Sept 30

Help With Homework on the Web
Sun Review September 30, 2000

We know the Web can be a fun place, but did you know it can also be a valuable educational tool? Thousands of educational websites for kids of all ages (yes, including adult learners!) are in existence today. So if you're looking for a bit of help with your homework, give these sites a try!

SchoolNet (www.schoolnet.ca) is the Canadian government's initiative to connect all Canadian schools and libraries to the Internet. Having accomplished that goal in March 1999, SchoolNet has expanded its scope to connectivity, content and learnware as well as skills and professional development. SchoolNet's Learning Resources now include over 5,000 quality educational materials evaluated and approved by professional educators. , From power learning tools to Mathematics and Social Sciences, you can easily access all of the information you need thanks to SchoolNet's Metadata-driven search engine.

Jishka (www.jishka.com) offers you a fast way to find homework answers. You can post your question on the homework forum, and another visitor will probably answer your question. You can also search for your topic of interest. Jishka has indexed tons of helpful websites, and one of them should be able to help you. School Subjects include Art, Computers , English , Foreign Languages , Health , Home Ec , Math , Music , Physical Education , Science , Social Studies , and Technology. You can also send your old reports and essays to Jiskha Homework Help for publishing. Jishka also provides you with Homework Tips. Tip #24 of 28 reads "Never throw away old notes from this year's classes. You might need these notes for another class that contains the same subject matter."

Homework Help Center (homework.virtualave.net) was set up by Credo Christian High School in Surrey, BC and contains many useful links to other educational websites with a mostly Canadian flavour.

If Provincial Exams are on your mind this year, check out the Ministry of Education's website for copies of past Exams and Keys at www.bced.gov.bc.ca/exams/search/exsection.htm. Teachers, administrators and students in BC's system of schools, universities and colleges are allowed to use these exams for study, practice and teaching purposes.

Kid's Web (www.kidsvista.com) goal is to present students with a subset of the Web that is very simple to navigate, and contains information targeted at the K-12 level. Each subject section contains a list of links to information that is understandable and interesting to school kids. There are also links to external lists of material on each subject which more advanced students can browse for further information.

Berit's best sites for children (www.beritsbest.com) is presented by the creators of Theodore Tugboat. Berit Erickson is a librarian who has devoted much of her time to finding quality, fun and educational websites for kids, ranging in topics from crafts to holidays to animals to serious stuff and Internet safety information. Each site's listing includes a quick description and ratings for quality of content and downloading speed.

For a truly fun, interactive science adventure for kids in grades 3-8, check out Science Brainium (www.brainium.com). It features science games, lessons, experiments, animation adventures, links to appropriate Web sites, and current science news stories.

Now that you've found all this great educational information, remember that plagiarism - copying text and presenting it as your own - is not very cool. It is now possible to determine if a term paper has been copied from the Internet or from another class. Visit www.plagiarism.org for more information.