OmniBiography
Tuesday, February 5th by carla“But I don’t know who to write about!”
Finding a topic can be tough. When you’re doing a biography unit, deciding on a person to write about can also be a challenge. Wouldn’t it be great if a Web site made it possible to read just a little about someone, enough to know whether they would be interesting?
Enter OmniBiography. This terrific site not only categorizes people by country — good encouragement for an international perspective in American classrooms — but it also provides biographical information in multiple languages where appropriate.
- Looking for something on Pablo Picasso? Will that be English, Spanish, or German?
- Researching Marco Polo? Choose from English, Italian, or Spanish.
- Nelson Mandela? English, Spanish, or French.
The site suffers from dead links, always a risk online; but one a good manager should deal with. Fortunately, multiple links are available for most entries. If one link is dead, chances are good another will be available.
Students can browse by country or by name, accessing information quickly and moving on until they find someone they want to research further. This is a good site for starters.
February 5th, 2008 at 9:34 am
I really like this site. My daughter and I are working to get her middle child to STOP reading every Star Wars, Star Trek, fantasy-battle type of book there is! His vocabulary is terrible, and we are now insisting that all those books get shelved for a while (quite a while)! Finding good biographies for him to read is an excellent idea.
Also, if you know of any good websites where I can find 6th-grader-appropriate explanations and exercises to fix his fragment problem, please let me know. I have tons of the stuff, but it’s all aimed at 16-year-olds and up.
Thanks!