The KIDS Report is published with the support of the Internet Scout Project and the National Science Foundation, and with a generous grant from John and Tashia Morgridge.
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 12 classrooms from around the United States. Teachers assist and provide support; however, students select, evaluate and annotate all resources included in every issue of the KIDS Report.
This issue of KIDS, dated December 22, 1998, was written and produced by Mrs. Whartnaby's High School Class at the Overbrook School for the Blind, located 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.
| 10 Laws The Net Needs
www.cnet.com/Content/Features/Dlife/Laws10
This site is organized and all information is easily found. It is very explanatory and helpful. The site asks the question that is coming up more and more each day. Do our first amendment rights of freedom of speech and press protect the Internet? It goes into 10 Internet laws that should be developed to protect Internet users. It discusses the point that people's personal information should not be given out without their permission. It talks about having certain guide lines that web designers have to follow. It discusses credibility of the web sites, and the availability of pornography. This site recommends laws that the Internet should develop. I thought the information was very easy to read; it works well with the screen reader JAWS. Susan Stellin, executive editor at CNET, developed the site. The ideas on this site express Ms. Stellin's personal opinion.
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| Anatomy of a Murder: A Trip Through Our Nation's Legal Justice System
http://tqd.advanced.org/2760/
If you want to know more about the law and what goes on in a murder trial, this site is for you. It takes you into a criminal murder trial, as you follow a defendant through the "legal justice system in the United States of America." Every part of this story is researched and legally accurate. Legal terms can even be looked up in a glossary. Also, along the way you can link to fact sheets that describe in more detail what is going on. It is very easy to follow and goes into great detail with lots of colorful pictures. But over all if you like a murder story this site will take you step by step through a trial. It even will let you listen to mood music. If you want to know more about law and what goes on in a trial this site is very informative. The site was developed by a group of people from Princeton, Rutgers, and Tufts Universities. The acknowledgments and credits range from police chiefs to custodial staff. There is also included a bibliography for further reading.
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| Legal Information Institute - Supreme Court Decisions
http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/
This web site is about the law and various Supreme Court Decisions. I searched the sight because I'm interested in law. The good thing about this sight is it has a lot of the information that I need. There were links on the site that allowed me to find out what actually goes on in a legal case. I was even able to go way back in the early years to find out some things about law. Information loading takes a little while. That makes me a little frustrated, especially when I'm trying to get things done in a certain amount of time. I'm a visually-impaired student, so the speech on the computer helps a great deal. Going from link to link was not a problem at all. This site was developed through Project Hermes at Cornell as an electronic-dissemination project.
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| Welcome to the Office of the Director of Central Intelligence
http://www.cia.gov/
The CIA's website was very organized and easy to get around. The site is part of the official United States Government System. It contains a lot of information on the CIA such as information on jobs available in the CIA, and what it takes to get into that job. Once you log onto the main page you have a smorgasbord of links to choose from. These links take you deep into the Intelligence community. You are able to access information on any country that you want. There is also a link were you can read released classified documents. As a blind user, I found that this website was very accessible and easy to get around. Your mission if you choose to take it, is to log on this site, and check it out.
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| A Virtual Tour of the Capitol
http://www.senate.gov/vtour/index.html
A virtual tour of the Capitol is a very interesting site. When you first get on the site it shows you a picture of the Capitol building, and all of the pictures on this site are very clear and colorful. Then it gives a description of what the site is about. They also have a map that shows you where you are in the Capitol. You go through the Capitol room to room, and with each picture they give you some information about that area of the Capitol building. This site also has links to other sites that work, load quickly, and that are related to the site topic. The site also works with Zoom Text "a large print program," and there are no fees. I think this site would be very helpful to anyone who wants to learn about the Capitol or just see some really great pictures.
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| Welcome to the White House
http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/Welcome.html
This website is well organized and provides a variety of information that is well put together. It is very easy to get around from one area of the site to the other. It also informs you of its purpose and it goes into a detailed explanation about the contents of different areas of the webpage. In addition, this page is very accessible with a text only option, and it loads quickly. There are various links of interest to search for. Each page contains lots of helpful and educational information, as well as interesting pictures of the President, other people and the rooms at the White House in vivid color. This website does not contain any sound. Some pages within this site contain up-to-date information, such as important changes being made by the President. The website is maintained by the Web Development Team at the White House.
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The KIDS Report is produced twice monthly by students from one of the twelve participating classrooms with support from the Internet Scout Project, the National Science Foundation, and a grant from John and Tashia Morgridge. The students involved are responsible for all aspects of the report, including its title and the site evaluation criteria.
These Internet resources were evaluated on the basis of the Site Selection Guidelines that the students developed. Questions and comments can be sent to teacher Joan Whartnaby, joan2@obs.org.
Questions and comments about the KIDS Report in general are welcomed at scout@cs.wisc.edu.
Copyright Susan Calcari and the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, 1994-1998. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of the KIDS Report provided the copyright notice and this paragraph is preserved on all copies. The Internet Scout Project provides information about the Internet to the US research and education community under a grant from the National Science Foundation, number NCR-9712163. The Government has certain rights in this material.
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 or the National Science Foundation.
© 1998 Internet Scout Project