 |
aolatschool.com/students |
ajkids.com |
awesomelibrary.org |
cybersleuth-kids.com |
kidsclick.org |
lii.org |
(Google Safe Search)
onekey.com |
dmoz.org/Kids_and_Teens |
yahooligans.yahoo.com |
|
Number of Sites
(as of Feb '06) |
19,500 |
undisclosed |
30,000 |
undisclosed |
7,000 |
12,000 |
billions |
38,000 |
undisclosed |
|
Target Age/Grade |
K-12 |
Ages 7-14 |
K-12 |
K-12 |
Ages 7-12 |
Grades 6 and Up |
All Ages |
Under 18 |
Ages 7-12 |
|
Search or Browse? |
Both |
Search |
Both |
Both |
Both |
Both |
Search |
Both |
Both |
|
Editorially Reviewed? |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
| Selection Criteria
Posted? |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
n/a |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Clean/Safe? |
Yes |
Yes |
Not all sponsored links/ads are
appropriate for kids |
Includes
several celebrity sites which have photos that are not kid-friendly |
Yes |
Since focus is for older grades it does include
things like nude art and figure drawing |
Even with the strictest filtering setting,
objectionable content still surfaces |
Includes teen homepages of which some
include mild profanity |
Yes |
|
Any
Different Interface for Beginning Readers? |
Yes |
n/a |
No |
No |
n/a |
n/a |
No |
No |
n/a |
|
Update Frequency |
Weekly |
Ongoing |
Monthly |
Several times a week |
undisclosed |
Weekly |
Ongoing |
Daily |
Daily |
|
Includes Advertising |
No |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
|
Any Non-educational Content? |
No |
No |
Video Games,
Ecommerce |
Entertainment, Celebrities |
No |
No |
Everything except porn |
Yes |
Entertainment, Celebrities, Gaming |
| Any advanced search
features or filter/sort abilities? |
No |
No |
No |
No |
Yes, can search on selected fields as well as limit by
reading level |
Yes, several advanced search features |
Yes, search within results |
No |
No |
|
Pros |
- Has built-in spell-check
- Includes separate directory for K-2 students
- Lists grade levels for each site |
- Features natural language search
- Accesses several search engines at once |
- Provides dates of when
sites were added - When browsing by category
it separates resources by type (research, lists, news, multimedia,
etc) |
- None found |
- Maintained by librarians and library school
students
- Subject categories well thought out |
- Started by the world's first-known "cybrarian"
- Has spell-check utility - Lists new sites added each week |
- Enormous database (seldom see zero results) |
- Has dozens of active editors from
varied backgrounds adding/reviewing sites |
- Simple,
clean design; easy-to-use - Sites chosen (and
their descriptions) fit target audience well |
|
Cons |
- Site currently doesn't allow you to see 2nd page
of search results
- Many categories are too general and
are therefore too full
for browsing (some categories have hundreds of Web sites listed in
them) |
- Often results are not relevant or
too specific
for general questions
- No annotated descriptions makes
searching more time intensive (by taking users directly to a site,
AJkids may be sending them to irrelevant sites or sites which the user
is already familiar with) |
- Features separate areas
for kids, teens, teachers, etc but when searching in each of these
areas the results are exactly the same -
Descriptions are not consistent (some are nonexistent while others go
on forever, some are helpful while others are of little use, etc.) |
- Includes excessive pop-up
ads - Not all sites are geared for students,
kids or teen audience (i.e. home improvement, parenting, college grad
job search) |
- Database too small - Copyright is
2004 so it may not be actively maintained |
- Many sites too advanced
or "collegiate" for middle/high school |
- "Kid safe" tagline is incorrect as it includes sites with
inappropriate language and photos - Enormous database (need to narrow search query in
order to get more focused results) - Sites not
editorially reviewed |
- Technical issues cause random
searches to have zero results even though there are plenty
- Sites in other languages
are mixed in with the results (and no way to filter them out) |
- Includes a large portion of
entertainment and non-educational gaming content |
