When Brandon Angel doesn't know what homework has been assigned, he gets online and visits his teacher's Web site to get the information. If he has questions about the homework, he sends his teacher an e-mail. "If I put a friendly note there, I'll usually hear back pretty soon," he says. His parents usually don't ask him if he has homework - they just check online for themselves.
For those with Internet access, homework has gone high-tech. Teacher-created homework Web sites have sprouted up in urban and rural communities, with some offering homework "hotlinks" that connect to other Web sites related to the homework assignments. There's also a plethora of non-teacher homework "help" sites on the Net. And for those who would rather pick up a telephone than venture online, there are homework hotlines where teachers leave recorded messages about homework for students and parents.
"Having a homework Web site makes kids accountable," says Virginia Hilton, Brandon's teacher at Georgetown School in El Dorado County. "Now, it's impossible for them to give me that old story, "I wasn't here yesterday and I didn't know there was homework." If students want to get a headstart on homework over the weekend, they can get it online. And if a parent says, "Do you have homework, Johnny?" and Johnny says, "No," the parent may find out that's not always the case."
Virginia Hilton loads assignments onto the homework Web site at Georgetown School in El Dorado County.
Hilton gives her students assignments every single night. "They need to become responsible." She figures she's responsible for getting them ready for high school and the real world. "Homework gives them the foundation to understand what they're doing in class."
The Web site is a collaborative effort between Hilton and fellow Georgetown School teacher David Publicover, both members of the Black Oak Mine Teachers Association. Fortunately, most of their students in this rural community have Internet access.
Teachers don't have to be computer experts or even know HTML to create a homework Web site. These two middle school teachers used the Homestead Web site [www.homestead.com] to create their own. "I don't know a lot about creating a Web site other than I found a way where it was free and accessible," says Publicover.
"Eventually, my students will actually be able to complete homework assignments online," says Publicover. "Right now, my kids can do practice quizzes online if they want to."
"Computers can be a wonderful resource for homework if you know how to use them," says Bill Ragsdale, a teacher at Harvest Park Middle School and a member of the Association of Pleasanton Teachers.
"Unfortunately, there is a huge digital divide. These days, doing homework without computers is like trying to work in the dark. You have some kids with computers and all the resources at their fingertips, compared to other kids sitting there with pencils. It always frightens me how much more information a person who is connected to the Internet has compared to someone who is not."
Ragsdale, also a member of Computer Using Educators (CUE), posts his homework assignments on his own Web site. He frequently advises his students who need help with research or specific assignments to visit some free homework help sites.
Nowadays, students don't have to go to libraries or buy a set of encyclopedias; they can visit www.encyclopedia.com or www.britannica.com free of charge.
Following is a sampling of other useful homework sites:
www.sosmath.com provides help for math homework.
www.ed.gov/free provides access to federal Web sites for kids. They can look up archives, records and historical documents, tour the atom, learn about environmental health science or study everything from food safety to rocket science.
www.homeworkcentral.com is a free site where students may submit homework questions to scholars in the subjects of the arts, English, philosophy, math, history, economics and science. They can even submit questions to a Holocaust survivor.
www.yahooligans.com enables youngsters to find answers to just about anything.
www.infoplease.com searches dozens of almanacs, as well as the Columbia Encyclopedia and a dictionary, with just a click.
www.nytimes.com/learning offers a learning network for students, teachers and parents.
"The Internet is great for homework, but kids need to know they can't plagiarize freely and must cite their sources," says Ragsdale.
He also advises teachers to be careful what they assign students to find. "If you tell them to search on women and pictures, thinking you want pictures of women and history, you could end up with some pictures of women in very compromising positions."
"As educators," he adds, "we must teach children to come up with the highest-quality information available to them."
