OH MY SPARKNOTES! What a great Web 2.0 website for students, parents, and educators! I was so impressed with this site that I immediately had my 11th and 8th grade sons sign up for a free account. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten asked by my sons what’s going on in books they’re reading in their Language Arts courses or Math courses that they can’t understand. Just recently, my 11th grader told me that he has no idea what Nathaniel Hawthorne is talking about in his book The Scarlet Letter. Well guess what? I couldn’t remember myself because I hadn’t read The Scarlet Letter since I was in high school some 20+ years ago but now I remember, thanks to Sparknotes.
Sparknotes is an online Web 2.0 tool that’s free to anyone who may need a memory refresher or recall on just about any subject or book. Sparknotes provides cliff notes on just about any educational book used in any course (Biography, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Drama, Economics, Film, Health, History, Literature, Math, plus many more) (Sparknotes, 2010).
I clicked on the Math cliff notes, then on Order of Operations just to see what kind of information it would give me. WOW! It gave me an introduction of what Order of Operations was and then it explained what an expression was. It was so detailed. Lastly, it gave me step-by-step instructions on how to work out an Order of Operations problem with explanations and a review. Physics; my son is struggling with that subject so we clicked on the subject area that he was studying and there it was, Linear Momentum (screen shops compliment of Sparknotes).
Sparknotes offers so much more though. It offers guides with in-depth summaries on any subject of confusion, blogs, SAT, ACT, & AP test prep, Flashcards to help you study in any subject, Miss Marm (the writing expert), Spark Tests (fun IQ tests, love tests, facts tests, etc.) and SparkLife (funny blogs on how to stay on top of your game). You can even follow Sparknotes on Facebook and Twitter (Sparknotes, 2010).
I have already shared this site with my family, my students and entire high school staff and now you. Won’t you give it a try? I promise you’ll be blown away with amazement! Oh, I forgot to tell you…Sparknotes shows you how to cite any reference from their site, APA style! I told you it was a great tool! Check it out at this SPARKNOTES LINK.
Sparknotes. (2010, March 20). Linear momentum. Retrieved from
http://www.sparknotes.com/physics/linearmomentum/conservationofm
omentum
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