The KIDS Report is a biweekly publication produced by K-12 students as a resource to other K-12 students. It is an ongoing, cooperative effort of 15 classrooms from around the world. Teachers assist and provide support; however, students select, evaluate and annotate all resources included in every issue of the KIDS Report.

The KIDS Report is published with a generous grant from John and Tashia Morgridge and with the support of the General Library System of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

This issue of KIDS, dated September 26, 2000, was written and produced by Dawn Morden's class at the Altoona Area School District in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

In This Issue

• ThinkQuest
• CyberSufari
• ATT Virtual Classroom
• Kids Mysteries - The Case for Kids
• CyberFair
• Youth Voice
• Surfing the Net with Kids: Calendar, Factoid & Contests
• Tessellation Contests
• Educational Contests Links

ThinkQuest http://www.thinkquest.org/ The award-winning ThinkQuest web site gives students of all ages a chance to show off their HTML and web design skills. ThinkQuest is an international contest where student teams comprised of 2 or 3 individuals from all over the world collaborate via the Internet to create educational web sites. ThinkQuest offers its users an opportunity to "interact" in the site by viewing e-mail messages pertaining to their entry. This service also aids them in forming teams, searching for other users, and many other convenient features. It is easy to navigate through the site due to the convenient side-navigation bar that gives the viewer background information about the site and contest. The information presented throughout the site is both accurate and neatly organized. An enormous library of more than 2500 student-authored previous entries is searchable and will give you an idea of the quality of student work at this site. Categories for contest entries include: Arts & Entertainment, Books & Literature, Computers & the Internet, Education, Health & Safety, History & Government, Languages & Language Arts, Math, People & Places, Philosophy, Religion & Mythology, Reference & News, Science, Society & Culture, Sports & Recreation, and Technology. All of the features above make ThinkQuest one of the best Internet competition web sites. Reviewed by John and Brandon

CyberSufari http://www.cybersurfari.org/index.cfm CyberSufari, sponsored by DiscoverySchool.com, is a "safe & educational Internet treasure hunt AND, it's FREE to play!" I feel that the site is very organized and it is easy to find your way around. The home page explains what the site is about and gives links to other pages that explain more about the game/contest. I really enjoy the site because the front page is extremely creative and fun to look at. It has bright graphics, animation, and neat text. All links work and lead onto yet another fun and interesting page quickly. Another nice feature of this site is that there are two age levels for the game. First there is a 15 and under age level. The second category is 15 years and older. They also have team divisions: family, elementary school, middle school and high school. It is even possible to win money or small prizes. This Internet treasure hunt is designed to help people learn how to "surf the Web and benefit from the vast amount of information online." Some of the sites visited in the Summer 2000 game are: Education World, Family Education Network, NEA and DiscoverySchool.com. The American Photography Museum and Archaeology's Dig (which are linked to from DiscoverySchool.com site) are pretty neat. Reviewed by Kim

ATT Virtual Classroom http://www.att.virtualclassroom.org From personal experience, the AT&T Virtual Classroom is a great "multinational web design competition" with a great site, too. The contest involves students from three separate schools from around the world in one virtual classroom collaborating to create one website on a topic of their choice. Colorful graphics and eye-catching designs grace this website, and give a clean, neat appearance. More importantly, though, is the content, which is a strong point for this website. The AT&T site provides useful tools for schools as well as space for participating schools' website entries. Every page that can be viewed is full of information that is valuable and helpful. The format is easy to read and follow and the content is also very easy to understand. All links work and are accessible, including past sites of participants and winners. The site is very credible and reliable. In conclusion, I find this site to be great for any class interested in a contest on the web. It is excellent all around. Reviewed by Sarina

Kids Mysteries - The Case for Kids http://www.TheCase.com/kids This website is a mysteriously small site of mysteries for elementary kids. This site contains magic tricks, mysteries to solve, mystery stories to rate, a writing contest, and TV listings for your favorite mystery TV shows. For the Kids Mystery Writing Contest you need to be 12 years of age or younger. This is a fairly small site, still, if you're into mysteries and would love to read just one more, or write one, this might be a good idea. Reviewed by Jamin, Katie & Alex

CyberFair http://gsh.lightspan.com/cf/ CyberFair's vision is to "Share and Unite." This website gives an explanation of what the CyberFair program is about - communities and schools using the Internet to share resources and form partnerships. The international competition is to create a web site about some aspect of your community. There is a reasonable amount of information on every page - it is organized and very easy to find your way around. All the information is meaningful and useful if you want to compete in the competition. Links to past winners are also available. The site is decorated with pictures and a variety of colors. But it does not overuse large pictures and video. Therefore the site loads in a reasonable amount of time and is consistently available. In conclusion, overall this site is very creative and well organized. It's visually creative and looks great. Personally, I was involved in the CyberFair competition. It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed participating in it. CyberFair is a very good site and organization. Reviewed by Kathleen

Youth Voice http://www.eyac.org/School/contest_links.htm This page is part of the state of Indiana's Youth Voice web site. It contains a good deal of information about educational contests online. Its bright colors and graphics make it visually attractive and very appealing to the eye. The web page is divided into each major subject in school such as: Science, English/Language Arts, History/Geography, Math, and other interesting contests designed for children of ages 7-18. Each subject area has several links to contests that all work, and each in turn are very interesting and informative. The page is very easy to navigate and credit is given to everyone or each web site that was used as a resource on the page. Additionally, there are links for the remainder of the Youth Voice web site that gives teacher and student resources, assistance with homework, links to college sites and new scholarships throughout the country. I strongly recommend this site for a teacher who is looking for an interesting and challenging contest in which to enroll his or her students. Students who are looking for a wise way to spend their free time may also find this site useful. Contests are an easy way to meet new people, learn new skills, and even challenge your senses in the midst of everything! But there is no need to take my word for it, check it out for yourself! Reviewed by Kristen

Surfing the Net with Kids: Calendar, Factoid & Contests http://www.surfnetkids.com/surfcalendar.htm The Surfing the Net With Kids site's "Surfnet Calendar" is very helpful when looking for happenings that concern kids. It gives a listing of many current kid-related contests such as poetry and/or Internet contests. Also, if you are looking for a good calendar of both holidays and events that would interest younger children, this is the site for you. These can be legal holidays or simply fun ones! One example is "National Yo-Yo Day." Fun things like this are why young children would be attracted to this site. While this site is aimed at younger children, the reading level is probably more appropriate for older kids. This is not to say that it is not a good children's site, but the reading level would probably require someone older to aid the child in navigating. I recommend this site for ages 8 and up, with the assistance of someone older. Barbara Feldman, a syndicated newspaper reporter, created this site. Reviewed by Amanda S.

Tessellation Contests http://www.worldofescher.com/contest The site that I chose to review had great pictures and very easy navigation. It's part of the World of Escher site and is a contest to find the best tessellation. The symmetry art works of M.C. Escher are to serve as the model for all entries. Acceptable materials for the entries: watercolor; color pencils; pen & ink; marker; computer-generated. All links are very fast and every link that I tried at the site worked. Previous entries and winners may be viewed. This was a very intriguing site with a lot of good graphics and colors. The site seems to be very credible. Students may use their teacher's email address for entries. If you're interested in art and math, this is a site for you. It is very nicely designed, and I give it a 9.5 out of 10. Reviewed by Matt

Educational Contests Links http://www.edgamesandart.com/educontestslinks.html If you are looking for a website with links to spelling and educational contests, then this is a site you might want to consider. This website is more of an informative site than it is a visually appealing site. It has very few graphics and is not visually interesting. However, it does contain a large amount of information consisting of links to educational contests. The ease of use on this website is outstanding! It loads promptly in a reasonable amount of time and is available consistently. One word of warning - a few of the bottom links are currently broken. Reviewed by Brandon & John

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These Internet resources were evaluated on the basis of Site Selection Guidelines that the students developed. Questions and comments can be sent to the facilitating teacher at the Altoona Area School District, Dawn Morden, at dmorden@aasdcat.com

2000 Copyright by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of the entire KIDS Report provided this paragraph, including the copyright notice, is preserved on all copies.

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.