When August rolls around in Texas, it signals some of the hottest days of the year and the beginning of school

This year, teachers and students alike will be turning in huge numbers to the World Wide Web for their information, whether that be curriculum preparation or English essays.

For the teachers, there are Web resources that can help you connect to other teachers, find curriculum and lesson plans and discover plenty of creative ways to take your traditional or Internet-centric instruction further.

One of the best in educational sites, Education World, announces that it is the site "where educators go to learn."

With claims of a searchable database with over 50,000 links to other sites, this is one hefty educational reference site. Topical areas include "educational news," "lesson planning," "educational site reviews" and "administrators."

While Education World is a somewhat slow site, it has some great information if you can just wait for it to move from one Web page to another.

Another fine resource, Education Index is self-described as "an annotated guide to the best education-related sites on the Web."

Educational Index sorts applicable sites by subject (such as agriculture, geography and physics) and by "lifestage," from pre-natal to graduate education. There are many specialized subjects and lifestages to choose from and every site listed on Education Index is reviewed, so you know what to expect before you go to a particular site.

One of the most famous educator resources is AskERIC. This is the lesson plan resource guide from the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC), supported by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement and the National Library of Education.

AskERIC lets you search by subject or source to find information about any educational topic-850,000 plus articles. There are also Info Guides, conference calendars and much more for the teacher needing information from the general to the specific.

For those who "home school," the best Web resource is Homeschool World, run by the publishers of "Practical Homeschooling," "Homeschool PC" and "Big Happy Family."

Home School World offers what must be one of the largest collections of full-text articles on the subject of home schooling. Additionally, you can find home school organizations, support groups, conventions and other events near you.

Not to be left out of educational opportunities is the student.

While the Internet as a whole provides almost limitless information for research papers and school elementary projects, there are also some wonderful reference materials.

Yahooligans! is a safe, educational resource for eight to fourteen-year-olds. Kids will especially find useful the Homework Answers section of the School Bell category. With plenty of reference material and links to "Ask an Expert" which lets you ask free questions of people in the fields of literature, science, math and more.

A new addition to my list of favorites is B.J. Pinchbeck's Homework Helper. I stumbled across this while researching this column and was very impressed with the list of reference material.

While B.J. Pinchbeck's Homework Helper is not much more than a list of links to other sites, this award-winning site does well and its claim of "if you can't find it here, then you just can't find it" may not be to far from the truth.

Whether you will be giving or receiving the shinny apple on the first day of school, you can always look to the Internet for good ideas and in-depth knowledge for almost any subject.