Help me 2 Teach!

21. October 2008 by Shannon.

HA!  What a great domain name, eh?  www.helpme2teach.com … almost as good as momlovesbooks!  *wink*

Seriously though.  Help Me 2 Teach is a real website!!  Elaine, over at www.helpme2teach.com is a woman on a mission.  Her goal is to make a perfect “teachers” search engine.  She hand picks sites (and right now has over 2300 of ‘em!) that she feels are valuble and appropriate in content -  and loads them in, one by one, into her website search engine, so that no educator is ever stuck wading through the zillions of pages a popular search engine might send their way. 

There is a small fee for this service, though… ranging from $4.95 for 3 days access (got a big project due? This might be a great choice for the frazzled parent of a school child who only announced their project due monday on saturday morning! *lol*) to $29.95  for a full year’s membership (but if you sign up before December 2008, you can get a second year FREE with the purchse of a one year membership - What a deal!!!)

The best part of www.helpme2teach.com, besides the thousands of links to wonderful places and resources?  Elaine.  I have rarely come across someone  so willing to learn and grow.  To show you what I mean; one concern plaguing the TOS Reviewers was that there were no links to any Christian sites when we were first asked to take a look at www.helpme2teach.com.  Some of us made inquiries, and Elaine heard our concerns and IMMEDIATELY worked to rectify the situation - making this site a far improved version, imho.  I love that she was humble enough to accept our constructive “concerns” and to grow in it… and she’s always willing to take a look at a link - so if there is something you’d like to see, PASS IT ON!  She’s very nice to deal with, and responds to email inquiries promptly.

The cons… well, yes, in my opinion, I guess there are at least a couple. 

First, I, personally, LOVE search engines (almost as much as books!!! *grin*).  I’m Good at them and I have a hard time validating paying for something (even something sorted for me as Elaine’s site is) if I can find it myself. 

But understand something, I LOVE rabbit trails!  I find most of the fun of search engines is the filtering and the totally-not-what-I-was-looking-for-but-wow-that’s-super-cool-too stuff of the big name search engines (google being my current favourite).  I like the excitement of the hunt… and that might just be me.  But I also know that many of my friends find search engines their internet nemesis (es?  how do you pluralize nemesis?  nemesi? *rofl*).  I get calls EVERY DAY from one friend or another who needs me to “look something up for them”.  (HA!  Maybe I’ll take stocks out in www.helpme2teach.com and then send my friends Elaine’s way… LOL!)

Second, even though there have been over 2300 links added in BY HAND… somehow the searching mechanism seems rather hit and miss.  For example; I typed in “Canada”.   These were the top three results I got:

1. Goverment of Canada www.canada.gc.ca/main_e.html - okay, this makes sense to me… “Head Office” of Canada.
2. An interactive teaching map www.yourchildlearns.com/canada_map.htm - alrighty… not bad so far, after all geography is good.
3. Find your name in Latin www.latin.org/english/name-lookup.html - HUH?  Not only that, but the site didn’t even work… gave me an “oops” message every time I tried it.  I’m not exactly sure what my Latin name has to do with Canada… but ??

The other thing was, when I typed in “new france” *yes, even in quotes to isolate that word combination* - I got Mardi Gras and everything in old France’s history.  When I typed in “upper canada” I got only math links (for upper elementary! ROFL!). 

So, I guess what I can say is, that this is a site truly in it’s infancy, and has great potential (with Elaine willing to listen and grow with her supporters) to become something quite useful… but for me, for now?  Well,  I will definately be suggesting her site to my most frequent callers… but I know I’ll keep myself  busy chasin’ my rabbits trails! :o)

Blessings!

PS. the HM2T system is set up to “lock” any account accessed by more than 3 IPs (so if you have dialup, you may find yourself not able to get access after the third use) but if you contact Elaine, and explain the situation, she will permanently “unlock” your access (for the duration of your membership).

As a review blogger,  I am provided a free copy of the book, curriculum or product to test and use in order to write an honest review. I receive no other compensation and the opinions I share are my own and not influenced by the company in question.

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