It’s Sunday afternoon. The library is closed, and your fifth grader just remembered the report on an Indian tribe that’s due Monday. It’s ten o’clock. The biology test is tomorrow and your tenth grader is still confused about how mitosis differs from meiosis. It’s the dawn of the day that the term paper is due and your eighth grader can’t remember the right format for footnotes.
The Internet was supposed to extract the crisis from these classic homework scenarios by giving young students easy access to facts, study guides and other homework tools. It hasn’t quite worked out that way. Of course, there’s lots of terrific information online. Unfortunately, students are, by definition, uninformed about the subjects they are studying, so they aren’t equipped to sift through dozens of Web sites to determine what’s relevant, much less accurate.
The best way parents can help children with homework is to do some advance work of their own. Start with a good software encyclopedia such as Worldbook or Encarta. In the past, families had to scrimp and save to afford an encyclopedia. Now it’s possible to have all that information for $20 — about the price of a fast food dinner for four. Software encyclopedias help kids zero in on the information they need. Also, because they’re written and reviewed by experts, kids are less likely to be misled or confused.
If you have the luxury of planning ahead, talk to your child’s teacher about what homework resources he or she recommends. Many schools now have Web sites that allow teachers to post classroom information and assignments as well as links to their favorite Web sites. Because there’s more than one way to teach most subjects, visiting a Web site approved by your child’s teacher means that what your child sees online is more likely to align with what he or she has been taught in the classroom.
If you don’t have an encyclopedia and the teacher hasn’t been forthcoming with Web site suggestions, you can still extract good information from the Internet. Do not — repeat, do not — type the topic of the day into a general search engine like Google. Even what seems like a simple question can lead to thousands of Web sites. Often, kids give up and go to bed, leaving parents meandering through a maze of information muttering, “It must be here someplace.”
Another problem: Many Web sites that look, at first glance, like they have educational potential are actually selling something. For example, one popular dictionary site offers a link for grammatical usage that connects to an offer to buy a book on the subject. That’s not exactly the kind of help a desperate student needs when trying to polish off an essay that’s due tomorrow.
A better alternative is to visit Web sites on which experts have already sorted through the riches of the Internet and identified sites that are likely to be genuinely helpful to kids. Here are a few trustworthy sites that have a proven track record with students. Tip of the day: clip this list now and post it by the computer so it will be there when your child needs it.
• Answers.com. This is a relatively new site that draws information from several encyclopedias and other reference books. The graphics on the site are especially crisp and clean, making it easy for kids to find what they need. (www.answers.com)
• BJ Pinchbeck and his Dad started making a list of helpful homework sites when BJ was 12. Now that he’s older, BJ’s Web site is managed by Discovery.Com, but he and his dad continue to add links that are genuinely kid-friendly. (http://school.discovery.com/homeworkhelp/bjpinchbeck/)
• Infoplease is a one-stop site that makes it easy to retrieve facts from a dictionary, an assortment of almanacs, a collection of biographies, the Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia or all of the above. (www.infoplease.com) They also sponsor a simplified site that’s suitable for younger students at www.factmonster.com.
• The Internet Public Library Grew out of the library science program at the University of Michigan. Links are well-annotated so your child will have a have a pretty good idea of whether a Web site is worth a click. Kidspace links to sites appropriate for children under 12; Teenspace will be more help to middle and high school students (http://ipl.org)
• Kidinfo is a collection of Web sites identified and organized by a former school teacher. The information in the Student Index is organized by subject, and the webmaster checks links regularly to be sure they are working. (www.kidinfo.com)
Finally, don’t forget the experts at your own local library. The librarian you knew in your own childhood probably had almost magical powers to pluck just the book you needed off the library shelves. Today’s librarians have similar powers on the Internet. Staff members are usually glad to provide information over the phone or via e-mail.
Using online resources doesn’t change the fundamental facts about homework. Most kids still won’t be enthusiastic about doing it, and they’ll get the most out of it if they do it themselves. Still, it’s hugely satisfying to be able to guide a child to a Web site that answers his questions about Indian tribes, explains the mysteries of cell division or offers the last word on footnote formatting. At those moments, not only have you defused some of the stress associated with a difficult assignment, but you have also promoted the
independent learning that is, in the end, the best justification for homework.
Carolyn Jabs is a former Contributing Editor for Family PC and mother to three computer savvy children. Other Growing Up Online columns can be found at growing-up-online.com