Sunday, June 1, 2008

Internet Discoveries - Google Sites & PurposeGames

Sometimes as I'm surfing the 'Net, I'll come across a web site whose concept I really like or I believe others might find useful. I heard about such a site yesterday; it's one of Google's newest releases, Google Sites. It makes it easy for "anyone to set up a website and share all types of information — team projects, company intranets, community groups, classrooms, clubs, family updates, you name it — in one place, for a few people, a group or the world. You can securely host your own website and add as many pages as you like — all for free." I've just begun to play around with the features, but it looks like an easy site to use. You can limit access to as few or as many people as you would like, including making it completely public or private. I can see this being useful for families trying to stay in touch across the miles, non-profit organizations that want an easy interface and have little money for web hosting, playgroups...the list goes on and on. It's even suggested for use as a company's intranet!

Another site I came across while helping my daughter study for a test this weekend is PurposeGames. It allows you to create games (and search for games created by others) to test your knowledge of various subjects...whatever you can think of, you can create (or it might already be out there). Too bad I didn't come across this site earlier in the school year! We haven't used it to create any games yet, but she did find some games published by others to help her with her studying. Being the competitor that she is, she liked the top ten rankings that showed up after she finished the game--it gave her an incentive to play again and try to improve her score.

What web sites do you find particularly helpful or useful?

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