Free Encyclopedia and Reference Sites
Internet encyclopedia and dictionary resources available for free!
Links
Wikipedia, "the new kid on the block", as of December 2007 had approximately 9.25 million articles in 253 languages. While there have been some questions as to its reliability, it provides a quick and easy first take on literally hundreds of thousands of topics. Some instructors, in fact, have helped improve Wikipedia by assigning students to either write an original Wikipedia article or do a major edit on an existing one.
Britannica.com now provides on-line (for free!) the complete, updated Encyclopedia Britannica, the oldest and largest general reference in the English language, plus selected articles from more than 70 of the world's top magazines and links to 1000's of sites.
The Concise Columbia Online Encyclopedia, IF USED AUTHENTICALLY AND CORRECTLY, is a boon for short research projects. Main entries are brief and well-written and accompanied by a solid set of links for in-depth work and updated daily as appropriate (unlike CD's). When an unfamiliar topic comes up at school or anywhere, the basic information can be quickly located.
Encyclopedia.Com and Britannica.com can serve as an online jumpstarts for a longer, in-depth research project. Some of the entries may encapsulate information in an article shorter than the other encyclopedias. The publishers, however, are experienced in digesting and preparing such apt references whereas some of the others are not so the quality here is much better.
The Amazing Future Machine is a large -- very large -- collection of photos which can be incorporated into a research report. New technologies are not apparent to the user (probably used in ingathering the collection) but a high school student would need access to many oversize photo books in order to find comparable resources, here a click away. The volcano and WWII sets, for instance, draw from many sources. The policy for citing and reproducing such photos is stated.
Learn how simple machines operate at Edheads.
Annotation
Since mostly middle class folks can afford software technology, access at home typifies inequality. Fortunately, the references listed here are available to all. Setting up an after-school community study center for all school families would ensure universal access to reference materials.
Most people check these references as needed for one bit of information. So if access is clunky, particularly for a dictionary or thesaurus, online access is less practical than print media. If a lesson is devoted to such skills, the software could be loaded in one window and the stimulus material in another window.
