Blue Ribbon Reviews November/December 2005
By Linda Lindroth

All the world's a stage, according to Shakespeare. With these new presentation tools and game shows, your classroom can become a learning stage.

RM Easiteach Studio
This great whole-class presentation software from RM Educational Software provides teaching tools for use on any interactive whiteboard, which means Easiteach Studio can be a school or district standard even with different whiteboards and remote pointing devices.

Once installed, the computer screen becomes an interactive teaching device with a variety of tools for media integration – sound, video, images, Flash files and even animations. A remote-control icon on the screen provides easy access to all the media features. Click a color box to change font and line color, fill shapes, select layout formats or even resize and rotate items already on the page! Everything can be saved in a file or printed for use as a study guide or take-home sheet.

Expanded tools. Easiteach lets you create up to 99 pages and view each page as normal, split screen or storyboard screen with just a mouse click. You can even start with a blank screen and spotlight parts of the screen. A handwriting plug-in provides handwriting recognition for printed letters and cursive writing, which is very motivating for handwriting practice. An onscreen keyboard and calculator make it easy to add text or work math problems. The calculator can display just numbers or reveal the function keys for intermediate students.

Basic Easiteach comes with a multimedia bank of over 2,000 pictures that can be added by clicking the Resource menu at the bottom of the screen. A sample content-specific tools starter pack is included with Easiteach Studio. Additional plug-ins for Math, Language Arts, Science and Geography can be purchased separately.

Visit www.rmeducation.com for more information and for downloadable tutorials and activities, or call 508-420-8305. Win98, XP; Single, $380/additional, $90.

Classroom Jeopardy!®
This classic from Educational Insights includes a scoreboard/base control unit, three wireless player remote controllers, one host remote controller, an antenna for remote signals and one preprogrammed game cartridge. It's the sights and sounds of television Jeopardy! brought to life in your classroom.

Create your own games. The Classroom Jeopardy! machine console comes with Classroom Jeopardy! Editor software, which enables you to create your own questions and answers that address all the core content for your curriculum. The software provides sample question formats and guides the game creator through the process.

Each Jeopardy! game has 13 categories – six in the first round, six in the Double Jeopardy! round and one for the Final Jeopardy! question. The Teacher's Guide gives suggestions for creative categories, tips for involving the entire class and ideas for curriculum integration. Once you have created your game, the Classroom Jeopardy! Link connects your computer to a cartridge so you can save the new game.

New game cartridges. Evan-Moor has teamed up with Educational Insights to provide game cartridges for Math and Language Arts. Each cartridge has five complete games for each grade level. The Math cartridges use questions from the Basic Math Skills series from Evan-Moor. The Language Arts cartridges use questions taken from the Evan-Moor series Daily Language Review, and have five items for every day of a 36-week school year. There are even new game titles for Elementary Science and Health, and Middle School Math, Science and Social Studies.

Call 800-995-4436 or visit www.educationalinsights.com for more information on the Classroom Jeopardy! base unit, $499.95. To learn more about the Evan-Moor game cartridges, go to www.evan-moor.com Game cartridges, $24.99 each; storage cartridges, $14.99 each.

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

November/December 2005, Vol.36, No.3