Website Competition for Kids  
ThinkQuest USA is a national competition for student-created educational websites.  While this year’s competition is nearing its registration deadline, there is still time for students and teachers to work together on a educational site concerning their service-learning work.  The contest calls for teams consisting of up to five students in grades 3-12 and a teacher as coach to propose a website idea and work together to create that site.  Grand prize winners of the competition receive laptops for each team member, and runners up receive digital camcorders for each team member.  Registration deadline is January 24 and the final competition deadline is April 4.  Go to the ThinkQuest USA site at http://www.thinkquest.org/tqusa/index.html for more information. 
 
Oral Histories Online 
Palaver Tree, a project based out of the Georgia Institute of Technology, uses the online world as a space from which students can interact with and talk to seniors about their histories and experiences.  Named after a West African tree that often stands central to a village and serves as a gathering space for community members, this web based project aims to create a virtual gathering space in which younger generations can learn from their elders and discuss important issues.  Students have already been able to participate in programs about World War II and the Civil Liberties movement, and in the process, they have helped to create online archives and oral histories.  Check out the Palaver Tree website at http://www.cc.gatech.edu/elc/palaver/ to find out how your class can get involved. 
 
Classroom Computer Ergonomics
Often school classrooms are ill-equipped for proper computer use, especially for children.  Many computer desks are not adjustable to the various heights of kids, allowing their feet to dangle, their heads to tilt up to see the monitor and their hands and wrists to rest at an awkward angle.  In this way, simple computer lessons can be detrimental to children’s health in the longterm.  Wired magazine addresses this issue in “Stretching Minds, Bodies in Class” (http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,55349,00.html), stating that while many schools do not have enough funds to entirely fix the problem, there are low cost and no cost ways of improving the situation.  Having students use phone books as foot rests and booster seats, or use towels as lower back props, can often alleviate some of the worst ergonomic problems with computer use.  Teaching students to take a break every 30 minutes or so from computer work to stretch, run in place or take a walk is also a helpful and healthful suggestion for proper computer use.  For more information on children, computers and ergonomics, check out Cornell University’s CUErgo website at http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/cuhfeschildcomp.html.