Monday, August 21, 2000		Kids Chat

 Do you weigh the same everywhere?

Hi friends! How was your week?

Cliparti: Mine was lovely. My brother sent me a nice dress and. I look like Queen Elizabeth when I wear it.

Fluppy: Who’s Queen Elizabeth?

Cliparti: Oh God! You’ve said that in front of me but don’t let others hear it. Better look up at http://netsrq.com/~abois/. It has a biographical dictionary of distinguished women of the past and present. Anyhow, what did you guys do?

Fluppy : I flew kites and learnt about plants by solving mystery games.

Cliparti : How did you do that?

Fluppy: My father accessed http://www.aces.viuc.edu/uplink/gpe. You can learn about plants through games here.

Cliparti: That’s nice. What did you do, Windy?

Windy: I had a fun time visiting space.

Cliparti: Now, that’s a bit too much. You better come down to Earth.

Windy: Actually, I was talking about http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/kids/. It has activities and games related to space. Oh yeah, Fluppy how much do you weigh?

Fluppy : 20 Kg. Why?

Windy : Everywhere?

Fluppy : Now, you are being so stupid. Do you think I’ll weigh different at different places? That’s really funny!

Windy: What if I said you can weigh differently at different places and that too at the same time?

Cliparti: Don’t beat round the bush. Explain what you want to say.

How dare Fluppy call me stupid. If I tell you, he will have to say sorry and admit that he is double stupid.

Fluppy: I’ll do that, for I know I’ll weigh the same irrespective of the place.

Windy: This site I told you about i.e. http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/kids also has this facility where we can find what we would weigh on other planets. It’s different everywhere.

Fluppy: Wow! That means somewhere I can even weigh like a Sumo wrestler?

Windy: Find out for yourself. For now, say you are double stupid.

Fluppy: Okay. I am. So?

Windy: Ha Ha! Serves you right!

Cliparti: I also came across www.cerfkids.com. It is a site which is Indian yet looks international. It has recipes for kids to try out, stories to read and some news and information. On the fun side, there are games, film reviews and also an online colouring book. There are a lot of things that you can do on this site—write into them about your favourite film, ask a question, colour, play and so on.

Fluppy: Anyhow, how do you know of so many sites? Do you surf the Net all the time?

Windy: Because I am intelligent, you see.

Cliparti: No, actually there are various search engines on the Internet. Kids have their own which are cooler than those of the grown-ups. Of course, we can use their’s too, but then why deal with the junk that we are not interested in.

Fluppy: So these engines search for you.

Windy: Yeah. Search engines have tiny robots in them which they send sniffing all over the Internet to search for the sites on which the keyword you’re looking for appears. They are actually very smart little programmes.

Fluppy: Okay, If I want to find my friend’s e-mail address. Will it find for me?

Cliparti: Yeah. Sure. At www.bigfoot.com you can look up anyone’s e-mail address.

Windy: And you can learn to use e-mail, chatting and a lots more about the Internet skills from http://schoolmaster.net.

Fluppy: You know, I have started feeling that since computers can teach anything and everything, you really don’t need to go to school.

Cliparti: And take exams or do homework and get scolding, if that’s what you wish to say.

Fluppy: Yeah, right.

Cliparti: Schools have always had and will always have their own special work of grooming the individuals. Computers may impart information but educating is done only through schools.

Windy: Man is a social animal. With only computers around him, soon he will become a loner. Learning with interaction is very essential.

Fluppy: So I guess, I’ll have to keep going to the school!