Indiana Gazette from Indiana, Pennsylvania • 37

THEINDIANAGAZETTE House of the Week, page E-2 It's Happening Here, page E-3 Shortcuts, page E-8 The Indiana, PA Gazette Sunday, June 23, 2002 Turn Twinkies into haute cuisine. Page E-6 Tying your pareo! Page E-4 Garden chic Bring the. outdoors in! Page E-2 Summer sizzle Tips for getting the best tan in the shade. Page E-4 Air conditioners: Which one's best for you? Page E-2 1 I A 'HCEWL-symmmeir wotioa' --g jj-tSakr 'literature Museums Scerch Tools 5einec'; SpaHrs Hom Kids Excellent Web linfcs (www.cybercomm.net-lcdchl provides links to sires for reens. When kids gets bored, link them up with a computer llSOeaJSPS ldlilpi ill fvyll'M'j -y-N Smallville" LliiiJffilSSSf Kiefs, com, right, has a bit of every-thing for the younger set Below: Youna airls con color barbie at Barbie.

iBBl the cently discovered Barbie, and this site has a lot of fun things for a preschooler to do, such as coloring pages and dressing Barbie. I wanted her to put a dress on Ken, but she refused. Anyway, rather than go directly to Barbie.com. go to Purple-Mo on.com. From there you can select Barb1c.com or one of its sister sites where other crafty fun is available for young girls.

My youngest daughter discovered Ccloring.com a long time ago and still goes there to do online colorings with holiday and animal themes. Maybe you want to give your child the benefits of getting out of the house and learning the computer and the Internet. Then give computer camp a try, such as those found at iD Tech Camps (wwwinternal drive, com) and National Computer Camp (wwwjiccamp.com). Now. the idea here is not to make the computer your child's babysitter.

You have a right and a responsibility to keep track of what sites your child is visiting anytime. The key to a constructive and responsible computer experience is parent involvement. Provide children with guidelines, structure, and supervision. Be around when your children are online and check their browser history. If this is not possible there are several software tools that allow you to block unwanted sites and only allow access to approved sites.

As always, I want to emphasize that this summer is a great opportunity for parents to improve their own technology skills while allowing their children to journey into cyberspace. For more sites to check out, try Hot List of great kid and family sites (www.netmom.com AMath By JOHN SMATHERS Gazette Webmaster Times sure have changed, especially for children and especially for summertime. As a little kid growing up near Blairsville, I spent my summers outside. I'm sure I did plenty of things inside, but all my memories are of outdoor activities playing baseball at a neighbor's house, riding bikes, roaming the woods behind our house, getting in trouble, but not too much trouble. I never did anything to get arrested for, at least.

If I stayed in the house, it was usually in front of the screen a big black-and-white one, and I watched "Gilligan's Island" or "Star Trek" reruns. "Star That's when a computer was something with blinking lights and' a mechanical voice that talked back to Captain Kirk. In those days, a mouse was something cats ate, a keyboard made music, a disk was something that went out of alignment in a grownup's back, PC was probably some kid's initials and the Web was something sticky you ran into in the basement if you weren't paying attention. Times sure have changed. Kids spend a lot of rime in front of a different screen these days, and we call it a monitor now.

I'm a big advocate of kids' learning the computer and all its benefits, but you might be surprised to know that 1 think they spend a little too much time in front of one. Kids need to get out more, especially in the summer when they are home more. But as you know, the weather outside lately hasn't always been agreeable. When it rains and they can't get to the mall, kids are inside more. TV is a much more appealing option than it was 30 years ago, but there can be a lot more benefit to spending time with the computer and particularly the Internet educational time that can also be fun time and, well, time-passing time.

The Internet is pretty big. so where to start? I suggest the site that inspired me to start looking for these sites to begin with: Borcd.com. It's a favorite site of my oldest daughter, she said, because "there's so much to do there and keeps me occupied." It's a good site for older kids and not recommended for the tykes. Katriltion.com, above, provides something new for teens each' day. Left Keep up with math skills over the summer at an educational site.

addresses are pretty long, so e-mail me at ox2B9ptd.net and I will be happy to pass them along to you. Gamckids.com isn't a site where 70U can get the latest news on video games. Think of it as an idea-exchange site. Kids can go there to get ideas for fun games they can actually play without a computer, and they can submit their own ideas. It even splits it up by age group.

That's not enough fun kid stuff? Try Fun Stuff for Kids at (www.med. jhu.edupeds neonatology fun. htm 1, a site with a variety of links covering games and official Web sites of kids' TV shows, and a site where you can virtually dissect a frag. It's not as messy as the real thing. That's a lot to think about so far, so maybe a little organization is in order.

Go to Annie's "Summer Links and Ideas" (www.anraeshotnepage. cdmsummerliriks-html). Annie presents a calendar for July, and all your kid has to do is click on the links for that day on the calendar. Annie's pages have a Christian theme, but not all the links on the calendar go to religion-oriented sites. This week, I introduced my 4-year-old daughter to Barbie.com.

She's re Kids need a break from school over the summer, but they need to stay sharp, too. Here's a list of good educational sites: Aplusmath.com. Bent's Best Sites for Kids (www.beritsbest.com), KEWL (www. cybercomm.net-teach), and Essential Links for Kids (www.el.com elinksforkids). Here's a simple site I found really cool because it gives a child a list of online activities to try that are fun and educational but also give your kid something else to do while you are on the computer.

Go to Bonnie's Summer Fun (www2.arkansas.net -mom summcr.html). Good articles for computer activities can be found at iVillage.com, such as Games for Kids, Online Scavenger Hunt, PC Crafts and Computer Crafts for Restless Kids. The site's search engine doesn't do a good job of taking you right to the stories and esting here. TeenPeople.com, CosmoGirl.com (more for girls) and MH-18 (a teen version of Men's Health) are good choices if the lads want to try online magazines. And if you're fearless, let your daughter check out dELiAs.

cOm, an online shopping page for teens. For the younger set, what could be more to the point than Kids com.com? site has a little bit of everything: games, message boards, chat, video-game cheats (is that contests and prizes. It has "kids" written all over it. Kids com promotes fun and Internet safety. You can't ask for much more.

I cant mention kids sites without mentioning Yahooligans.com. This search engine is great tool to teach kids more about Internet surfing, and it has an Associated Press news page geared to younger readers. Bored.com is the self-professed site for "when you have nothing better to do." Sometimes that's the only reason you need for getting on the Internet anyway. Bored.com isn't high on educational value, but ynu will find plenty to do there. There are games, games and more games, hut you will find jokes, movie reviews and ether site links.

A long list of cool off-site links is featured on the home page, in eluding The Death Clock, which I had to try. 1 discovered I'm going to punch out Tuesday. July 14. 2048. Wonderful, but there's a lot of stuff that's less morbid.

Sticking with sites for older kids, check out KatrUlion.com, which is "served fresh daily." Think of it as a lifestyle- and entertainment-news page for kids, with a little of today's headline news tossed in. Most teenagers will find something inter ftkyp samples notiistnuni), parent; Child, Family, Web and Net Safety and Resources (www. fno.org 'parent. html), FamilyGuideBook.com and Parents Guide to the Internet (www.ed.govpubsparents internet). 1 hope this information is useful and provides for an enjoyable summertime tech experience.

That's about it. So don't forget, kids: have fun outside, but dont let any dust gather on the keyboard, either. And when you're floating in the pool leave your PDA in the house. Pocket PCs, cell phones and the like don't mix with water. But then, that's another story..