Five Representative Web Sites

The World Wide Web and its boundless resources was a tipping point for the launch of computer technology in the K-12 school environment. We soon learned that this resource was not without its downside, and schools soon began implementing filtering technologies to help teachers and other staff protect students from the dark side of the Internet and its inappropriate content. However, the challenges are offset by the sites offering quality content for student and teacher research. Of the sites that immediately came to mind in this category, I have chosen the following 5 to represent the range of resources available via the Web.



Anyone familiar with Internet searching knows Google, and the fact that “Googling” is now part of American vernacular shows that it is a major force with Internet users. In the early days of Internet research, a firm understanding of Boolean terminology was necessary as users conscientiously used AND, OR, NOT, quotes, and other qualifiers to locate appropriate information. Search engines like Google, Ask, and others that allowed users to do searches by entering questions such as how many steps are there in the statue of liberty moved Internet from the realm of the initiated few to the general public, and the value of the resource exploded. Since I know you’re wondering, according to several sites returned by the search, there are 254 steps inside the statue and its pedestal.



The Internet Public Library www.ipl.org was originally created by a student class at the University of Michigan’s School of Information. From the Spotlight article on the homepage to the deep and well organized content it offers, this site should be checked out by all educators and students. Media specialists will appreciate the way the site is cross-referenced; clicking the Education link under Subject Collections, for instance, not only brings up a list of subcategories fro Adult Education to U. S. Department of Education, but also offers See Also links to Magazines and Associations on the Net.

K-12 students may be most interested in IPL’s Kidspace, TeenSpace, Almanacs, Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, or their specialty POTUS (U.S. Presidents), Stately Knowledge, and Science Fair areas.



Microsoft has developed an online workspace for students and teachers to collaborate on projects. The new offering, called Office Live, allows students to store their work online and share it with other students and teachers for collaborative projects.

One of the interesting features of the service is an activity panel that tracks activity on the shared project, be it a database, spreadsheet, or document, so that you can easily see if there have been any modifications since you last logged on. You can even create e-mail alerts to inform you of changes.

Although you may not throw away your flash drives, as their site’s homepage implies, you will find this a valuable collaboration tool.




NASA’s web site is a personal favorite of mine. I admit to a certain prejudice here because, yes, I was a space geek. Despite the fact that space shuttle launches have become so commonplace that they sometimes don’t garner enough interest to be included on the evening news, when I was a child the world still paid attention when space missions launched. My 6th grade teacher made me feel special by using her credentials to sign me up for NASA press release mailings, and 3 – 4 times a year I received a large manila envelope full of mission information, photos of planets and other space objects, and other such treasures. The contrast between those admittedly public relations efforts and today’s delivery of that information and much more via the immediacy of the web makes this site one of my favorite examples of government communication done well.



Wikipedia has withstood early challenges to the quality of its information in several double-blind studies that show errors are not substantially higher than in trusted print resources (see, for instance, Softpedia’s report on Nature magazine’s investigation).

As the largest encyclopedia in human history, Wikipedia contains information not generally found elsewhere – and definitely not as easily. One never builds an entire research project from a single source, and including print materials is a necessity to ensure that information contained even on multiple websites isn’t simply the result of a self-perpetuating incorrect piece of data, Wikipedia can be a valuable starting point for a wide range of investigations.