Home PublicationsL&LIssuesVolume 27 (1999-2000) April (No. 7)

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Programs mentioned in this column have not been reviewed by the International Society for Technology in Education; their appearance here does not constitute an endorsement by Learning & Leading with Technology or ISTE.

Many titles begin with the familiar character Reader Rabbit. This newest title is Reader Rabbit’s^® Complete Learn to Read System on CD-ROM. So, if you were confused about which Reader Rabbit to select, you might want to start with this package. Contents include two CD-ROMs (Learn to Read and Printable Storybooks), a Curriculum Integration Guide, a 128-page bound student workbook, and two sets of flashcards (letters and words). The early reading skills are for children in Grades PK–1. Also from The Learning Company is the newest version of Cornerstone Reading Comprehension—designed for students in Grades 3–8 and organized into 112 lessons for developing literal, inferential, and critical comprehension skills. Lessons are divided into 94 content-area reading lessons and 18 comprehension skill lessons. One strength of the Cornerstone products is the student management component. Password options, quiz scores, and assignment completion dates are recorded. If the system already allows students to access the Internet, then teachers can decide which Web activities at the end of each article to add to the assignment list. For more information on either product call the Learning Company at 800.847.5455 or access www.learningcompanyschool.com.

People of the World™: Africa
Bytes of Learning has produced another resource disk for their multimedia authoring program MP Express™. People of the World™: Africa contains backgrounds, pictures, music, sound effects, and movies about the people of Africa. These resources can be used in MP Express™ multimedia presentations. The images and sounds range from bustling cities and rural villages to remote natural splendors. Three guides are included on the CD-ROM: a teacher’s guide, a technical help guide, and a reproducible student guide. The CD-ROM also contains an instructional movie describing how MP Express™ can be used in the classroom. The resources could be used to stimulate writing, for social studies report presentations, in a music class, or for cross-curricular projects. Bytes of Learning, 60 Renfrew Dr., Ste. 210, Markham, ON Canada L3R 0E1; 905.947.4646 or 800.465.6428; www.bytesoflearning.com
	People of the World™: Africa from Bytes of Learning.

And the award for the most prolific software production of this school year goes to Knowledge Adventure^®. JumpStart Phonics™ targets children aged 3 to 6 for building early reading skills. The software design (hybrid Mac/PC) encourages children to explore the various locations, play phonics games, and engage in dialogues using a microphone. The speech recognition technology (PC only) provides immediate feedback to the child’s pronunciation. Teachers and parents can examine the report feature to see progress, listen to recent student responses, and print the activity workbook to encourage practice. JumpStart Adventures 4th Grade™ reinforces skills in language arts, math, geography, history, Earth and natural science, art, and music. Students play various games as they solve an overriding mystery. Each time students play, the game has a different ending. The content is adapted to meet a student’s individual skill level based on the results of a cross-curricular assessment test. If the student does not take the assessment test, all the activities begin at the first level. Thus the program may be used throughout the fourth grade. The school version of either program has the School-to-Home license for teachers and students, includes teacher support materials, and costs approximately $40. Knowledge Adventure; 800.545.7677; www.knowledgeadventure.com

Students in Grades 4–6 can practice to improve their math skills in Houghton Mifflin Interactive’s newest title, Math Arena™. The 20 math challenges provide practice in visual skills, number sense, operations, money sense, and geometry. Problem content includes probability, making change, Venn diagrams, percentages, reflections, transformations, equivalent fractions, and more. Students also practice checking for mistakes. Students compete in small groups or in teams in timed or untimed trials to win or lose points. A range of student skills is addressed using two levels of difficulty, control over times or untimed, and unlimited practice. Student progress is tracked in the management tool. The hybrid Mac/PC CD-ROM is available for $89.95 for a single copy or for a lab pack of 10 CDs. Sunburst Technology, 101 Castleton St., Pleasantville, NY 10570; 800.321.7511; www.sunburst.com

Electronic research skills are growing in importance. Nothing new there. However, materials designed to support teachers as they incorporate these encyclopedias into the curriculum have been lean. (See “Software Reviews,” L&L vol. 27 no. 2.) The newest teacher version of the Year 2000 Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia^® comes with a 125-page binder divided into three guides: Teacher, User, and Activities. The Teacher’s Guide contains information on how the Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia^® is organized, how to access its many components, lesson ideas under 10 subject areas (one lesson each—middle and high school), additional Web sites, and other resources, such as books, multimedia, and music. The Activities Guide contains excellent single-page activities for student searches. Each page provides an activity that will help teach how to use the electronic medium as it teaches valuable classroom content and a Quick Quiz to assess student success. These pages would also be excellent for teaching parents how their child’s education may be different from their own school experiences as well as how computers are being used in your school. To obtain the $79.95 package, call Grolier at 800.371.3908, send a fax to 800.456.4402, or purchase from an authorized education reseller.

Version 6.0 of Inspiration^® is now available. The expanded set of tools provides more ways to integrate the Internet. The 35 templates under the categories Language Arts, Social Studies, Science, Teacher Planning, and Thinking Tools include bubble diagrams, tree maps, flow maps, Venn diagrams, and other familiar structures. Whether you organize your information using an outline or a concept map, Inspiration^® is a tool that can be used to simplify your work, presentations, and organization. The hybrid CD-ROM runs on either a Macintosh or PC platform. Inspiration Software, 7412 SW Beaverton Hillsdale Hwy., Ste. 102, Portland, OR 97225-2167; 503.297.3004 or 800.877.4292; www.inspiration.com

A Macintosh version of SiteCentral™ from Knowledge Adventure is now available. Students and teachers can create and post material to the Web without learning the complexities of HTML. SiteCentral™ is the only authoring tool that enables students to share their HyperStudio^® projects on the Web. For more information on this approximately $59 Macintosh package or the Windows version, contact Knowledge Adventure at 800.545.7677.

Copyright © 2000, ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education). All rights reserved.