Page 6 - Priorities #14 2000-September

These Dot-Com Destinations Promise Creative Family Fun
By Mitch Neuger SNixth Grade Faculty
eedtoknowsomethingrightnow? Just dialup,click,andscrolldown. The Internet has done wonders to feed our
appetite for fast-food information and at-home shopping.
But the ‘Net offers more than instant gratification for the curious and the hurried. It’s an amazing creativeresource,too. Ifyou’reanaspiringwriter, hobbyist, or adventurer — or a family of them — you’ll find peers, mentors, learning tools and even your own audience online.
The sites I talk about here seem to have real creative potential - they aren’t ones I’ve used in class but are the type I’d bookmark to check out with kids if we were facing a long weekend without much to do. The intent here is to investigate together.
If your interests are wide as the Web, a good starting place is the teen forum at About.com (www.about.com/teens). You’llfindlinkstoatonof topics, from drawing to magic to (real) surfing. Not just a search index, About.com is more like an online convention; flesh-and-blood experts host many topics, with links to advice, discussions and places to send your own work.
Young writers and poets — and their family of fans — could find About.com’s writing forum (www. teenwriting. about.com) an encouraging stop.
Readyforanaudience? TheWeboffersdozensof online magazines that are interested in young adult voices. Cyberkids(www.cyberkids.com)and Cyberteens (www.cyberteens.com) are user-friendly; the New York-based ZuZu (www.zuzu.org) has an artsy flair; Informnation (www.informnation.org) and the locally-produced Bamboozled (www. bamboozled.org) offer a more opinionated, by-teens- for-teens sensibility. Many sites accept poetry, prose, art and photography.
If you have access to digital recording, Young Composers (www.youngcomposers.com) will
publishyouroriginalmusic. Evenifyou’renotready to go public, you can still check out the work of other creative folks; sites like Inkspot (www.inkspot. com/ young) invite you to compliment and critique their work. You’llfindthesegalleriesofart,poemsand stories a window into a generation, a spark for family talk, and, perhaps, a jumpstart for your own muse.
Of course, the surest route to publication-and maybe the most fun-is to publish yourself. Webmonkey for Kids (www.webmonkey/kids) offers step-by-step lessons in Web site creation (including HTML code) as well as project ideas and a PlanningGuideforparents. Ifyou’dratheravoid programming and learn by trial-and-error, a number of sites (www.tripod.com, www.geocities.com, and www.homestead.com) offer free online space and tools that help you create, edit and publish your own family home page as easily as using a word
Young writers and poets will find About. com's writing forum especially encouraging... Young Composers. com will publish your original music.
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Internet Sites: A Great Resource But Parents’ Guidance Is Needed
By LeeAnn McDermott
Parent, Children’s Website Developer
Have you talked with your teen about Internet safety? If you have kids at home, has everyone in your family signed a Family Internet Safety Agreement? If not, take a moment to read on.
The Internet offers endless wonderful information and resources, but awakens the fears of any parent about access to undesirable stuff. A more remote but more frightening reality, as anyone who reads the newspapers knows, is that the anonymity offered by the Internet makes it an easy place for child predators to lurk.
To date, teens are more likely to get in trouble
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