Archive for the ‘great sites for students’ Category
Posted by Marti Weston on February 23, 2011
The LOC Reading Room - Picture taken from the entrance.
If you ever visit Washington, DC, save an afternoon or even a day to visit the Library of Congress (LOC). Filled with resources — primary and secondary, hands-on and digital — the Library is a delight for anyone who loves to learn. In my post , The Library of Congress: Go Exploring for Digital Resources, I wrote about a few LOC digital learning opportunities, and library website features many more. The digital learning resources are available no matter where a person lives, however there is much to see at the library itself, and a LOC library visit is fun for adults and children.
Last Monday, on the February holiday that honors Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, the Library of Congress, which was started with the book collection of another president, Thomas Jefferson, opened its main reading room to the public.
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Posted in digital parenting, great sites for students, Library of Congress, parents and technology, web research | Tagged: digital research, digital resources, main reading room, Thomas Jefferson, Washington D.C. | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Marti Weston on February 4, 2011
Check out the Google Art Project and explore art museums from around the world — some that you may have already visited and others that you hope to tour sometime in the future. I know that some museums here I may never get to visit, so it’s great to poke around. A parent and child or a grandparent and child can have lots of virtual fun exploring, viewing, and learning about actual pieces of art in each museum. Read the February 2, 2011 Washington Post article, Google Art Project: ‘Street View’ Technology Added to Museums, to learn more about some of the museums participating in Google Art Project.
The Chapel Where the Waverly Consort Performed
Just over a month ago I spent an amazing afternoon at The Cloisters Museum and Garden, a real medieval castle, imported from Spain, that is now a part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. We spent time walking around, especially taking time to look at the Unicorn Tapestries. Then we went into one of the chapels to listen and watch the Waverly Consort perform a Medieval Christmas story. I love The Cloisters Museum, though, I can count my visits on one hand, since I’ve never lived close enough go more often.
So I was delighted a few days ago (February 1, 2011) when Google Art Project appeared, essentially opening a virtual door to a group of museums from around the world, including The Cloisters. This nifty new web site uses some of the same technology that helps people surf around to street views with maps and Google Earth. I chose the Metropolitan Museum from the list of museums, went right over to a visitor’s guide link on the top right of the page, and arrived within moments at The Cloisters. A few more clicks and there I was in the same austere, but beautiful chapel where I listened to the concert last month. Very cool.
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Posted in Bookmark It!, digital parenting, great sites for students, parents and technology | Tagged: Google, Google Art Project, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters, virtual museum | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Marti Weston on November 30, 2010
Does someone in your house need an occasional grammar review? Do occasional questions about word use or punctuation come up as a family member writes important essays and reports? If so, check out Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing. It’s amusing for kids and adults, too, but there’s a lot to learn along the way. We listen to these podcasts just for fun, and I know a family that downloads the “casts” to listen to on family car trips (okay, it’s my family).
Visit Grammar Girl's Website
Grammar Girl posts regular podcasts — free and never more than a couple of minutes long — and they are chock-full of interesting information about usage, punctuation rules, and accepted practices. She uses humorous examples, not unlike the understated but clever examples found in Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, a revered but unpretentious reference first published in 1918 and still widely used today.
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Posted in great sites for students, homework, parents and technology | Tagged: Grammar, Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing, homework, homework help, web resources | 1 Comment »
Posted by Marti Weston on October 9, 2010
Parents and teachers are always on the hunt for a reliable Internet site that children can visit time after time and be certain of the quality and reliability of the content. The Internet Public Library (ipl2) fits the bill, a resource that is just as good for adults as it is for children. With a motto of “Information You Can Trust” the IPL2 is a searchable, subject-categorized directory of authoritative websites with links to online texts, newspapers, and other resources. Librarians review everything in the collection.
What to Check Out at the Internet Public Library Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in digital parenting, great sites for students, homework, Internet Public Library, parents and technology, research on the web, resources to read, teens and technology | Tagged: digital parenting, great web site for families, homework, homework help, Internet Public Library, IPL2, librarians, reference, reliable information, web resources | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Marti Weston on September 21, 2010
Summer is over, but your family can still travel virtually to out-of-town museums by visiting one of the web-based museum portals described below. Each leads to a wide range of museums close by and around the world. Some of the sites feature travel information as well as museums.
While it is easy to search for the larger, most well-known museums, these search sites can help people find hidden museum gems. Becoming familiar with these museum portals gives parents and students an additional bonus — museums are great resources for students to use when they work on school reports and projects. Below are four sites that provide hours of fun, not to mention unlimited information. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in great sites for students, homework, parents and technology, web research | Tagged: government sites for kids, homework, museum resources, museums | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Marti Weston on September 16, 2010
Have you ever wished you would make a quick graph as you help a child with homework or explain a complex concept by depicting it with a graph?
The National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) offers a “Create-a-Graph” site, and more than 20,000,000 users have made graphs since 2005. The site provides a quick getting-started tutorial to help get started, but the graph making is simple enough that a user can get started almost immediately. Graphs can be saved, printed, and e-mailed.
Be sure to check out the other math and statistics facts on the NCES kids’ site.
Posted in digital parenting, great sites for students, homework, parents and technology | Tagged: government sites for kids, graphing, homework help, math, National Center for Educational Statistics, NCES, statistics | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Marti Weston on September 10, 2010
When we were students we learned to write content-filled essays and reports. Our teachers taught us to introduce the important facts, facts we discovered using quality reference materials. With today’s websites a student follows the same rules, but reliability is a significant issue. While it is easy to find sites with information about a topic, identifying reliable and significant information is more of a challenge. The trick is to identify information that indicates whether or not a site is a reliable resource. Do not let your child use a site as a resource unless it is possible to determine its quality.
Many websites look both real and reliable, but they are bogus. A fun website to explore is at based at the Western Australia Province Department of Education. It features bogus websites designed to look accurate and authoritative. Except that they are not accurate or authoritative. Take a few minutes to explore. Better yet, explore them with your children.
Evaluate the Web Sites that You Use
Be sure you use sites with accurate and reliable information. If you have a research project or your child has a homework assignment plan to evaluate each website to ensure its quality. Also please read the following tips describing how to evaluate web-based information.
Ten Tips to Ensure that the Information is Useful and Accurate
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Posted in great sites for students, homework, parents and technology, web research | Tagged: evaluating resources, good web research, research, website | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Marti Weston on July 30, 2010
The United States Library of Congress started with Thomas Jefferson’s personal library – 6,487 books. Now it’s an enormous collection of information on almost any topic a person wants to study. The library’s history page notes that “… it has become the largest repository of recorded knowledge in the world and a symbol of the vital connection between knowledge and democracy.”
The resourceful staff at the Library have a finger on the cultural pulse of the country, so not only do the collections include books, papers, music, film, historical documents, and images, but now the library is digitizing its collection. As of February 2009 there were 15.3 million digitized items and anyone can access and download this information to a computer. According to the Library of Congress blog (subscribers welcomed), if all of those digitized items could be saved to CD-ROM disks, the pile would be a mile high, and that was more than a year ago.
The Library of Congress website is just the right place to get started with research for a class project or homework assignment. Start by going the section for kids and families, with features that are mostly, but not exclusively, useful to elementary and middle school students. Some of the searchable features in this section include: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in great sites for students, homework time, parents and technology | Tagged: American Memory Project, digital parenting, government sites for kids, homework, Library of Congress, reliable information, web resources | 1 Comment »
Posted by Marti Weston on July 16, 2010
When children ask questions about the United States Government, two sites provide online access to kid-friendly explanations, data, and legal responsibilities at a range of government agencies. Each site has advantages and disadvantages, but the two sites combined offer young students access to all sorts information, written expressly for kids. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in great sites for students, parents and technology | Tagged: government sites for kids, homework, site review, web resources | Leave a Comment »
