www.help!
The Web can be a valuable resource for students ranging from kindergartners to those in graduate school. They can use it for reference, research and to test their knowledge. They can practice problems and ask experts for help, mostly free.
Here’s a handy guide to sites that can help enrich students’ experiences.
Anatomy:
https://www.bartleby.com/107--The classic Gray’s “Anatomy of the Human Body” can be found here, but only in its public domain 1918 edition. Even so, it includes 13,000 entries and more than 1,200 engravings.
Art History:
https://witcombe.sbc.edu/ARTHLinks.html--A guide to sites covering art from a variety of time periods and locales. Also links to major museums and galleries around the world.
https://www.geocities.com/selinunte.geo/timelines/about.html--Beginning with prehistoric times, this site traces the art history of Asia, Egypt, Greece and Rome through timelines.
Astronomy:
https://www.skymaps.com--Monthly sky maps that show major constellations, individual stars and planets. It also includes information on what objects make the best viewing for the month.
https://www.dustbunny.com/afk--Young astronomers can get entertaining information on the planets, stars and other sky stuff here.
Biology:
https://www.kapili.com/topiclist.html--Practice tests in biology as well as other scientific topics. For example, a Web page will show you a heart and you have to identify its parts.
https://gened.emc.maricopa.edu/bio/bio181/BIOBK/BioBookTOC.html--Basic online biology book. Its glossary is especially useful.
Chemistry:
https://www.woodrow.org/teachers/ci/1992--A history of chemistry with short biographies of leading figures.
Current Events:
https://www.latimes.com--(Of course.) In addition to the day’s Times articles, the site is continually updated to present the latest news.
https://www.cnn.com--Streaming video of the day’s news.
https://news.bbc.co.uk--A perspective on the news that is not U.S.-centric.
Dictionary:
https://www.dictionary.com--Enter a word here and in most cases you will get definitions from several sources, including the American Heritage Dictionary and Webster’s Revised Unabridged.
https://www.m-w.com--Definitions from Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.
Encyclopedia:
https://www.bartleby.com/65--The Columbia Encyclopedia may not be the most comprehensive online, but it’s free.
https://www.encarta.com--Encarta, from Microsoft, is a handy encyclopedia, but many of its sections are open only to paid MSN subscribers.
https://www.britannica.com--The Encyclopaedia Britannica is the best online but also the most expensive. Still, the rate--$5 a month or $50 a year--is reasonable considering how comprehensive the material is. Its searches also lead to online magazine articles and relevant sites.
Foreign Language:
https://babelfish.altavista.com/raging/translate.dyn--Get an instant text translation to or from Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean and Portuguese. Works best with single words or simple, unambiguous phrases. Long or complex sentences can get mangled.
https://www.verbix.com/index.html--Verb conjugations in more than 50 languages, including some that are extinct.
https://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Island/9069/ConjugationTrainer--Web utility for practicing Spanish verb groups and forms.
https://www.emporia.edu/biosci/span/chap5.htm--Electronic flashcards for use in Spanish study. You can practice verb conjugations, use of tenses and translation of prepositional phrases.
https://www.frenchlesson.org--Practice sessions for French language studies.
https://www.mandarintools.com/flashcard.html--A Java applet that gives detailed information about Chinese characters and can be used for translation practice.
Geography:
https://members.aol.com/bowermanb/games.html--Linksto more than 50 quiz and game sites that test knowledge of the subject.
Literature:
https://www.gutenberg.net--Project Gutenberg uploads public domain literary works to the Internet, including all the writings of Shakespeare and other classics. Its more than 4,000 fiction and reference works not only are downloadable, they also can be searched to locate specific passages.
https://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Lit/--Links to a variety of literary sites, organized by time period and genre.
Math: https://forum.swarthmore.edu--A comprehensive site that covers math lessons from the kindergarten level through advanced differential equations. Each section includes tons of practice problems. Also a link to Ask Dr. Math, a service that helps students with math problems. Questions are answered by volunteers in the math community.
https://www.edu4kids.com/math--The modern equivalent of flashcards is presented on the computer for practice in basic math.
https://www.algebrahelp.com/lessons--Algebra practice problems.
https://school.discovery.com/homeworkhelp/webmath--Even more practice problems, covering the basics to calculus and advanced data analysis.
https://www-sci.lib.uci.edu/HSG/RefCalculators.html--Links to thousands of calculators, in a variety of languages, for specific needs.
Music:
https://www.musical-theory.com--Information on a variety of music concepts.
https://www.stevenestrella.com/composers/home.html--Brief biographies of major composers.
Philosophy:
https://www.ditext.com/encyc/frame.html--Type in a concept or person and this site searches for information from several sources, including the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Physics:
https://www.webelements.com--An extremely cool site that shows the periodic table of elements. Click on one and you get plenty of detailed information and often multimedia presentations.
Search Engines:
https://www.yahoo.com--Yahoo is an index site--it might help to think of it as a directory you might find on the first floor of a gigantic building. Type in “Algebra,” for example, and it will take you to a “floor” that will contain several categories of sites having to do with that topic. Then you can start to narrow down which sites you want.
https://www.google.com--This is a search engine that directly examines more than a billion Web pages for the specific words or names you type in. The more specific you make the search by adding more words, the fewer hits you’ll get.
Thesaurus:
https://www.thesaurus.com--Roget’s famed work is the basis for this online thesaurus.
https://www.m-w.com--Online version of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Thesaurus.
World Facts:
https://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook--No matter what your views on the CIA, the agency produces a heck of a terrific reference book about foreign countries.
Writing:
https://webster.commnet.edu/grammar--A guide to usage that explains various parts of speech and offers quizzes for practice.
https://www.grammarbook.com--This particularly user-friendly guide to proper grammar and punctuation also has practice drills.
https://www.bartleby.com/141--The classic “Elements of Style” by William Strunk Jr. This is the 1918 edition, but much of it still applies.
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Times staff writer David Colker covers personal technology.
