Everybody knows that when you search for a topic on either Google or Yahoo, they usually return millions of sites. Out of that, there's only a small percentage that is directly related to the topic that you are actually looking for. This takes up too much of our time. Usually, it's time that we can't afford to take. Apart from that, it's also scary to let our children loose online because of the many inappropriate and unsafe sites out there.
This is what HelpMe2Teach.com tries to solve for us. HelpMe2Teach.com was created by Elaine Taylor, an educator of over 40 years. It aims to provide curriculum and supplementary materials from Pre-K to High School. It is useful for educators, parents, students and homeschoolers alike. HelpMe2Teach.com provides over 2500 safe links to educational websites.
Being an experienced online researcher, I, at first, thought that I won't have much use for the website. I mean, I use Yahoo and Google search all the time and it works for me. I have found so many resources that I can use for our homeschool doing my own research. But I find that using HelpMe2Teach.com has made the search easier for me. It is laid out in a very organized manner. Ms. Taylor did provide a search box within the site, but she also provided a well-organized index with sub-indexes for her members to use.
Here is her complete index:
1. Academic Benchmarks and Standards
2. Animals
3. Arts and Crafts
4. Bible Study and Christian Links
5. Character
6. Computers
7. Cooking for Kids
8. Courtship
9. For Teachers/Parents Only
10. Foreign Languages
11. Health And Safety
12. Holidays
13. Inventions - Printing Press
14. Jewish Curriculum
15. Kites
16. Language Arts
17. Lapbooking and Notebooking
18. Magazines/Student/Student News
19. Mathematics
20. Media
21. Multi-Subject Sites
22. Music and Dance
23. Old and New Testament
24. Olympics
25. On Line Flash Cards
26. Preparing for College
27. Primarily Primary
28. Science
29. Sewing
30. Social Studies
31. Specialty Pay Sites
32. Specialty Topics
Ms. Taylor continues to add links everyday. As I write this, the index has been added to two times. The index makes online research a breeze. Ms. Taylor has gone further by categorizing each website under Primary (Pre-K through Grade 2), Elementary Student (Grades 2-5), Secondary Student (Grades 6-12), and Teacher or Supervising Student. So when your search returns results, one can see immediately if it's useful for your homeschool or educational needs.
Personally, I have found a website for foreign languages that we are using now. I also found, through HelpMe2Teach.com, a free educational site for my children to learn about computer basics and keyboarding. In my personal research, I did not find these sites in the past, but only through this website. She further claims that some of the links provide complete curriculums so that there is no need for you to purchase one.
For parents who are concerned for their children's net safety, they can let their children loose in HelpMe2Teach.com instead of using Google or Yahoo. According to Phyllis Wheeler of Motherboard Books, a homeschool computer curriculum provider (which I'm also set to review), having parental controls on your PC is not an assurance that your children are totally safe. You see, parental controls work by filtering out websites that contain certain words. But some ruthless website creators know that and simply don't use those words. Therefore, there's still a big chance for your children to come across sites that are harmful while using regular search engines for their school work. HelpMe2Teach.com solves that problem because Elaine Taylor has already done all the work for us and provides only safe educational links.
Subscription rates are US$ 29.95 for one year, US$ 15.95 for three months, US$ 9.95 for one month and if you just want to check it out but don't want to spend a lot for it, you can also subscribe for three days at US$ 4.95. Payments are through Paypal and Authorize.net.
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