; downloadable games, cartoons, video and sound files; and of course a TV schedule. Though it¹s laced with enthusiastic PR-speak, the site is colorful and appealing.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17
Uncle Bob's Kid Page
URL: http://gagme.wwa.com/~boba/kids.html
Category: Kids
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
This groovy-looking page hosts a long and diverse list of annotated links
to Websites deemed "safe" for kids' consumption. Rows of animated smiley
faces divide the page's various sections, rendering the act of scrolling an
exercise in hilarity that won't be soon forgotten. Parents and kids alike
may be surprised to find such a wide range of sites that are "appropriate"for the entire family. Trivia, pets, puppets, sports, games, art, and
everything in between is covered by Bob Allison's discerning eye. If you're
a kid with some time to browse, I'd check this out immediately.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17
Whitehouse for Kids
URL: http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/kids/html/home.html
Category: Kids
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
Hey there kids, go knock on the big front door at 1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue. Socks, the Clinton family cat, will be glad to give you a tour and the rundown on all the former four-legged residents. Let¹s see, there was Amy Carter¹s cat, Misty Malarkey Ying Yang, Lyndon Johnson¹s vociferous beagles, Him and Her, and Caroline Kennedy¹s pony, Macaroni. There were even two goats: a billygoat that belonged to Benjamin Harrison¹s son, and a scapegoat that belonged to the Reagans. Their spaniel, Rex, it seems, would often pull the President away from reporters before he could answer their questions. Bad dog, Rex.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16
KidPub
URL: http://escrime.en-garde.com/kidpub/
Category: Kids
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
KidPub is a page where youngsters can submit their stories and poems for publication, and if you go there, you¹ll be surprised by what you find. The works range in tone from funny to poignant to downright profound, with a sophistication that doesn¹t rely on big, fancy words. Consider this poem, for example, from the site by Amanda S. Beattie, called *Bad Aim Dive*: ³With a twist of her hip/ And a double back flip/ And also a bend of her knee/ She fell straight down/ And went "splat" on the ground/ For terrible aim had she.² Good, isn¹t it?
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16
Kid's World
URL: http://www.kidsworld.com
Category: Kids
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
Can you say sugar shock, boys and girls? We knew you could. Okay, so it's not as cloying as, say, Baby Bop. But the ol' Bopster would feel right at home. This site is utterly, hopelessly, brazenly harmless, except to adults. Adults who linger will suffer terribly. Children with an especially high glucose tolerance
will enjoy the games and activities, which develop reading, arithmetic,
and basic science knowledge. The site is graphics-heavy and relatively
slow-loading. The whole sugary blob is sponsored by game maker 7th Level, and should serve as a nice intro for young¹uns new to the Internet.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16
Klaas Foundation for Children
URL: http://www.klaaskids.inter.net/index.htm
Category: Kids
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
This site has a lot going for it beside the obvious accolades it deserves for working to safeguard kids. The foundation's goal is to "stop crimes against our children in this generation," and some of the ideas explored here make that vitally important aim seem within reach. For those unfamiliar with the case, 12-year old Polly Klaas was abducted from her home in Petaluma, California in October, 1993. She was later found murdered. Regrettably, the site devotes as much attention to Marc Klaas, Polly¹s father, as it does to the issue of child protection. But perhaps that¹s what is needed: a visible advocate who never shuts up -- like a smoke alarm, his shriek will someday save lives.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16
The Schoolhouse Rock Page
URL: http://iquest.com/~bamafan/shr/
Category: Kids
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
Schoolhouse Rock devotees everywhere will get a kick out of this site, the
be-all and end-all of Schoolhouse Rock worship. Who could have guessed that those clever educational ditties from mid-1970s Saturday mornings would become a cottage industry in the wired 90s? Roughly 65 megabytes of WAV files and the lyrics to every song are joined here by information about licensed
clothing, audio CDs, CD-ROM, books, videos and more. Even the graphics on
the web site are video captures (poor quality ones) from the series. Strangely, there are no video clips. Now, everybody sing: "I'm just a bill..."
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16
Superkids.com
URL: http://www.superkids.com
Category: Kids
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
Parents and teachers looking for educational software will be thrilled by this very dry site. Children will be repelled. Reviews describe games with language like "a multidisciplinary program built around a spelling model" and rate software according to such categories as methodology and proxy-parent
value, as well as the more obvious fun factor and ease of use. Program
reviews can be viewed alphabetically, by category, or by price. The
restrained, stuffy graphics create an antiseptic, corporate report look. Wear a frown and your hair in a bun to get in the proper mood for this one.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16
Monkey Business
URL: http://www.jotto.com/menu.html
Category: Kids
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Appealing graphics make Monkey Biz fun, but it helps to be familiar with Space Monkey books from the get-go, and to be able to read plain, densely formatted type. The producers the site/books/T-shirts clearly intend to make Space Monkey¹s persona paramount, but is our simian astonaut meant to appeal to parents or kids? Grown-up jokes are embedded in the copy (will kids want to click on ³a message from the CEO² -- even if it turns out to be SM himself?). Sadly, there are lots of typos throughout. Let¹s hope the visitors are all good spellers.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16
The Mad Scientist Network
URL: http://medinfo.wustl.edu/~ysp/MSN/
Category: Kids
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Created by altruistic grad students at St. Louis¹ Washington University, the Network is perfect for finishing homework assignments. It¹s also geared to the incurably curious. The site is bursting with Q & A on chemistry, biology, astronomy, botany, genetics, and a surprising number of other scientific disciplines. Search on the network to send messages directly to the Mad Scientists of your choice. Or join the Network yourself. There¹s a growing archive of queries to scan, and the Mad Scientists are adding Mad Mathematicians, too. A good idea that deserves to grow. Also be sure to link to the Young Scientist Program.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16
The Field Museum
URL: http://www.bvis.uic.edu/museum/Home.html
Category: Kids
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Chicago¹s venerable Field Museum of Natural History has created an online learning environment. The Life Over Time exhibit lets viewers watch MPEG animations of a triceratops and other creatures running across prehistoric ranges, as well as read illustrated descriptions of dinosaur dining habits. A link on the exhibit pages takes teachers to a set of classroom activities using information from the exhibit. Elsewhere on the site, older students and adults can read about a Field archaeologist¹s potentially path-breaking work on early human cultures in the Amazon Basin. Hopefully, other museums will take note.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16
ACE Kids
URL: http://www.acekids.com/bkground.html
Category: Kids
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
A well-organized base site for students who want to explore the net, ACE (Academic Center for Excellence) Kids provides links to and brief descriptions of kids¹ Web pages, as well as lists of U.S. and Japanese school Web sites and links to child-appropriate resources in categories such as games, research, and sports. Homework Helper matches up students for peer tutoring, and ACE Kids Lit. publishes short stories by budding writers. Hopefully they won¹t use this site as a prose model, or by the time they¹re adults the English language could be reduced to one word: "cool.²
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16
MIDLINK MAGAZINE
URL: http://longwood.cs.ucf.edu:80/~MidLink/
Category: Kids
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
The URL for this site is case sensitive, so be sure to capitalize the M and the L in MidLink, or you won't connect. This site is targeted at 10 to 15-year-olds and updated quarterly. Much of the content is provided by students, including a VR walkthrough of Ligon Middle School. If you ever wondered why earwax is significant in toothless whales, or questioned the equatorial connection between transvestitism and Vikings, or doubted the wisdom of bringing vinegar with you when you visit an Australian beach, this site is ready for you. Their FTP server is misconfigured, though.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16
YouthLink
URL: http://www.youthlink.org/
Category: Kids
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Billing itself as the voice of America¹s youth, Youthlink is the site for first national youth conventions. Sorry, there, grups, you can¹t cast your vote here if you¹re over 24. In the U Gotta Know section, get statistics on how the U.S. ranks internationally in terms of young people¹s quality of life. The First National Youth Conventions were non-partisan events held in San Diego on August 12 and 13 and Chicago on August 26 and 27 concurrent with the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. Youth Delegates at the San Diego and Chicago Youth Conventions presented responses from the Web site in the form of a National Youth Platform to the residential candidates and national media.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16
Hands On Children's Museum
URL: http://www.wln.com/~deltapac/hocm.html
Category: Kids
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
This homey Web site can be divided into three main subjects: the Hands On Children's Museum; the city of Olympia, Washington; and Ocean Odyssey, their current featured exhibit. The Ocean Odyssey section has a comprehensive listing of links related to all things aquatic, including: underwater photos; environmental groups; the Titanic home page; and *Moby Dick* and *Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea* online (which might not appeal to parents who pay for Internet access by the hour). If you are planning a visit to Olympia, and/or the museum, check out this site for all the pertinent information.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15
6th Grade Brain Bank
URL: http://www.zygomedia.com/61wc/
Category: Kids
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
As his Science Fair project, Patrick White has created this "homework home page," containing links to homework-help sites all over the world. Patrick has found some interesting sites, but their overall effectiveness is diluted by links that are either too esoteric (do sixth graders really have use for the Rosicrucian Fellowship Archive?), or not really applicable (the Cyber Math Help Room sounds impressive, but is actually the Michigan State University Math Department's home page). Of the six links I tried, three were no longer functioning. While it's a nice idea, there are lots of other kids' sites containing more relevant information.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15
Mr. Men Silly Page
URL: http://www.rucc.net.au/neteffect/mrmen/
Category: Kids
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
A gang of cheerful, silly Australian lads offer us lots of ³Mr. Men² cartoon characters, derived from a series of books. The site is simple and colorful, and young visitors are encouraged to draw their own Mr. Something-or-other characters and submit them for a monthly contest. The winning entry is actually printed on a T shirt and sent to the enterprising artist. Call me a P.C. prig if you must, but I don¹t see why all of the androgynous characters qualify as ³Mr.² (there¹s scant mention of a Little Miss watch you can order, but no string of characters using that moniker). Still, for those who know the context, Mr. Men is probably a fun page to visit once.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15
Stage Hand Puppets
URL: http://fox.nstn.ca/~puppets/
Category: Kids
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
The Stage Hand Puppets folks from Nova Scotia, Canada demonstrate their love of worldwide puppetry on this simple site. There are links to puppet pages from all over (Vietnamese water puppets, Japanese bunraku, a puppet ministry, sock puppets, Muppets, Balinese shadow puppets, African puppets -- you get the idea). Design and post a basic mitt-shaped puppet with features you choose. A calendar of puppet events and a catalogue of Stage Hand¹s own models, and play activity books on puppetry, round out the site. Not a lot of bells and whistles here, but tons of heart.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15
Eeeek-Net!
URL: http://www.eeeek.com/
Category: Kids
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Eeeek-Net is a California-based e-zine for kids. Cartoon icons and frames
organize a wide variety of informative and playful games and articles. On
the statistics page, for instance, you'll learn that the human body
contains enough iron to make a 3 inch nail. Elsewhere you can read a piece
about Nevada's mysterious Area 51, or learn how a mischievous parson
invented the story of George Washington and the cherry tree. The crossword
puzzles would be a lot more fun as an interactive Java applet and the
frames require adjustment. Nevertheless, there's plenty here to keep a kid
curious.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15
Cool Writers' Magazine
URL: http://www.halcyon.com/ahcool/home.html
Category: Kids
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
This is the Webzine of Seattle's Arbor Heights elementary school. Designed
by a teacher and perpetually under construction, these pages tap into the
Web's revolutionary educational potential. By uploading poems, essays and
stories, students are taught both to express and consider themselves in a
global context. Cross-linking between schools is encouraged, and you, dear
reader, are invited to send writing. They've got stuff from all over the
world on their server. There are also links to other nodes in the Arbor
Heights community, like the Jr. Seahawk Newspaper, as well as a list of
links for educators needing technological guidance.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15
Kids on the Internet
URL: http://www.the-hermes.net/~ljh/
Category: Kids
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
³I am 12 years old, and not some company, so I would know what kids like and want,² the president of Kids on the Internet (KOTI) confidently claims, and who am I to argue? Much of the site was under construction when I visited, but planned features include Kid Surf, a hand-picked (see above) list of sites accompanied by brief reviews; Sound Off, an e-zine filled with kids¹ writing; e-mail pal match-ups; and a guide to Internet chat conventions. KOTI could be the start of a kid-created online community.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15
A Bullet Can¹t Kill a Dream
URL: http://www.digitalrag.com/iqbal/iqbal.html
Category: Kids
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
A moving demonstration of how kids can make a difference in the lives of others, A Bullet Can¹t Kill a Dream outlines the short, tragic life of Iqbal Masih and the efforts of a Massachusetts middle school to help realize his vision. Iqbal, a Pakistani boy who escaped forced labor at age 10, spoke out worldwide against child slavery and in favor of schools. He was murdered last spring. Broad Meadows Middle School students have started a School for Iqbal Fund and launched a letter-writing campaign for an investigation into his death. The site tells kids how to get involved with both projects.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15
SANTA CLAUS HOME PAGE
URL: http://www.mofile.fi/rec/santa/
Category: Kids
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
The Santa Claus Home Page is sponsored by the Saint Nicholas Society, which sees Christmas as a "true sign of global unification" and a powerful force for understanding among people and cultures worldwide, particularly as the holiday's popularity grows each year. This site explains the way our modern celebration of Christmas and children's belief in Santa Claus has evolved
from international traditions dating back at least 2,000 years, drawing elements from many different religions, Christian and otherwise. Also discussed are some of the ways Christmas, Santa Claus, and other traditions are dealt with in other countries. Without supervision, no self-respecting kid will hang out here.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15
Flamed: For the NeXt GeNeRaTiOn
URL: http://www.flamed.com
Category: Kids
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Unknown
As so-called kid¹s sites go, this is an unusual one. It¹s sophisticated stuff, put together by a guy named Steve ³the Hen² Hendricks, a 29 year old from Toronto. Flamed is about encouraging kids‹a fairly loose term here‹to be aware, informed, and active in politics, self expression, and their own futures. Check out the interview with a 14 year old who puts forth his digital manifesto with all the guts and precision of someone three times his age. It¹s impressive. Not just for kids, this site would be a good place for anyone, young or old, to get in touch with the concerns of the next generation.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15
The World of Curious George
URL: http://www.hmco.com/hmco/trade/hmi/george/new.html
Category: Kids
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Curious George fans will be disappointed by Houghton Mifflin¹s "Web site lite," which basically exists to sell Curious George products of all kinds. Offerings include dolls, games, magnets, t-shirts, stationery, and videos (what kid doesn't want to own a Curious George in-the-box?). The real star of this site is HMC's new CD-ROM game, "Create Your Own Adventures With Curious George." A demo "mini-adventure" has the plucky George trying to match the right hat with the right person. It's cute, but loses appeal quickly, the screen reloading with each click of the mouse.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14
Carlos' Coloring Book
URL: http:www.ravenna.com/coloring/
Category: Kids
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Don't spend a lot of time trying to unravel the mystery of this Web site because it's exactly what it sounds like. A guy named Carlos has provided pictures for kids to color on the Internet. I tried it myself and found it to be quite ponderous. After choosing your color and clicking on a section of the picture, the screen reloads, and the section is miraculously colored in perfectly. Once the novelty wears off, and without the challenge of staying in the lines, it gets tedious. The whole thing made me nostalgic for the tactile pleasures of a big box of Crayola crayons.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14
Ingenius
URL: http://www.ingenius.com/
Category: Kids
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Aside from a few games, this site is strictly a sales pitch for Ingenius¹s information products: What on Earth, a weekly multimedia news journal for kids ages 8 to 14, and Ask A.N.D.I.E., an information-retrieval tool allowing students and others to pull material on specific subjects from more than 20 wire services. The company also runs Cyberhood, where kids can publish their artwork, poetry, and letters. If you¹re considering a purchase, you may find what you need to know here; otherwise, don¹t bother.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14
THE GRINCH NET
URL: http://lamar.colostate.edu/~ddave/grinchnet.html
Category: Kids
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
What's not to like about the Grinch? He's a loathsome, hateful malcontent, inside of whom beats the heart of a big ol' softy. Everybody who knows the Grinch, created by Dr. Suess, is impressed either by his nasty exterior (which has oodles of charm) or his sentimental interior. This site describes itself as "dedicated to the celebration of grinchiness around the world," but is really little more than a hypertext knickknack shelf, containing minor
trophies of grinchitude. There are JPEG files and AU files and an ASCII graphic of the Grinch, but no impressive grinchly scholarship. Disappointing.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14
Madlibs!
URL: http://www.mit.edu:8001/madlib
Category: Kids
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
You know, madlibs. You submit a verb, a number, a few modifiers and come up with something profound and/or insane, like: Writing a review is a very bloated task. You stay up for 203 hours and then you sleep for eleven hours. You obfuscate, you tabulate, and then you rectify. If your hedonistic copyeditor is a coconut, then you will have to tarnish your review, or at least pray to the blue cigarettes of Review. With any luck, after 1001 years, you will have a minty review. Either that, or you will be kicked out to live in the jam tart where you will be forced to work as a pamphleteer.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13
A CHRISTMAS TOY TREK
URL: http://www.dash.com/netro/fun/ttrek/ttrek.html
Category: Kids
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
Download everything from this site before you even tell any kids that it exists. Everything here is huge and lumbering, and children will be angered by the interminable wait. To get even a sense of what this site provides, a user must download endless megabytes of files and helper programs. The files, including QuickTime VR tours of Santa's workshop and clips in either QuickTime or MPEG format are very well done. Odd that the site is so amateurish and clunky by comparison. The navigational logic is either confusing or the site is broken. Its sponsor has a similar Halloween site.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13
SANTA'S SITE
URL: http://www.claus.com/
Category: Kids
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
Not exactly bubbling over with the holiday spirit, this site is password protected. The splash page promises six sections, none of which are accessible without the password: Santa Tracker, Recipes from Mrs. Claus, Naughty or Nice List, Traditions, Christmas Calendar, and E-Mail Santa. Among the passwords that will not let
users access the site are: hohoho, natividad, noel, christmas, grinch, rudolph, santa, kringle, nicholas, jollyoldelf, greed, capitalism, shopping, syphilis, avaricious, Malthusian, fatwhiteguy, reindeer, workshop, northpole, pagan, naughty, fatherchristmas, wishlist, opensesame, heyletmein, plumpudding, profit, crowdedshoppingmall, cookiesandmilk, and clementmoore. The splash page features recognizable clip art.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 12