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Net Nerds
Swifter, stronger, smarter kids 
by Susan Ives, Alamo PC

Children are greedy. Let Junior run amok in the software racks and you'll have to rent a U-Haul to get the goodies home. Hold on to that truck: you'll need it to schlep back the rejects. With kid's software running at thirty to fifty bucks a pop, parents need to be selective. The Internet can help.

 SuperKids corrals parents, teachers and kids themselves to review educational software following a rigid testing protocol. Last month SuperKids looked closely at SAT preparation software. Other topics have included early learning software, interactive books, human anatomy software and CD encyclopedias.

 Children's Software Revue is edited by a former school teacher who was the Software Publisher's Association best reviewer of 1994. It offers one feature article from the monthly print magazine, a summary of pending product releases, the all-star list of best children's software and an abbreviated ratings for all the software reviewed in the last three years. The editor also reviews children's software for PC Home Magazine, and there is a link to his articles published there.

 The School House is part of a site called the World Village. It features almost a hundred children's software reviews, written by real people and tested on real kids. In a review of a program called Safety Monkey, the reviewer said that parents would be driven crazy by the choppy graphics and cheesey music, but three-year-olds seem to love it and learn from it. Brutal, but at least you know what you're getting into. This site also has a good section on parental control, monthly feature articles and an area called "WonderKorner" where kids can ask questions and get them answered on line.

Will your child like pqtury.zip? Download three megabytes and find out. Children's Shareware and More has taken the guesswork out of shareware and freeware downloads by reviewing hundreds of children's programs. The software is categorized by age group and topic, and it unearths a lot of stuff you might not normally stumble across. The Disney web site, for example, is offering free downloads that feed off its films. You can get a Hunchback of Notre Dame puzzle or a Pocahantas coloring book. Kids' Shareware contains links so you can download the reviewed programs directly from their site.

 I've had a lifetime ambition to own a propeller beanie. I'm well on my way to getting one, thanks to the Benchin' Software Review. This site contains reviews of more than 70,000 commercial software products, including more than 250 children's software packages. The products are reviewed by members who have filled out a free registration form. When you review 25 commercial programs they ship you a propeller beanie. If you've got a closet full of outgrown software, at least you can get your own beanie out of it. If you don't want a beanie, give yours to me. I'll make my husband wear it.

 There are two newsgroups that cover children's software: misc.kids.computer and alt.comp.shareware.for-kids. If you want to link up with other parents and teachers across the globe to discuss children's software, these are the places to do it.
 
 

Homework

Last year I graduated from the fourth grade. Again. The first time was in 1963 and I thought that was the end of it. Then I met Janet, Courtney and Candace, three bright girls determined to get straight A's. I know the entire curriculum for Texas 10-year-olds. When was the grizzly bear placed on the endangered species list? Who is the current president of Zambia? Can you find a picture of Lyndon Johnson, Stephen Austin, a bald eagle, 10 African animals, five native plants and a longhorn steer? I need a wind chill chart tomorrow. I get extra credit if I can find a recipe from Ghana. What's the population of El Paso? Help! Please? It's all on the Internet.

 A new addition to the Internet in Yahooligans, the children's version of the superb Yahoo catalog. It's a great place to start looking for homework help and a fascinating, safe place to browse.

 I've been impressed with the television-related sites on the Internet. The Discovery Channel has bent over backwards to furnish resources that enhance their cable programming. Check out their program on the Alamo, scheduled to run again on October 29, to get a feel for the quality of their offerings. Resourceful ... make that sneaky ... kids can bypass the area reserved for children and bounce right over to the teacher's section, where they might get a preview of the questions that will pop up on the next quiz. PBS also provides websites for its popular shows, from Shining Time Station to Ghostwriter and Wishbone. Specials, such as the recent week-long marathon showing of The West, also have their own sites that offer in-depth background information to enrich the program.

 Two things that every young scholar will eventually have to research are countries and animals. If you need quick facts about a country a good place to start is Flags of the World. This Australian site lists all of the world's countries and territories, has pictures of their flags and links to entries in the CIA World Fact Book. It doesn't have a lot of flash and dazzle but it gets you the information you need, fast. The best comprehensive resource I have found for animals is the Electronic Zoo. Whether you want to find a cure for Fido's mange or need a photo of a wildebeest, you'll find it here. Another good source of animal info is ZooNet, which has links to all of the online zoos, a photo gallery and animal screen savers.

 Last year my nephew Nick had to clip current events articles from the newspaper. That part was easy. Life got tough when he had to come up with the latitude and longitude of the place named in the dateline. Nick is much too ornery to select stories from London or Moscow: he specialized in remote. When Janet goes to Hobby Middle School next year I've got that problem licked. A new site in Switzerland, AstroDienst, lists the latitude and longitude for more than 250,000 of the world's cities. Just type the name into the search form and the information pops up. For kicks, we typed in San Antonio and found 45 of them. And we can tell you exactly where they are located!

 There are miles of maps on the Internet, and most of them are listed at the University of Iowa Center for Global & Regional Environmental Research. Think twice before printing out the list: it runs 17 pages long! You can find everything from a 3D map of Santa Barbara, to a Latvian road map to explanations of how maps are made. The coolest map site on the Internet is MapBlaster. Type in any street address in the United States and create a map directly to that site. The maps can be saved or printed. Include on in your next party invitation.

 My favorite science site is The Why? Files, funded by the National Science Foundation. Every two weeks they tackle a newsworthy subject. As I'm writing this article in mid-September, the topic is paralysis, tied to Christopher Reeve's push to support research into spinal cord injuries. Past topics include life on Mars, sports science and the Olympics, tornadoes and mad cow disease. For younger kids, a good place to visit is Elementary Science this Month. September's science activity was "liquids don't always mix!", the tell me why area explained why knuckles pop, the scientist of the month was John Muir and the animal of the month was the giraffe. Back issues are available.

 Every educational niche has its own website, or two or a hundred. The chief meteorologist for WHNT in Huntsville, Alabama hosts a site called Wild Weather, which covers everything from lightening to satellites. It's geared fro kids 6 to 16, and is a wonderful resource. Worm World is proud to be one of the "yuckiest sites on the Internet," with good reason. Earthworms, tapeworms and leeches all find a home here. You can discect them, find out how to start a worm recycling bin, play worm games, read worm poetry and watch worm movies. I don't think that these worms will play pinochle on your snout, but they do crawl in and crawl out.

Nick, my nephew, did his 5th grade science fair project on optical illusions and found that left-handed people perceive illusions differntly than right-handed ones. Since then, the whole family has been attuned to this subject. We enjoy the Optical Illusion Collection, which contains some bizzare stuff that will keep you entertained for hours.

On to college

Eventually, the kids will be sprouting wings and migrating to college. The Internet can help here, too. U.S. News And World Report put their 1997 annual guide to America's best schools and colleges on line, and it's a handy place to start narrowing down the search. Once you focus on a few schools, look at their home pages. Most of them have catalogs on the Web. Chris Lyons, a young friend from Maryland who spent a few weeks visiting us this summer, spent hours checking out college computer science departments. He found that a few schools that boasted of of their CS departments offered fewer and less challenging classes than he is getting in High School. They were quickly scratched off his list.

Christina DeMello at MIT maintains a list with more than 3,000 universities, sorted both alphabetically and geographically. If you're looking for community colleges, 505 of them are listed on the Community College Web Search, with a slick interface that lets you hunt for schools by alphabet, geography or specific name. I was able to find Bucks County Community College, my brother's Alma Mater. When I wwrote this article in September, there were no local community colleges listed, but sin then San Antonio College has since made the list.

 Kaplan, a commercial firm that coaches students for college entrance exams, has a fantastic web site. College entrance tests are now being administered by computer and the Kaplan web site guides you through the process. They also offer some free software to help with these exams and with college applications and have great tips on selecting colleges and getting financial aid. For the college-bound, this site is a must. Yahoo! also has a complete index of college entrance site; well worth a peek!