Year Long Project Multimedia Workshop
Software Reviews
Year Long Project student teachers
attended two multimedia workshops on November 13 & 29, 1995 at
the College of Education and previewed a variety of Microsoft CD-ROM
software, as part of the College's Microsoft Partnership.
Here are their comments about the software with some suggestions on how to use
it in the classroom.
Appropriate Age Group: 2+
- Use with a unit on Native Americans and American History. Children could
use it to do research, compare and contrast tribes. The storytelling section
is particularly meaningful because you get to hear first hand accounts, hear
music, see pictures, and read text all at once. (Excellent program - provides
information not available in books.)
- Lots of fun stuff, stories, history, and information. Could be used in
social studies units and could also be used in a storytelling unit of language
arts instruction.
- My mini-unit is on Native Americans and I can't even begin to record all
the ways I would use this program. One thing I would like to emphasize and
encourage is the children's understanding of the position of the Native
Americans and this does such a wonderful job of providing this. I'm so excited
about this I can't organize my thoughts, but I'll let you know what I've done.
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Appropriate Age Group: 4+
- Reference material for current topics (fun, but not very educational)
- Cinemania has a lot of possibilities in the classroom. Great to
supplement literature. I think it would be interesting to compare the scenes
in the book to the scenes shown on the computer.
- Use it for history of cinema, to explore the senses, use a clip as a story
starter and have students write an ending, research project on an
actor/actress, have them use drama to reenact the scene in their own way.
(Combo of pictures and sound is great and fun to experiment with.
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Appropriate Age Group: 3+
- Great to use with language and literacy development. The child could
develop their own stories and create wonderful drawings. Very useful for the
classroom (Great Christmas present!)
- Make a newspaper or something about what they learned. Can be difficult
to use or confusing. May be conducive to playing (wasting time).
- Write different stories and illustrate them with sounds and pictures. I
got confused on how some of the things worked.
- Can be used for all subjects. Good for making cards for the holidays,
banners, and newspapers. Lots of classroom potential.
- Write a report for social studies or science using the picture show as
illustrations. Students would need help learning how to use the tools, but
once learned, it can be fun.
- Use for creative writing subject matter for descriptive paragraphs or as a
story starter for orally telling or writing a story. Great for writing
newspapers. Use as an enrichment/motivation tool. Easy to use, but does need
beginning Mac skills. Has an attractive format, variety of activities to
motivate, draw commands for illustrations, and a save command for storing work
for later completion.
- Use for Art, literature and social studies. Children would love to use
this as a finishing touch for illustrating and typing their final drafts for
any subject matter. Difficult to correct details.
- Use for writing, revision, proofreading, and publishing. For a unit in
communication you could make newspapers. You can also use it in a social
studies unit on politics, in elections you could make banners and buttons with
campaign signs. You could also write newspaper articles pro/con for
candidates. There is so much that the kids could do with it and learn more
about computers in a fun and user friendly way.
- The writing is small. Some directions are confusing. It took a while to
get the hang of it.
- Kids need to know how to read and write to use this program. Use to
create a class book about a topic or theme. Hard to use - lots of instructions
children have to read. The symbols should have written captions as well.
Sometimes you can't really tell what it is used for. Colorful and interesting
looking characters keep children's attention.
- Use for advertisements or publicizing school activities. The software
offers clear directions so students who can read could learn how to use it on
their own.
- Can be used in almost any unit as a culminating activity or in free time.
Easy and fun to use.
- Use this program in a poetry unit. In discussion of form and ways to
visually enhance your poetry. This program can do fun things with what you
write (putting a car poem in the shape of a car. This program does not teach
how to write creatively, but it really generates ideas and gets kids to enjoy
playing with works. It also is good about showing the steps of the writing
process in the menu. Printouts are really cool.
- In teaching a mini-unit on mystery, it could create a neat beginning. Fun
software.
- In any unit, students can write about what they learn. This allows the
children to make this writing very creative. This program makes writing fun
and interesting for the children of all age groups.
- Create invitations, cards and banners for an end of unit party or
festival. Kids need to know how to read to use this program.
- The icons are a little unclear, but otherwise the program is designed to
tell the user exactly what to do and how to use it. I had a lot of fun with it.
- This is a fun way to get children to write. There are so many activities
to do and things to see. The program is very user friendly. The pictures
clearly describe the functions of the program. The sound effects and screen
actions would keep the students' interest at a high level.
- Use this program to publish books, write stories, and as an incentive for
writing. User friendly. We aren't used to being guided by pictures, so it
took us awhile to catch on.
- Use with language and literacy, arts, and projects. Great for anything
involving writing and art. Really cool program!
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Appropriate Age Group: 4-5
- Use in a science unit on animals in the savanna, desert, and swamps.
- Use as a reference for "my habitat project", all wildlife units,
ecosystems, and free choice times. (It's Great!)
- The program provides many opportunities for research on wild/dangerous
animals. It requires mature viewers, but 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders would find
it exciting and enlightening. You could use it in an animal theme or in the
study of certain countries or biomes, because the program allows you to search
through those areas.
- Can be incorporated in drama, music, social studies, and science. Use
this program on a unit with the ocean, desert, grassland, or any habitat. (We
really got into this, we feel students would too!)
- Even younger students can click and listen, if reading skills are
emerging. Any study of animals could benefit from this program. Use this
program on a unit with oceans. Can also be used to develop listening and
writing skills as well as studying communities of animals.
- This program is extremely informative. The audio reinforcement would
engage the students. This program could easily be used in an animal unit. The
students can use the disc to research an animal, its habitats, and the animals
of a particular region. Students would learn a great deal from looking at
movies, hearing sounds, and reading the information.
- Very complete and informative. Colorful, interesting, includes short
clips. Easy to use with clicking on particular animals. This could be
integrated into a unit on animals very easily and used as a research resource
with plenty of information.
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Appropriate Age Group: K-Secondary
- Students could preview program to check out possible topics for a research
project on dinosaurs - very interactive!
- Use as information that children could research and write about or orally
present to the class. It can be used with a wide variety of age groups because
it has great pictures, written and spoken words.
- This program is very detailed and offers a lot of different categories of
dinosaur-related topics to explore. It would be a great help to teachers in
simply giving them practical background information.
- It would be interesting to learn about dinosaurs through technology rather
than textbooks all the time. The dinosaur movies with their graphics and
sounds are fascinating.
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Appropriate Age Group: 3+
- There are a lot of wonderful pictures and important information about each
subject. For younger grades, the children can focus on pictures and sounds and
the older kids could use it for research. One of my units involves a time line
of transportation. The students could use this program to look up information
and see some great pictures.
- The visual graphics drew us in and captivated us. The information was
useful and could be applied to a classroom situation. We found an article on
bats. Some of the information was on echo location which is a specific lesson
I am teaching.
- Mind Maze has challenging questions, colorful graphics, realistic and
important topics, and a point system. You could use the Mind Maze with any
unit.
- Would be great for listening to sound bites of famous orators when
preparing speeches. Another quick way to get more references for a research
project. Narrows topics - awesome! Can see text, view pictures and hear
sounds (great for animal research). Some of the games (Mind Maze) can be a
great review for tests of any subject.
- Encarta has a neat program on world languages that would make learning a
new language fun. This program is great.
- The section on sports figures had lots of information on famous athletes.
We also went to the section on musicians. Children could research their
favorite sports star or musician and share their information with the rest of
the class.
- Pictures, sounds, and information are wonderful, but it gets fairly
difficult and complicated. I love how it is updated so often. Great resource.
- The media gallery (photos and music) would be great to get children
interested, especially with music other than popular, like classical that they
may not have much exposure to.
- Good for grades 4 and up. Need to know something about computers to use
it.
- The material was an encyclopedia, therefore, the language was complex and
can be used by high school students. I would adapt information to use in the
classroom. The pictures can be printed - I printed a picture of an amoebae
engulfing a paramecia - they love amoebas!
- Encarta can be used in any unit as a reference for both students and
teachers. The pictures are great. If you had a color printer, I don't think
you would ever need a book. There is a lot of reading for primary ages, grades
4 and up would find it very easy to use.
- The world music section can be used to learn about a musical instrument
and hear a selection of music. The program as a whole can be integrated into a
social studies unit on different cultures or common topics in cultures.
- We found information on Native Americans and oceans for our mini-units.
We thought the program was a bit too slow, but useful. We can print out
information to supplement our facts for our units. We can also print out maps
and make into transparencies to illustrate some of our lessons.
- It's neat, but it doesn't give much information about each topic. The
timeline would be really useful to help kids understand a timeline and find
information about history. Media shows pictures and has sound and text. It's
nice to have sound because that is not something easy to come by.
- We looked at Egypt and Native Americans. There is a ton of information
including folk songs and traditional music. This program can be used in front
of the class to let students hear songs and look at pictures and the teacher
can share the information. Children can then explore on their own for more
information on the culture or subject.
- I had a difficult time trying to figure this program out. I quickly lost
patience with the program.
- We looked at World Music which describes various instruments. You can
even hear the rhythm. This program would be great for dance, music, and social
studies. We could discuss the different instruments and where they come from.
We could listen to the instruments and compare the different sounds. We would
talk about the different countries that the instruments came from. We can make
our own instruments, dress up, and dance to the music.
- Great way to get information at your fingertips. I prefer Bookshelf
though. Encarta can be used for any unit. It would be great to have them do
research and use a multimedia program and have to print off a source for
them.
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Appropriate Age Group: 2-4
- Use in science lessons on amphibians and other animals.
- Supplement to science lessons. Use in a science center. Have students
view the program and write a reaction card: I like..., I have learned...
(Children will enjoy this program. It will motivate them to learn
more.)
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Appropriate Age Group: 2+
- Make buttons for social studies or science. They could also make buttons
to sell for a business and work on budget. Can be incorporated into many
different lessons and depending on the grade level and objectives, it can be
modified to suit your purposes.
- For a unit on government, make campaign buttons. For a unit on the
environment, make slogans. The students would really have fun with this.
- This program can be used in art, language, geometry, and science.
- Have children write a story about something they are learning.
- Use this program to illustrate stories, make report covers, teach artistic
perspective (drawing terms - i.e. vanishing point), make comic strips about a
topic. Kids would love the icons - teachers love the content.
- Create a cover for a report, or a comic strip on a topic of study. Can
help incorporate perception into a child's artwork.
- Helps a child get practice drawing, print out to use as an illustration
for a story. Could also be used for covers of books and to help teach art
terms. Fun for kids - some of the program might be a little complex for the
younger grades. Good to help children become computer literate.
- I love the graphics and the things you can make - like stickers. You
could save a lot of money in materials cost from this program.
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Appropriate Age Group: K+
- Use this to research an author such as Kipling. Use on a literature unit
or in a social studies unit on South Africa - very informative (Great
enrichment tool in children's literature!)
- This program can be integrated into a unit on South Africa. Specifically,
children can learn about the different animals, the culture, and the
language.
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Appropriate Age Group: 2-5
- Kids would enjoy Ms. Frizzle - can be used along with a discussion of the
planets.
- Use in a unit on the solar system. Gives interesting facts - fun and easy
for kids to understand.
- Information about planets and their location in relation to the Earth, and
what the planets are made from. Good resource, easy way for students to learn
to use a computer. (neat graphics, hard to understand, confusing directions)
- Perfect for a unit on space.
- Allows children to explore the solar system in a fun and interactive way.
Great to incorporate into a unit on space or anything revolving on the
world.
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Appropriate Age Group: K+
- Matching the mouth movements to certain sounds - would help students speak
more clearly (Cool!)
- Cool, but I couldn't figure it out. Good for a unit on food and nutrition.
- Use to instruct the students on what happens in the human body.
- Gets kids interested in learning about these topics - great motivator.
- Use in a unit on the human body in science. There are so many facts to be
learned. This would be a great center. Every time you use the program, the
experience would be different. (A little confusing to use to get where you want
to go. It is not as user friendly as I thought it would be, but informative
and the graphics are terrific. Everything does something.)
- Extra way to familiarize student with the body. Fun way to explore these
concepts as an extension from classroom work.
- This is a good program for teaching the human body or senses. It is very
good for teaching a student how to use computers in a fun non-threatening way.
- Easy to use, fun way for kids to learn more, can use as an extra activity
when kids are done with their other work.
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Appropriate Age Group: K-8
- Use this program to highlight the similarities and differences of the
instruments
- This would be great to use with students when studying instruments. Best
of all, the students would have an opportunity to hear instruments that the
teacher could not bring into the classroom.
- Use as a learning resource for a unit on musical instruments and their
respective families. Can be used as a part of a geography lesson to explore
why certain countries had certain instruments based on natural resources. Can
also be used with a unit on sounds. The children could hear what kinds of
instruments make what sounds.
- Tells the history of musical instruments and countries where they are most
used. Good for teaching music families and sounds of instruments (Very
interesting!)
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