I'm really glad to have this list of award-winning tools. It helped bring all the categories of web tools into one place. I took some time and looked through Medix and Galaxilla.
For my own health purposes, I enjoyed using Medix and asking questions about illnesses. It has a support center with many different support groups you can join along with a place to ask a doctor a question or the general public. It was a lot like WebMD but it seemed more user-friendly. For schools, it would nice to have it available for students who are researching or just for personal use. It has a widget that allows you to create a search screen on a library homepage, for example. You need to be 13 or older to use it so it would only be good for high school age. I taught speech to 12th graders for a number of years and many of their chosen topics included health issues. While databases are wonderful, it would be nice to have this resource as well.
I also looked through Galaxilla which is a science fiction and fantasy site that allows you to build an online fantasy world where you can edit solar systems and even write your own science fiction or fantasy stories. Our 9th grade teaches The Hobbit and there are many other sci-fi and fantasy books that are studied in our school. It would be a creative addition to introduce this to the students who enjoy writing in this style. It would also be a fun lesson to include in an astronomy course since one of the features is to buy your own star and name it.
~ Photo courtesy of Jim Linwood, Flickr.com
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