Like a missile on a radar screen, popular culture can be tracked, analyzed, ranked and rated by looking at search engine queries. Although they each parse the data a little differently, most search engines do give us a peek behind …[Continue]
Internet Glossaries
No matter your age or your level of expertise, technology changes so fast, we all need somewhere to lookup technical jargon and obscure acronyms. Today’s picks are online dictionaries specializing in Internet and computer terms: some are designed for elementary …[Continue]
Clip Art
Although plenty of it exists, finding free clip art can be a frustrating experience because so many clip art sites simply point to other sites, which in turn send you off to yet more sites. Today’s picks, however, are guaranteed …[Continue]
Best of 2003
Imagining that I was asked to create a virtual time capsule representative of the state of the educational Internet circa 2003, I chose the following five sites. I gleaned them from the hundreds of sites I reviewed this year, which …[Continue]
Kid-Friendly Internet Directories
Although often confused with search engines, today’s featured sites are actually directories, because each and every entry is handpicked by a human, not an automated Web crawling computer program. Yes, their databases are considerably smaller than the huge search engines, …[Continue]
Blogging Tools
Writing is essential. And what better way to encourage writing than with an online journal. Whether you call it a blog or a diary, I’ve tested the best of the free options, and created a sample journal in each. Take …[Continue]
e-Cards
E-mail greeting cards are fun and easy to send, and despite a move toward subscriber-only sites, still available for free. There are online cards for nearly every occasion and to suit all tastes, but remember, many people do not consider …[Continue]
Best of 2002
To sum up the year, I chose the following five sites (from the hundreds included in my column) as representative of the educational nature of the Internet circa 2002. They were chosen for the variety of their topics (biography, film, …[Continue]
Online Research
Knowing how to use a search engine and follow hyperlinks is not the same as knowing how to use the Internet for research. Serious research requires authoritative sources, and since anyone can publish a Web page, it is important to …[Continue]
Best of 2001
Each year at this time, I pick five sites that best show off the Web’s ability to teach us something new. As always, choosing just five sites was tough. I like the following sites because of the range of their …[Continue]
