Reliable resource

Wikipedia relies on a number of citizen editors, who act as a broad peer-review process for entries, but it8217;s still possible to get something by them that8217;s just plain wrong. Eventually, the entry might be removed but maybe not.

In the wacky Wiki world that is the Internet, it8217;s hard to know which information is reliable and which isn8217;t.

Wikipedia relies on a number of citizen editors, who act as a broad peer-review process for entries, but it8217;s still possible to get something by them that8217;s just plain wrong. Eventually, the entry might be removed but maybe not.

At the same time, Wikipedia has become enormously popular, especially with younger users. Type just about any topic into the Google search engine, and its Wikipedia entry will pop up on the first or second page of results.

This has alarmed many teachers and professors, who have forbidden their students to use, or at least cite, information found on Wikipedia and similar user-generated sites.

Now, Virginia-based AOL thinks it may have a solution. It has launched a new site meant to aggregate the most reliably sourced information for students, educators and parents. The site, called Study Buddy studybuddy.com, is free and open to all, including non-AOL subscribers.

It8217;s broken down by topic and grade level. I clicked on 8220;mathematics8217;8217;, 8220;9-128217;8217; and 8220;differential calculus8217;8217;, a topic that dogged me in high school and college. I got plenty of solid explanatory articles from the Columbia Encyclopedia and Merriam-Webster. Also, the site8217;s Backpack feature lets students stick valuable Web sites8212;ones they want to use again8212;into one place for easy finding. The site boasts 1 million pieces of content.

There is a composition feature called 8220;Writing Wizard8217;8217; that asked me to write a homework essay about 8220;differential calculus8217;8217; and offered instant feedback. Just for fun, I wrote: 8220;Sir Isaac Newton invented the calculus to explain the complex variables of velocity and acceleration. He learned that acceleration is just really, really fast velocity.8217;8217;

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Seconds after I submitted my essay, the 8220;wizard8217;8217; told me that the 8220;the8217;8217; in front of 8220;calculus8217;8217; was probably unnecessary and criticised my repetition of words but did not point out that the second sentence is, um, wrong. Maybe I was asking too much of the wiz.

AOL has a couple of other useful sites for K-12 learnin8217;:

aolatschool.com is aimed at teachers as they prepare lesson plans and as a place to safely direct students for credible information. I typed in 8220;Star Trek8217;8217; , and up popped an ask-a-scientist page from the Argonne National Laboratory, an Energy Department lab in Illinois that descends from the Manhattan Project lab where the world8217;s first nuclear chain reaction was created. Someone asked one of the Argonne brains if Star Trek8217;s faster-than-light warp speed is possible. A very patient scientist gamely explained why it8217;s impossible to know8212;Star Trek is fiction8212;but outlined the space-time principles behind it in lay language.

aol.com/learning is for parents helping their kids with homework. It has lists of words your fifth-grader should know, for instance, and tips to help your kids develop better writing skills.

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These free services could drive traffic to paid versions of the sites. For 4.95 per month, AOL Family Library offers a deeper collection of articles and links, some of which go to Time.com, also owned by AOL parent Time Warner Inc. June Herold, vice-president of education services at AOL, said the company surveyed parents over the past couple of years and found they were frustrated by having to sort through the results generated by conventional search engines. And they were worried about the Wiki Effect 8212;uncertain reliability.

8212;LAT-WP / Frank Ahrens