The following is a look at some of the most
comprehensive—and reliable—educational websites a student can bookmark
and use to research school projects and homework assignments.
Math and science
This site
provides help in a number of mathematics-related subjects, including basic
grade-school math, calculus, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and statistics.
Practice exercises are automatically graded—and this free site also features a
glossary, calculators, homework tips, math games, and lesson plans for
teachers.
Science
classes—including the ubiquitous science project—aren't as easy for some to
grasp as they are for others. At Science Made Simple, elementary and middle
school students can get detailed answers to many science questions, read
current news articles related to science, get ideas on school projects, and
take advantage of unit conversion tables. Users can also find out if their
school's textbooks pass the test.
Ever wanted to
know why earthquakes happen? How CD burners work? What the sun is made of?
These questions, and many others related to computers/electronics, automobiles,
science, entertainment, and people, are all answered at this award-winning
website. Simply type a query into the search window or peruse the topics by category.
Extras include free newsletters, surveys, and printable versions of all
answers.
Web literacy and
general reference
All students—no
matter what age—need help navigating and evaluating the ever-growing store of
information available on the web. This University of Idaho site is an
information literacy primer that will quickly turn any half-hearted or random
searcher into a savvy Internet detective. It guides students through a series
of modules that teach them how to distinguish different kinds of information on
the Internet, search for and select research topics, search databases and other
collections, locate and cite sources, and evaluate the sources they find.
A merger of the
Internet Public Library and the Librarians' Internet Index, this site is a
comprehensive source of "information you can trust." Thousands of
volunteer library and information science professionals created and maintain
the site’s reference collections—sets of links to websites on U. S. presidents,
author biographies, museums, research and writing, literary criticism, and many
more topics. The Ask an ipl2 Librarian reference service, available 24 hours a
day, seven days a week, provides individualized help finding authoritative,
free online sources for specific topics.
Checking facts
in Internet sources is one of the key ways to evaluate them, and Refdesk.com,
which stands for "reference desk," simplifies this essential step.
Since 1995, Refdesk.com has served as a one-click springboard to many of the
web's top dictionaries, encyclopedias, calculators, atlases, news headlines,
and search engines. The site also includes a handy Homework Helper section (under the Help and Advice column on the
lower right of the page) that provides help in all subjects to students in
every grade.
For younger
students who are not quite ready to navigate Refdesk, Fact Monster from
Information Please is the tool to use. The Reference Desk on this site features
a layout that is designed for easy fact-finding and includes timelines and an
almanac, atlas, dictionary, and encyclopedia, as well as a Homework Center.
Students can also search by visually identified topics or by typing in
keywords. Check out fun features such as Biographies of the Presidents, the
Geography Hall of Fame, and the Tallest Buildings Slideshow.
Consider the
Microsoft Download Center your ultimate file repository. It links to tens of
thousands of downloadable free or shareware programs. These include updates,
utilities, applications, and extras for Windows, Macintosh, and other
platforms; Internet tools; security essentials; developer resources; mobile
devices; and, of course, computer games. You can search for what you need
alphabetically, by product family, by download category, or by typing in a
keyword. The Microsoft Worldwide Downloads site enables you to download files
in more than 80 different languages.
This site is the
cool place for the technology leaders of the future. It offers student
resources, helps students stay connected through its newsletters and technology
clubs, and provides a career portal and Students-to-Business program. The links
to scholarship competitions and to TechStudent—a site for website builders,
designers, and software developers in training—encourage creativity and skill
development. The Student Experience site also links to DreamSpark, which
enables students not only to download professional software such as Microsoft
Visual Studio, SQL Server, Visual C++ Express Edition, and Robotics Developer
Studio for free but provides free training for using these tools as well.
English and
history
Sprechen Sie
Deutsch? Perfect for language studies, this handy website automatically
converts text from one language into another, such as English to Simplified
Chinese or French to English. You can type and paste up to 10,000 characters
(about 1,800 words) into the search window and then select the desired
language. Or cut and paste a web URL to convert the entire site.
As every parent
and student knows, books that are required reading are not always available, or
if they are, students may misplace their copy before they finish the
assignment. Project Gutenberg to the rescue. This site enables you to download
more than 30,000 free electronic books to read on your computer, iPhone,
Kindle, Sony Reader, or other portable device in a variety of file formats. You
can search by title and author or browse their collection of classic works,
many of which are available in audio editions as well.
This site,
sponsored by Fordham University and edited by Paul Halsall, provides older
students with access to a collection of public domain and copy-permitted
historical texts for educational use. It includes collections of primary
sources in ancient, medieval, and modern history, as well as history of
science, women's history, African history, and others.
The web's answer
to those black- and yellow-striped Cliff Notes is Novelguide.com, a reliable
and free source for literary analysis of classic and contemporary books such as
Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Notes from the
Underground. The site offers character profiles, metaphor and theme
analysis, and author biographies.
This website can
be filed in the "where was this when I was a kid?" category. On this
aptly named site, visitors can read every play or poem from the world's most
celebrated writer and, more importantly, make some sense of his works with free
analysis, Old English language translations, and famous quotes.
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