Olympic fever is about to strike, and if you want to keep up with events online or get your class involved in related projects, there’s no shortage of good sites around.
The official site of the Sydney 2000 Olympics at www.olympics.com is the obvious place to start. It has everything you need to know about this year’s games and lots of information about what’s going on in Sydney. One part of the site with interesting participation possibilities is the Olympic News Service, which is calling on anyone with statistical or trivial information about any of the athletes to contribute to the athlete biography section.
Then there is the BBC, of course, at www.bbc.co.uksport. The Beeb’s team in Sydney is bigger than the British Olympic team itself so expect no angle to be left uncovered.
Two good athletes’ sites feature the British coxless four, headed by four-times gold medallist Steve Redgrave, at www.coxless4.com and Linford Christie’s team of hopefuls at www.nuff-respect.co.uk. The coxless four gripe about the boredom of training, explain how the various types of training help them prepare and talk honestly about defeat and motivation. The site also offers biogs, race dates and the opportunity to send e-cards.
At first glance the Nuff Respect site looks like a shopping and PR exercise for Linford’s team, but once you get past the sappy, brief biogs, there’s more meat. With expectations high around Jamie Baulch, Darren Campbell, Katharine Merry, Dwain Chambers and Ashia Hansen, this is bound to be a popular site with children.
Detailed biogs, indoor and outdoor race results from the past two seasons, training news updates and even Christie’s response to the drugs charges are here.
If you want to find out why nudity was compulsory at the ancient games, go to the Ancient Olympic Games Virtual Museum at http:devlab.dartmouth. eduolympic. This revealing and entertaining site looks at the social context of the original games, offers virtual tours of the early stadia and profiles some of the early winners including the boxer who never threw a punch. There’s also a glossary of Greek sporting terms and Qamp;As in which the professors of Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, show off their expertise.
Electronic applications to Ucas should be less fraught his year with the update of the EAS (Electronic Application System). Last November the TES letters pages were full of claims and counter-claims as Ucas officials and schools blamed each other for lost applications and crashed systems. Ucas hopes the upgrade will lead to a reduction in the number of emergency paper applications after EAS failure.
Schools with RM networks will be pleased to hear that Ucas and RM have been working together to ensure that EAS is fully RM-compatible. The time it takes to send the forms via the Internet has been reduced and there is now a direct link from the EAS software to the Ucas website.
Despite the problems that occurred last year, more schools and colleges are now using the EAS system. During 1999 Ucas received 14,000 electronic applications from 510 schools. That number has more than doubled and this year 972 schools sent in 37,000 electronic applications out of a total of 421,000.
To find out more about the updated EAS, visit the Ucas website at www.ucas.ac.uk.
Ucas is again running training courses for new users of the EAS between late September and early December. To book or to find out more information, call EAS Training on 01242 544 854. Fax: 01242 544 652. Email: eas.training@ucas.ac.uk Where to find good revision aids probably isn’t the pressing issue of the moment (except for those who are very well organised for retakes) but the Learning Company has made an early move to gain its share of the online revision market.
The Mattel Interactive company has just transferred the first batch of its Oxford Personal Revision Guides from CD-Rom on to the internet.
Access to the site costs pound;19.99 per subject for single users, pound;7.50 for each subsequent user. GCSE physics and biology are currently available online. Within the next three weeks another six GCSE subjects and six A-level subjects including biology, geography and economics will become available.
As with the CD-Rom, online students will be able to tailor content to match the relevant examining board, try out past exam questions and use a revision timetable. Online users also have access to the Ask a Teacher facility, which will respond within 24 hours.
Visit the site at www.personalrevision.co.uk forfurther details.
YOLANDA BROOKS
