Education : Editor's Choice
by Karen Wise

CollegeNET
www.collegenet.com/
College-bound high school juniors and seniors will want to beam aboard the CollegeNET spaceship for help in narrowing down a list of colleges. This online guide is packed with info and resources about four-year colleges and universities as well as community, technical and junior colleges throughout the U.S., Canada and New Zealand. Each school is categorized by location, enrollment and tuition, and contains a link to the school's home page whenever available.

There are also special categories such as Catholic schools, Ivy League schools, women's schools and historically black schools. Once that all-important shortlist is created, students can even use CollegeNET's ApplyWeb service to apply to certain colleges online! The CollegeNET page also features tons of info on financial aid and scholarships (plus help in figuring out how much it would cost to live in another city as a student), academic resources, and Allsport, a service for matching student-athletes and schools. And, after a long day of college-hunting online, weary students can visit the CollegeNET planetarium and sit back to view the planets of our solar system.

ERIC/Clearinghouse on Reading, English and Communication
www.indiana.edu/~eric_rec/index.html
ERIC, the Educational Resources Information Center, is the world's largest educational database. The ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading, English and Communication is a vast collection of language arts, educational materials and services geared to parents and teachers alike. Among the many resources available are long distance education courses for credit, professional development workshops for educators, and summaries of current research in education.

Parents will find read-along stories to share with their kids, and seniors will want to check out the Senior Partners pen pal program, a unique service that matches adult letter writers with kids throughout the United States. For teachers, the Clearinghouse Bookstore contains a full range of publications and videos on language arts education, plus free lesson plans and info on using the Internet in the classroom. The ERIC/REC home page also contains info on joining the READPRO e-mail list, a forum for educators to discuss language arts education.

Hoffer School
cmp1.ucr.edu/exhibitions/hoffer/hoffer.homepage.html
The third-graders in room eight at the Hoffer Elementary School in Banning, Calif., are doing some way cool things with photography and related media. The Hoffer home page is full of photos, audio clips, videos and text, all created by students. Click on any student's picture for an audio introduction, then go directly to the student's own home page to check out original photos, poems, illustrations, scanned images, and stories.

Other Hoffer student "adventures" include a magazine collage, PhotoShop gallery and various animation projects. All of these exciting learning experiences are conducted in collaboration with the University of California at Riverside and the California Museum of Photography. Before you leave the Hoffer home page, we bet you won't be able to resist clicking on the "DO NOT ENTER" sign!

Kaplan Online
www.kaplan.com/
If the letters SAT, ACT, GRE, GMAT, and MCAT give you a sick headache, fear not. Just surf over to Kaplan Online for a huge assortment of resources to help you prepare for standardized tests, college admissions, and even job hunting. Whether you're just thinking about applying to college or considering a graduate program, Kaplan offers a wealth of test preparation hints and registration info here. You can even order Kaplan books and software online or take a practice exam to get yourself into the mood.

And, after you've spent the day immersed in exercises and reviews, be sure to head over to the Rathskeller for some R&R. There you can take a quiz to find out if you're a party animal or a scholar, tune in to the Idiot Box, or visit the Junk Food & Dive Bars page. And don't forget to take a peek at Kaplan's Hypnotic Relaxer before you leave. You're getting v-e-r-y sleepy. . . .

Lawrence University
www.lawrence.edu/
Who said bigger is better? Top-ranked Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis., has just 1,200 students, but its Conservatory of Music is the only nationally recognized conservatory dedicated exclusively to the education of undergraduates. At LU's handsome home page, audiophiles can listen to some soundbites, and learn more about the university's five-year double-degree program, in which students can obtain both a bachelor of music and a bachelor of arts degree in another discipline.

LU's impressive mission statement clearly states the school's goal to help students develop their intellect and talent, acquire knowledge and understanding, and cultivate judgment and values. Visitors to LU's handsome home page can also take a peek at "Format," the Lawrence e-zine, learn about the various departments' academic offerings and check out student and faculty home pages.

MidLink Magazine
longwood.cs.ucf.edu/~MidLink/
The award-winning e-zine "MidLink" is geared, appropriately enough, to middle-school students. It's filled with original art and writing created by kids aged 10 to 15 from all over the world. With the help of teacher editors and advisors from the U.S. to Israel to Belarus to Tokyo (and just about everywhere in between!), the student editors create a thematic issue each quarter -- the June-September 1996 issue, for example, celebrates the 1996 Summer Olympics.

Back issues of "MidLink" remain accessible on the Web for a year after their first appearance. Schools worldwide are invited to contribute, and "MidLink" will feature a link to any school's own home page. The "MidLink" home page also includes info on online student projects, including Book Link (students share their favorite books and authors), the Global Rivers Project and Creative Cuisine.

Stanford University
www.stanford.edu/
Northern California's Stanford University has created an inviting, helpful home page that offers resources for both prospective and current students, as well as alumni and faculty. In addition to the usual departmental info, Stanford provides detailed descriptions of student activities and organizations, plus a complete course catalog and undergraduate and graduate admissions requirements. A plan is even in the works to allow for online purchase of tickets to arts events.

Visitors will find maps of the Stanford area and can take a virtual tour of the campus through more than 2,000 photos. The latest addition to the already-brimming Stanford home page is the electronic incarnation of the magazine "Stanford Today," which contains the full text of the print version. Beyond that, students can access the independent newspaper "The Stanford Daily" or log off and tune in to Channel 51, the Stanford Channel, on TV (remember TV? that other noisy, colorful machine in your room?).

State Library of North Carolina
hal.dcr.state.nc.us/ncslhome.htm
It was only a matter of time before libraries all over the world started making their presence felt on the Internet. And with the Web's hyperlinking capabilities, the opportunities for finding and accessing information are virtually unlimited. Take the State Library of North Carolina, for example, with its graphics-rich image map. The library aims to serve as a "tour guide" on the Web, helping anyone in search of information -- or the merely curious -- to find it.

From encyclopedias to periodicals, from software to statistics, you'll find it here. There are even special services and audiovisual materials for the blind and physically challenged. All this (and more) makes it easy to see how the State Library of North Carolina is fulfilling its mission of "increasing knowledge, education, commerce, and business in the state."

U: The National College Magazine
www.umagazine.com/
No two ways about it: "U. Magazine" is the hippest college publication on the Web. If you've got a pulse, you won't be able to get enough of U.Mag's particular brand of "relevance and irreverence." It's no wonder U is the most widely read lifestyle and entertainment magazine among college students.

On any given rainy afternoon, you can check out the winners of the U.Pix photo contest (yes, some guy did run naked through a fire), visit U.Views to learn the results of the latest U.Polls (for instance, "Knowing what you know now, would you choose the same college?") or read the U.News (everything from race issues on campus to campaign '96). And, just so that you don't think it's all fun and games here, U offers an annual scholarship competition and a resume helper for those serious moments.

Yale University
www.cis.yale.edu/
A fitting home page for an Ivy League institution, Yale University presents five clickable leather-covered tomes, each containing resources relating to a particular aspect of campus life. For instance, in "Academics," visitors will find the usual stuff: departmental info, course syllabi, graduate programs and research opportunities.

Prospective students will want to check out the campus photos and maps and take a cybertour of the New Haven area. There's also a QuickTime video serving as an introduction to Yale. A special feature, the "Yale Sampler," offers a collection of multimedia projects to provide a glimpse of "the life of the mind and the community at Yale." Highlights include a gallery of personal home pages from Yale students and faculty and "Wilderness in the North American Imagination," a student project from the American Studies Department.