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 June 30, 2000 was written and produced by Joan Whartnaby's class at Overbrook School for the Blind in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The students at Overbrook use computers that are equipped with assistive technology for the visually impaired user. The student who reads large print may access ZoomText, a magnification program, which enlarges the print on the screen. The totally blind reader is equipped with a speech program called JAWS for windows, which reads whatever is available in the computer's active window.
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Poets of the Harlem Renaissance and After http://www.poets.org/lit/exh/EX006.htm
This sight has a lot of links to different writers. Life
during this time seemed very interesting. You can learn about each writer and
poet by using the links that have their names. Once you have clicked on a link,
you will be taken to a short bio about that person. The clips are listed
alphabetically by author's last name. If you have an audio listening program,
you can listen to real clips of the writers reading their own works.
People like Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks can be heard reading their own
poetry. The audio quality is clear. This is a good site because you can learn
how each poet sounds. The sight works well with JAWS. The National Poetry
Academy developed this site, so as you can imagine it has high credibility. The
language is easy to understand. I would say that the reading level is for 5
graders or higher. If you love poetry and would love to hear the poets from
that time read their work, this is a great site for you.
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The 1920's http://www.louisville.edu/~kprayb01/1920s.html
The 1920's were a remarkable decade, great things and great people were
discovered. This site will tell you about most of those people and about the
great things that came about in the 20's. I hope you have time to read some of
this site, and if you do please pass on your knowledge to others.
A lot of people say the 20's weren't as great as they claimed to be, and this
web site shows you that point of view. I think that's good because many of us
younger people are led to believe that it was just 10 years of dance, music and
fun. This site has very few pictures, but the ones it does have are awesome. A
lot of the pictures on this site look as though they are paintings or drawings.
I hope you like it. Kevin Rayburn the writer of this site
had the disabled in mind. He used software called Bobby. Bobby is designed to
help modify your site for the reading disabled. The site has large bold black
print on a white background and it's easy to find links. It also is JAWS
friendly. This site is recommended by the respected Scout Report of the
Internet Scout Project, and was reviewed in its February 6, 1998 edition. If
this site doesn't get your attention, then nothing on the net will.
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The 1920's Experience http://www.angelfire.com/co/pscst/
If you are looking for a variety of
information about the 1920s, "The 1920's Experience" is the right
place to look. This page is well organized. It contains a list of categories
such as people, events, inventions, art, literature, music, entertainment,
facts
and fashion. If you click on a category, you will find links relating to that
subject. For example: if you click on the topic, invention, you will find
links relating to that category such as the automobile, radio and airplane. I
recommend this page for grades 6 and up. The site was produced by the PSCST
consisting of Henru Wang, Chris Gotterba, and Jeff Wu. I consider this site to
be the most helpful reference when seeking information on the
1920's.
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Decades of Prosperity the Twenties http://www.chs.chico.k12.ca.us/Staff/kohen/decades/twenty.htm
This page is a great web site. Some of
the topics you will find on this web site are movies, sports idles, flappers,
key events, music, social issues, the prohibition, and famous people during the
1920's. If you need to know about the stock market crashing you would like the
two articles included at this site. One of these articles is called The Crash
and it tells how it was for the people living through it. There is also a good
article on African American issues. The site loads within a reasonable
amount of
time, however many links on this site do not work. The kids of Chico High
School
in California, developed this web page. This page works well with Jaws. I would
recommend this site to people who are 12 years old and older. Even though some
links do not work there is enough information for people to learn about the
Twenties.
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Temperance and Prohibition http://www.cohums.ohio-state.edu/history/projects/prohibition/Contents.htm
This is an excellent site because it
contains many interesting links. There are many things that you can learn about
alcohol, prohibition, and the women's temperance movement. The growth of the
brewing Industry and the woman's crusade are addressed in great detail. The
page
has good graphics and music from the theme Cheers. The page links are very
active and takes you to where it's supposed to go. The site reading level
is third grade and higher. Author credibility is the Ohio State University,
Department of History. This is a site that I really recommend if you are
interested in the Prohibition Era.
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Flapper Culture and Style Louise Brooks and the Jazz Age http://www.pandorasbox.com/flapper.html
The web site that I'm reporting on is
really a link from the Louise Brooks home page. Louise Brooks was a famous film
star during the 1920's. This site is really good if you're looking for
information about Flappers. When you enter this web site you will find a
complete description about the young women that called themselves Flappers. It
has some links to fashions during the 20's, and some more links to information
about their styles. On one link, called Fashions of the 20's, you will find
lots
of pictures on how a Flapper looks and dresses. In this site you will also find
the poem, "The Flapper" by Dorothy Parker. This site works very
well with ZoomText. I would recommend this site for anyone that is
interested in
the changes in fashions, or anyone that is doing a report on the fashions
of the
women in the 1920's.
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The 1920's http://www2.idsonline.com/jeff/
If you want to learn about what happened during the 1920's,
then this site is for you. The home page has three major links. The first one
tells a basic summary of what happened during this period of time. The second
link is a timeline of the 1920's. In this link everything is separated by
month and year. Some topics included are sports, politics, births, deaths,
statistics, entertainment news, inventions, historic events, and other
fascinating things. The third link has additional links to choose from about
events that happened during the 1920's. The home page also has links that let
you e-mail the creators of the site. This web page was
given the Study Web Academic Excellence Award. I think this Internet page would
be good for teachers to use to teach their students about the 1920's. I
recommend this web site for people 12 years and older. After reviewing the web
page, I would absolutely recommend this site.
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The Jazz Age Page http://www.btinternet.com/~dreklind/Jazzhome.htm
This site is filled with information about the Jazz Age. I found lots of
biographies including one on Greta Garbo. I also found links for the St.
Valentine's Day Massacre, Crash of 1929, and Coolidge welcomes Lindbergh. This
site includes a sound room, where you can listen to different sound
clips.
These are sound clips of the real artist, not MIDI. I found that very
interesting. This web site tells about the importance of this era of music, and
changes in the Twenties. The site also goes into other aspects of the Twenties,
and how it relates to the Jazz Age. The links section brings you to several
Jazz
Age artists and a few entertainers of that time. All the links seemed to
work. It works excellent with JAWS for Windows Version 3.5. I recommend
this site for anyone in 9 or 10 grade. This site has gotten a few Awards saying
that it was one of the best Jazz Age pages on the net. The author who is
credited for developing this page has collected from many different sources,
including books and articles. This page was recently updated in March,
2000. The
Jazz Age Page is a very interesting page for people who are into Jazz
music.
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Dancing figures. From an enamel cigarette case, c. 1931, as reproduced in Klein, Dan, Art Deco (London: Octopus Books, 1974).
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 Overbrook School for the Blind, Joan Whartnaby at Joan2@obs.org.
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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.
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