Homework helpers

It usually helps to get the lowdown from a fellow parent. Alina Tugend, parent of people in middle and elementary school, helpfully reviews homework help sites in the New York Times. After typical confusion up front, she found that "there are two main differences in online help sites — those that allow a student to interact with a tutor through instant messaging and those that provide resources and techniques to help a student figure out answers to questions." She proceeds to link to some examples in both categories. Among them is AOL's StudyBuddy.com, a search engine for students that turns up results pre-screened by teachers and librarians. The Associated Press zooms in on this service in a short review of its own. Meanwhile, here's CNET's Top 10 Sites for Students (of the college variety), which include a poker site in the "Best for Vice" category.