NetDay96, the wiring of California's public and private schools to the Internet, took place Saturday, March 9, with great success. Close to 20,000 volunteers, including President Clinton and Vice President Gore, installed about 6 million feet of cable in one-fifth of California schools. To celebrate the spirit behind the event, this week we include in our featured sites a number of schools already online.
Ms. McCumsey's 3rd Grade, Room 8 class at Santa Margarita Elementary School includes a collection of "Kids Links" - a useful resource for students and teachers alike - but it was elsewhere on the site that we learned: Joey wishes he had $100, Emily likes to play with her puppy, Rachel's dad's name is Jess, and Curtis loves to take things apart. The class reports that it loves to receive email, and that since connecting to the Internet they have made "keypals" around the globe and have participated in a number of telecommunication projects with other classrooms. We imagine the gang may already be friendly with Mrs. Bergstedt's 2nd Grade class at Mt. Bethel Elementary School, in Georgia. Mrs. Bergstedt's class (with help from Mrs. Hudson!) has put together a list of "Neat Things to See in the Atlanta Area", a guide for the swarm of Olympic Games visitors about to descend upon the city. Among its other features, the site also includes a worthwhile collection of further links to educational web projects.
Peguis Central School, located on the Peguis First Nation in Central Manitoba, Canada, has a student population primarily of Native Indian ancestry. Their site offers news - where we learned that P.C.S. was honored as one of the most successful schools in Canada - and "Aboriginal Education Links" among its early collection of resources. Takatori Senior High School in Nara Prefecture, Japan, includes a comparison of class hours between Japan and the United States. The informative survey was conducted by Tetsuo Sato, an English teacher who transferred to Takatori from Shaker Heights High School, in Ohio. If you do enjoy braving the bandwith and connecting to international schools, give The Electronic School Book a visit; they'll steer you toward the large number of South African schools connected to the Internet.
One final education pick: Gar-Field Senior High School in Woodbridge, Virginia. Fairly new to the Web, their site is an effort to cover all aspects of school life; it includes a "Career Center", with financial aid and scholarship information for the 1995-1996 school year. What else is there to say except: Cool!
Nope, we haven't forgotten the wacky, the funny, the useful, the plain old interesting. This week includes The Bandwith Conservation Society, a tutorial dedicated to the understanding that document images can be smaller (in byte count, not area) and therefore faster; join the society's forum, learn background tips and tricks, discover the latest strategies. Or, try RV Central, the complete site for recreational vehicles on the Internet. Their Trip Planning Toolkit includes regional road condition and construction information, as well as a campground directory and weather updates. Life on the road will never be the same. Life in Softwareville will never be the same again, either, now that Versions! is online. Register with this service and every time the software you use is updated, they'll send you an email letting you know. Simple as that. Also in the spirit of useful information, Find-A-Grave has arrived on the scene. What is so useful? It's a growing list of the final resting places of "anyone of note." Nose around and you too will know what it means to find Waldo. Finally, there is G.I. Joe - A Real American Hero. It's not that people have too much time on their hands. Not at all. It is love. Plain and simple, love.
What can we expect from tomorrow's weather in St. Petersburg? What's new in New Zealand? How will South Africa celebrate it's second year anniversary of democracy? What happened in Israel today? For that matter, what happened in Round Top, Texas, today? Such questions are easily answered, thanks to the growing number of online, regional news sites, a handful of which make up this week's tour.
The Jerusalem Post, an English-language Israeli newspaper, includes daily coverage of events unfolding in the region, as well as columns, music, film, people and places features. We dug up an interesting article in Nature & World titled "Use pets to achieve better parenting."
For more local news, try the Round Top Register, from the biggest little town in Texas. Round Top, with a population of 81, is the smallest incorporated town in Texas. But when you catch a ride at Uncle Sack's Internet Depot, or read about art and architecture in Henkel Square, it quickly becomes clear that you don't need to be big to be the center of the universe. There's even a map, if you're not convinced.
Main Street South Africa a newsletter created by two South African journalists living in Washington, D.C., offers business and political analysis of the country, as well as travel and personality features, soundbites, a collection of useful links and more. Main Street's collection of Vital Statistics is a fairly comprehensive gathering of interesting facts about South Africa, and includes a map of the country's new regions. For more news from this part of the world, try Yahoo!'s collection of links to South African English and Afrikaans newspapers.
From Africa to Russia and the St. Petersburg Press, the first Russian newspaper to venture online, in July of 1993. The site includes an archive of back issues, a culture and lifestyle guide, and their current 149th issue. In the latest news is Garry Kasparov and coverage of St. Petersburg mayoral elections, to be held June 16 of this year.
From Cambodia's national newspaper comes The Cambodia Times. Updated weekly, the site offers comprehensive coverage of this and neighboring countries and includes in one of its latest installments news on actor Haing S. Ngor's death, in Los Angeles. Finally, the Christchurch Press Online, New Zealand's second largest newspaper, offers, amongst other things, a weekly press briefing, which is where we learned that popcorn was used to secretly bring into the country a painting by Flemish artist Rubens, on loan from the Australian government. The site offers a wide range of news on all matters: sports, business, computers, motoring, real estate and more. Take your pick(s).