(lara@crow.cybercomm.net)
Surfing the 'Net since May '95
I'm only smiling because I have no idea what you're talking about.
Visit Lara's Wonderful World of Web!: http://www.cybercomm.net/~lara/
Well, I've been putting in a lot of hard work on this book and writing mostly for teachers and parents so far. This chapter is just for the girls themselves. It's about girls who have gone where you are going - girls who have their own place on the Internet, and have shared with me some of their ideas and their favorite places on the Internet to visit. So, let's go have some fun!! Once you're into this circle of friends, you'll be visiting home pages of girls around the world. I'm only using first names for most of the girls in this section.
There have been a lot of new sites for girls that have popped up while I've been working on this book! I'm amazed at the new ones that seem to appear every day.
Wintercream is a girl-made online tips resource for beginner snowboarders, written in an easy-to-understand language for kids, teens, and people with no snowboarding experience. Besides, the world could use more chick shredders.
Wintercream - Snowboarding Tips for Beginners
Wintercream provides useful snowboarding tips for beginners: How to ride. Plus advice on clothing, lingo, avoiding injury, gear, trip planning, and more.
contact: Alena Wallers
WebmasterWintercream@myexcel.com
Most links on this page are expired - need to update with new "kids" Leave for now as examples... First of all, let's meet Lara, and get some of her tips:
Heya Donna! I have a few tips for girls just starting out. I remember the first few times I was on the internet, and not knowing my way around at all. 1) Find a search engine, such as Savvy Search or Yahoo, so you can search for pages that have info on things that interest you. 2) Pages done by people your age usually have great information, and they are mostly child-safe, so your parents won't be worried what you are doing.3) Learn the lingo. Its hard to get used to the 'net if you have no idea what people are talking about 4) Make friends. If you find a page done by someone that sounds like he/she may make a nice friend, e-mail them! Every person I know from the 'net adores e-mail, along with making friends. I know I do! These people can show you around the 'net, and give you some links to some really great pages. 5) Be yourself.. your true self. You can be yourself on the internet, and people won't ridicule you. So, just let yourself go! 5) Be Careful. Never, ever, ever, ever give out any information except your name (preferably only your first name), screen name or nickname (the name you use while you're on the internet), e-mail address. If you have made a really great friend, and you want to exchange pictures, snail mail addresses, or phone numbers, make sure one of your parents talk to their parents. No matter how nice they may seem and how much you like them, you can never be sure on the 'net. What encouraged me to get involved with computers and the net? Well, I've been into computers ever since i was young, even as young as six. My father works with computers, so I've always been exposed to them. I began using the 'net about nine months now, and i love it. I love all the friends I've made, and all the information I can gather. It truly is an amazing place! So, yes, as you can tell, I do think this is a great place. Girls using a computer are all ready prepared for the challenging job wars that are out there. They have the experience... and they also get to have a lot of fun! Does this help you any? I hope it does!! You can contact me again, no problem, I'm always happy to help out! Take Care, Lara
Now, we can go exploring, and meet some other friends around the world. Here are some great places to start.
A Girl's World Online Clubhouse
Karen Willson started this online magazine for girls in June of 1996, and it has quickly become one of the hottest sites for girls on the Internet. The goal of "A Girl's World Online Clubhouse" magazine is to inspire, educate and entertain girls. The magazine offers profiles of women in various careers as role models.
A focus group of girls ages 7-17 makes sure that "A Girl's World" offers girls a dynamic, interactive environment created just for them. The online "club" gives girls a chance to make new friends, explore their futures, dream big dreams and be creative and adventurous.
Features include role model interviews with scientists, educators and environmental pioneers in "Wild Side". "Hangin' With" offers a look at a leader in the field of entertainment. The "Curio Cabinet" introduces women in the fine arts.
"Family Faire", "Sports Talk", "Living Large", "Between Friends" and "Girl Talk" give girls a chance to share what they think about topical issues. Activities include "Craft Corner", "Country Kitchen" "Jokes and Betchas" and "Be Brilliant, Not Bored." Fun articles include "Pajama Party", "Beat Street" entertainment news, "Animal Fun" and "Pet Talk." There's a monthly story to enjoy and cool links in "Spider on the Web." There's friends to make in "Pen Pals" and new activities and articles being added all the time.
SIDEBAR: Horse Country Horse Country is a site where you can create your own horse stable and learn all about horses, horse breeding and horseback riding. This site is a wonderful combination of science, art and stories all revolving around horses.
Debbie's Links for Kids
is another place with lots of links.
The Ultimate Children's Internet Sites!
has a ton and tons of links. They're grouped in ages. Rachel told me about
this really cool page!
Kids Corner List
is a different Kids Corner that just has links to lots of places for kids and by kids. Yup! Rachel told me about this one!
Kidscom
is the best page I know of (besides Rachel's of course!)! Tell them Monika Marie Bough sent you and my e-mail is irvbough@whidbey.net!
Kid's Corner
is VERY cool! It has games and a story you can make your own. It also has lots of great
places to go to.
Kid's Space
is another cool page!
Kids Only on the Milwaukee
Web
is REALLY cool! It has a bulletin board and a newspaper. Molly can help you, too, if you need assistance!
KidPub
is a publishing page. The poems and stories on my page are here! You can send in stories, too!
Midlink
is a magazine written and read by kids 10-15. This is really cool!
International Student Newswire
has
news that kids write about and stories and poems to.
Girl's Interwire
is a cool newsletter that some of my penpals subscribe to. It's an all girls page and if you're a girl I think you should CHECK IT OUT!
Kid's Window
is a cool Japanese page for kids. Since I lived there I enjoy it a lot.
Just 4 Kids
has so many cool links! This one Rachel told me about, too!
The Electric Postcard
is a cool place where you can send or receive postcards from your friends. If you want to say, "Hi," but think e-mail's getting boring, then THIS is the place to go!
United States Swimming
Here are some other great homepages created by girls:
Marie's Cool Page- Marie is 11 years old and lives in Canada. Here are some of her favorite web sites:
I'm really involved in
HOCK wich is a horse game. You build dream stables, have make-believe
horses and enter them in shows.
My favorite book series are
Goosebumps
and the
The Baby-Sitters Club.
Sea World
KidsCom.
Uncle Bob's Kids Page
Cybertown
4 Kids
Berit's Best Sites For Childrens
Yazone is similar to Kids Com...
Shannon's Page- Was made by Shannon who's 9 and lives in Illinois.
Amanda's Page- Was made by Amanda who is also 9 years old. She lives in Illinois.
Hillary's Home Page- Was made by Hillary who is 7 and lives in Arizona.
Derya Davenport's Home Page- Was made by Derya Davenport. She's 11 and lives in Ankara, Turkey!
Marianne's Story Web- Was made by Marianne Lubenskyi who is 13.
Hallie's Page- Was made by Hallie who's 12. Carol's Home Page- was made by Carol Scott. She's 12 and is in GIRL.
Erica Blair's Home Page- Was made by Erica Blair who is 9 and lives in Palo Alto, CA.
Amber's Place- Was mde by Amber who's 11 and is the Co-Editor of GIRL.
Teenager's Circle was started by a group of teens in Malaysia...
Welcome to the Teenagers Circle!
BHI was first established in 1995. Comprised of teenagers with skills and a common goal: To reach out to fellow teenagers and their interests. We have begun to expand through the development of a newsletter which is updated twice a month and the free of charge web page creation.
The advantage of an establishment run by teens and for teens is that we can take the steps that are important to "us" and address issues that are of "our" concern. Here's Corinnes' home page - she is one of the creators of Teenager's Cirlce and has a great home page of her own as well. Corrine has a good page full of HTML resources (HyperText Mark-up Language - it's what you use to create web sites) Realm of Existence
My name is Debbie. I am 13 years old and live on Long Island, New York. I am in 8th grade. My hobbies are gymnastics, basketball, tennis and talking on the phone. I also love to receive mail from my internet penpals.Here are some of Debbie's favorite sites, from her homepage."Well, I got involved in the Internet when my stepfather got a connection, when I was about 11 years old."
As for tips for girls... If you go on the IRC (Internet Relay Chat) - be careful! Some guys might try to take advantage of you and don't give ANYBODY your home address or phone number, you never know what you might get yourself into - some people on the Internet ARE NOT NICE. But don't get scared away from the Internet, their are plenty of friendly people who just want to meet new people!"
-Debbie-
I got started on the Internet at school. My Mom had often used it before but I wasn't interested. My Mom made my homepage and then I got interested. I started getting on Netscape and then my Mom got me my own account this year. I love the Internet. I have to fight my mom for the computer:)!!!
thanks,
Katie:)http://www.marshall.edu/~kmccomas/
NOTE: My parents randomly screen my email.
Marisa is 13 and lives in California. Here's a message from Marisa:
Thanks for visiting my homepage!I'm re-doing my homepage, in favor of a site with a cybergirl theme, geared towards cybergirls aged 10-18. I'll sort of be modelling it after the Cybergrrl! site( Cybergrrl ) even calling it "Cybergrrl! Jr".
I've got tons of cool sites and things for girls to do on the web...and HTML's one of my "extended hobbies". Advice? I'd tell everyone to do whatever they like on the web - and not be afraid to jump in the ocean of information! (Oooo, that sounds good!
) Well, gotta go...
Ciao! :)Marisa
Here's a sample from Marisa's homepage:
My name's Marisa, and I live near San Francisco, California. I'm 13 years old, and I'm an eighth grader at West Portal Lutheran School in San Francisco. I've been a 'Netizen (internet citizen) for about a year, now.
I enjoy such fine sports as football and basketball. I'm part of the Grade 8 CYO West Portal Lutheran Girls' Basketball Team A. We've won two games, so far, and lost one. I play small forward and off-guard. Small forward's a lot more fun.
I listen to a mix of alternative and country music. My favorite artists are Alanis Morissette, Garth Brooks, Foo Fighters, Oasis, Bryan White, Terri Clark, and Joan Osborne. In between there I fit in some Smashing Pumpkins and Bon Jovi. Whew!
Rachel has a great web page and some terrific links to cool sites. She also writes some great poetry:
by Rachel
There were two friends from far away They liked each other anyway They wrote long letters and lots of mail Across the internet they did sailRoller Punk who likes to swim She goes so fast she has to win Sonic Striker fast on her feet Look out goalie you just got beat
Roller Punk she is so cool See her swimming across the pool Sonic Striker knows how to kick Nobody else is half as quick
Friends forever and a day No matter they live far away Sonic and Roller, they are the best Don't you feel sorry for all the rest?
"Thank you for responding to my post. I know that children often try to get out of their work by writing such posts to newsgroups and expecting others to give them information... I was not really expecting to many replies."
"Yes, the WWW is an excellent source of information, and I plan to use it along with NetNews and other e-mail information retrieval programs. As it is, I have only e-mail at home. Currently, my school has WWW and e-mail access on all but about twenty computers."
"I fear that the female half of the younger generation involved in computers often gets lost... most of the computer "demi-gods" in my school are boys. I feel that there are several factors in my computer/'Net literacy. One major one is the fact that my parents got my family a computer a few years ago, and have continued to upgrade it as better technologies came along. Another is that my school superintendent pushed for a major computer program in my school. Ours is a small school (only about 45 people in my grade), and we received a lot of financial aid with which to "computerise" it.
Well, I must go to bed. I just got home from babysitting (it's about 12:00), I need to do a bookreport tomorrow, and I'm hopefully going out with my boyfriend after church on Sunday (ohmygoshshe'sactuallyalmostanormalkid!!). Thank you again for replying.
Terra's Home
Page
Terra is 11 years old and lives in Canada. She has a terrific web page!
Terra like wild animals and hiking, and has written a story about hiking
in Arches National Park in Utah for her web page:
Some of the places that we hike in Arches and Canyonlands have really neat names like Dead Deer's Trail, Scared Jean's Pass, the Crack of Doom, and the Fiery Furnace.
The Fiery Furnace is like a big maze that never stops unless you find the right exit.
Me and my dad and some other people went into the Fiery Furnace once.
We entered through a crack in the side of a wall which is one of the main entrances, except almost nobody can find it.
In some places, the walls are so deep and close together, you have to put your feet against one side of the wall and your back against the other and squeeze yourself through a crack.
In the desert you're supposed to drink at least four liters [quarts] of water a day -- but that's no problem when you're in the Fiery Furnace because it's so hot.
Sometimes you can see lizards running on the rocks - they run right up the sand stone walls. And sometimes you can even catch one, but if you're not careful their tails come off. [Don't worry, they grow back].
Scorpions, rattle snakes, tarantulas and black widows live in this area, so you have to be alert at all times.
Occasionally, we stop hiking for a snack and some water. It's a big relief to be in the shade for a while.
After a while, I thought that we would never find our way out of the Fiery Furnace. Then, we found a tiny crack that we climbed down through and we were suddenly back near our car.
On the way back to our camp, I could see mirages -- they look like little lakes on the road ahead.
If you would like to know about any of the animals or things that happen or places that I've visited in the desert, write and I'll tell you about them. sandra@afternet.com.