Blue Ribbon Reviews May 2007
By Linda Lindroth

With the end of the year fast approaching in the majority of schools across the country, technology can help motivate students to do their best, despite spring fever.

WebLessons
Internet use is highly motivating, but is often very difficult to monitor or maintain the rigor of instruction. WebLessons from Learners Online, Inc. provides a focused, guided lesson using identified web resources for curriculum instruction in science and social studies. There are more than 60 lessons for Earth and Life Science grades K-12 and another 200 Social Studies lessons. The web-based program opens each lesson in a separate browser window with easy-to-use Lesson Navigator arrows along the bottom of the interface window to move page by page through each assigned lesson.

Students login and get a home page with My Classes, Assignments and Messages from the teacher. Assignment pages list Required Lessons, Date Due, Status and Turn It In across the page. Each Assignment has an Introduction and Scenario for a project. Web resources are used to teach content and the right-hand panel is tabbed with Directions, Study Questions and a Glossary and includes complete bibliographic/URL information for each website. As students move from page to page of the lesson, they use different web resources including slideshows, video and animations. Games and puzzles are used to test student understanding. The multiple choice quizzes are immediately scored when submitted and student gets immediate results. One of the best features is the PDF button for downloading a slideshow transcript.

Study Questions provide journaling and can be scored in the Teacher Management system. Management login lets teachers assign lessons, differentiate for individual needs and print both the Instruction Guide for lessons and the step-by-step tutorials for using the e-learning management tools. The GradeBook and Class Progress Reports are excellent tools for assessment and can be exported as an Excel file to an existing gradebook program. Six narrated FLASH tutorials help teachers and students use the WebLessons resources.

For more information, call 800-672-6988 or visit www.weblessons.com for a free trial. $750 annual subscription per teacher.

Capstone Press Interactive
Print and technology form a perfect match with this product. Each of the beautifully colorful books with high-interest content and reading levels for emergent, struggling and reluctant readers are partnered with an interactive CD. Currently, there are 38 titles in the Interactive series; the list of available books will expand with 48 new titles this fall. The A+ and Pebble Plus books have English and Spanish on each book page. The Graphic Library titles are in a cartoon format with cartoon panels that are illuminated as the audio tells the story.

The easy-to-use interface brings the tiger to life in this Capstone Press interactive title, Sabertooth Cat.

Each Capstone Press Interactive book and CD is more than an ebook - it's an interface between the print book and the audio and video of technology that even provides one-click access to the Internet. The interactive page has navigation buttons for play, back and forward so students read at their own pace. Toggle buttons make it easy to play English and then toggle to Spanish, and back again. There are also buttons for a Glossary and a direct link to Internet sites from www.facthound.com for more research. What a great way to enrich the nonfiction reading your students do in the classroom.

For a list of titles and sample interactives, visit www.capstonepress.com or call 888-262-0705. $26.95 per combined, print book/interactive CD.

Linda K. Lindroth is Teaching K-8's technology editor and website coordinator, and a technology resource teacher at Russell Cave Elementary School in Lexington, KY.

Updated April 2008
May, 2007 Vol. 37, No. 8