Fuse #8

Friday, October 06, 2006

My Study Buddy and Me

I work for New York Public Library, as some of you are painfully aware. As such, it's always a good idea to pay attention to how technology affects students and their homework. Used to be your average kid would go to the library, plunk their posterior into a chair, and flip through the old encyclopedia for help on a project. Now it's Google or nothing. To complete with the G-word, libraries have created such remarkable projects as homeworknyc.org. It was created by librarians all throught the five New York boroughs to provide one-stop shopping for reliable homework fare. That entry on Norway? That was all me, baby.

Now a new and similar site has come to my attention. It's called Study Buddy and . . . well . . . it looks like it does the same stuff. Says Study Buddy of itself:
StudyBuddy.com is an education Web site and homework help destination for students in grades K-12. It features an easy-to-use search engine with dependable results, reference tools, fun activities, games and more. You can find better answers faster and easier with StudyBuddy.
Darned if I know how to take that. Admittedly the site says it is "educator approved" but doesn't give any sense of which educators they're talking about. I doubt that would matter to the kids going for the one-stop shopping recourse. As a test I typed in "Norway" and found all kinds of stuff.

Whatcha think, gang? Should I be afraid or welcome Study Buddy into my home for a jam session?

1 Comments:

At 9:23 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

I looked up Norway and was directed to a CIA Fact Book site. (Maybe I should look up East Timor instead.) I then Googled "CIA Fact Book" because I wanted to know more about that (and when I StuddyBuddied "CIA FACT Book" I got Peru and Guatemalan Expedition sites).

As a school research tool Study Buddy might be preferable to Google (which I blame for luring me off topic).

Not totally off topic, here's a site about net neutrality: http://www.savetheinternet.com

 

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