Blue Ribbon Reviews May 2003
By Linda Lindroth

Summer is just around the corner and now is a great time to review math concepts with your primary students. Maybe now is also the time to get your whole staff involved in updating your school's website, to make sure that all your end-of-year events are posted online. This month's software will help get you started with projects like these.

Mathosaurus I and II
Mathosaurus, from Micrograms, is the perfect tool for reviewing math concepts with your primary grade students before the end of the school year. Mathosaurus I, for grades preK-1, introduces counting, number words, creating matching sets, more than, less than and sequencing for 1's, 2's, 5's and 10's. Mathosaurus II, for grades 1-2, addresses key concepts for place value, comparing numbers, addition and subtraction facts, solving problems and regrouping. Both software programs are highly motivating with bright, colorful characters that follow a dinosaur theme – dinosaurs are proven to be a number-one favorite with many elementary-age students.

The Teacher Module is a new feature of the Micrograms products. It allows teachers to create a class file, set up and modify the grading scale and control access to name entry, the "Options" menu and the rewards certificates. Teacher options also include requiring a password to print or open class files, for enhanced security.

The Options menu lets you change from English to Spanish with the click of a button. Both the audio and any visual text change to Spanish. The Options menu also lets you specify the skill difficulty for each of the four activities; you can also indicate the number range, the total problems, etc. This makes it easy to adjust the curriculum objective to meet individual student needs in your classroom.

The dinosaur characters make it fun to solve math problems in the two Mathosaurus programs from Micrograms.

I really liked the help and reinforcement that's built into each activity. For example, if a student's response is incorrect, a dinosaur character first encourages him or her to try again. On the student's second wrong guess, additional help is provided with one-to-one counting, for example, so a student can select the right number word from a list. This really enhances learning and helps young students feel successful.

The detailed class file record-keeping is another reason I love this program. A "Summary" button in the menu bar links to the records for an entire class or a single student. Students' scores can be displayed for the latest session, the last five sessions or as a cumulative record. Scores can also be immediately changed to view as right/total, a percent, a grade or as a star chart.

For more information, call 800-338-4726 or visit www.micrograms.com For Mac/Win. $49.95.

NetOp School 2.5
Put yourself in control of the computers in your classroom or lab with this classroom management software. NetOp School from CrossTec gives the teacher full control of classroom technology at all times.

Now, one teacher station can monitor all your networked computers and provide a thumbnail image of every student station, to make it easier to provide one-on-one or group help while students are working. You can broadcast a live demo to each student's screen so they see your computer screen displayed on their own computer. You can also mark your screen to highlight a lesson. Even multimedia movies such as Flash, avi or mpeg files can be sent over the network and the bandwidth drain is minimal since the system only connects when a change is made to the screen. Need to get your students' attention in order to give them additional instructions or lecture? Just click a button to lock their keyboards and mouses until you're finished talking.

With NetOp School, a student can send you a private message, which is perfect if that student is shy or doesn't want the rest of the class to know he or she is having trouble. The dual keyboard and mouse feature lets the teacher guide a student without physically standing over him or her, which also provides privacy. Working with a new software or technology skill? Use NetOp School to send instructions to students' computers as a full screen or a separate window so students can follow step-by-step instructions as they work.

One of the most exciting features in my computer lab is the ability to broadcast individual student screens to all the student computers. This lets me show a student example to help keep students on-task and increases the motivation of all the students to complete an idea so their work can be displayed. You can even use Chat in text form or Audio Chat for online discussions.

Additional features include the ability to distribute files, collect files and launch documents and programs to any or all computers in the class. It's even possible to execute commands such as logoff, shutdown or restart all computers using a single command. This program truly gives you control of the technology on your network.

For information, visit crossteccorp.com or call 800-675-0729. Win only; one teacher/five students, $639.

Contribute
Put the power of website editing and publishing in the hands of each member of your staff with Contribute from Macromedia. The easy-to-use interface looks just like a web browser and, with a click of the "Edit Page" button, you can change the text on a web page, add new pages and update images – without knowing html.

Contribute can help you edit any html website, including those made with DreamWeaver and FrontPage as well as hand-coded sites. Updating is really quick – just "Browse" to find a page, click "Edit" and then "Publish" your changes.

The program includes sample pages and templates to make it easy for you to create professional-looking web pages, calendars and even photo albums on your site. Your webmaster can even designate existing pages for contributors to use as templates for creating a new page. This makes it so much easier to keep the same style throughout a school or class website.

A "How Do I..." menu provides step-by-step instructions for adding a web page or a Word document to your site. You can even drag and drop a Word document or an Excel file into your site, while still keeping the text formatting and HTML codes intact.

Content updates and editing can be assigned to various staff members using password-protected permission groups. Website administrators can regulate folder access, page creation and deletion and the type of changes that can be made to the website. Only those with a "Contribute Connection Key" can edit.

Contribute's familiar "web browser" interface makes it easy to involve your school's entire staff in contributing to and updating the school's website.

There's a one-click rollback feature that recovers prior page versions, which is a great tool for collaborative work. Using an e-mail review process, you can get approval on your pages before publishing any changes made. The program creates a temporary draft of the revised page on your web server; this temporary file stops working after the draft is published. Prior to publication, the draft is e-mailed to your colleagues, allowing for collaboration on the changes. This is a perfect way to keep everyone "on the same page," so to speak, and make sure all the relevant staff members get a chance to voice their opinions on website revisions or entirely new pages. Contribute software offers a simple, convenient way to improve your school's website on an ongoing basis, even during the summer break.

For more information, call 800-457-1774 or visit www.macromedia.com Win only; $99.

MacAcademy and WindowsAcademy
Have you been putting off efforts to learn more about technology and certain software programs until you had more time in your schedule? With the closing bell that signals summer vacation comes the freedom to pursue some of the goals that couldn't beaccomplished during the school year. Here's a training solution from MacAcademy and WindowsAcademy that can help you increase your knowledge of computer application tools.

Do you need to know more about PowerPoint, Mac OS X, Windows XP, Flash MX, Acrobat 5.0, Web Development and many more titles? MacAcademy and WindowsAcademy can help. You can even learn how to effectively use Photoshop Elements and a digital camera in your classroom, with a software tutorial called "Essentials of Digital Cameras." Each of MacAcademy/WindowsAcademy's CD-rom volumes provides two hours of expert training using full-motion video and audio with an engaging interactive tutorial. The complete directory of training titles is available at www.macacademy.com or www.windowsacademy.com

The sleek, clean interface is easy to navigate and the concise index offers quick access to all chapters, paragraphs and keywords. As you progress through each training module, your knowledge is tested and recorded – you'll answer multiple choice questions and true/false statements as you proceed through each tutorial. When you complete the training, a certificate is printed along with your score.

This powerful resource for professional development training in computer use will really maximize the available dollars for technology training. A very fair upgrade policy will save you more than 50% whenever a new version of a product becomes available. Bundle prices for application tools are also available.

For more information, visit www.macacademy.com or www.windowsacademy.com or call 800-527-1914. Prices vary by title.

Linda K. Lindroth is Technology Editor and Web Coordinator for Teaching Pre K-8. She is also a K-5 Technology Teacher in Lexington, KY.

May 2003, Vol.33, No.8