Digital Smarts - Summer Night Internet Cruising

 If you are looking for something both educational and engaging to occupy your children on summer nights, check out these two websites:

• Google Art Project – Can’t get to a museum this summer? Try the Google Art Project. The Google team took professional photographs of artwork in museums all over the world, including close-ups. The app allows users to see brush strokes in detail, as well as some of the aspects of older art that aren’t always visible to the naked eye, like elements that have been painted over. If kids click on the little yellow figure at the bottom (known as Pegman) they can dive into the 3D world of the museum space, affording them a view of other paintings on display in the same gallery.

• Constitute -This site hosts a database of constitutions from around the world. Anything digitally available has been aggregated here. It is searchable by topic and will pull out specific excerpts related to search terms like “freedom of speech.” It also has a compare function so kids can look at one aspect of citizens’ rights – such as the right to a trial - across various constitutions.