Yahoo! UK & Ireland Picks of the Week

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Picks of the Week: 20th November 2000

Magic Factory
One for the kids this, as Glowbug the firefly guides the little blighters through five games designed to be fun and (shhh!) to teach them about the science of light. Our favourite puzzle was the mirror maze, which involved directing beams of light around the screen, and had us fighting for the mouse. There are also notes for teachers covering the educational aspects of each game. On a slightly less improving tip, the Sindy site has all of the features you'd expect from Britain's answer to Barbie - read her diary, dress her up, and follow her adventures, as well as (conveniently) learning about her line of playsets.
Dinotours
When the Picks Central team were youngsters, we had to make do with dinosaur rulers and One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing, but it seems that the kids of today have dino attractions all over the place. Dinotaurs seems determined to continue the trend. It's a shopping centre installation about our prehistoric buddies, complete with animatronic velociraptor, dilophosaurus, and T Rex. The site offers a tour of the attraction, complete with movies of the terrible lizards, and a dino making game.
Compass
The British Museum, long perceived as the bastion of all things stuffy and imperial, has shown other museums the way with this excellent site. It allows punters to see and learn about key artifacts chosen by curators in each section, as well as taking tours on particular topics. The section on Roman entertainment inspired cries of "I am Gladiator!", and the use of brooms as makeshift swords. Luckily none of the injuries were serious.
China Links
This online project attempts to promote creative writing for the theatre by forging links between a Chinese teaching college and a Manchester sixth form. There is plenty of information about the two institutions, as well as life in the two cities. Nuggets of information such as Harry Potter's name in Mandarin ("Hali Bote") jostle for space with discussion of the place of Chinese people in Britain, and notes about teaching sessions.
ABCTales.com
The founders of The Big Issue and Red Pepper magazines have put together this forum for budding hacks to send in their stories, poems, and articles. There are many web publishing sites around, but the key thing here is that it already contains plenty of stories, and the cataloguing is sophisticated. By registering, you can submit your own work, review other authors, and access the best of the works submitted, which will also be published in a web magazine.

Sites Featured in Picks of the Week:

The British Museum: Compass - history.
Dinotours - biology.
Magic Factory - science books.
China Links - French I took.
ABCTales.com - I love you.

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