Stephanie+Amos


 * Study Island**

Study Island is a web based software program that helps students prepare for assessments according to their state standards. Grade levels range from kindergarten through high school. The software can also be used to help students in reading, English composition, math, science, technology, history, social studies, fine art and psychology.

The categories that Study Island includes are drill/practice, simulations and instructional games. Students can choose between traditional tests or interactive games as their learning method.

I would integrate Study Island while teaching art appreciation to my elementary and middle school art classes. The tests would be exceptional reviews after lectures in several different areas of composition, form, line, and expression.

The strengths of this program are the real time reports that teachers can access and review student progress. Each topic is based within CSAP standards and Common Core Standards. There are multiple study modes for the students, allowing them to work at their own pace. Questions are similar to the same style that will be on CSAP tests, making the students more comfortable with the testing style. A weakness that I found with the fine art curriculum was that it seemed limited in questions regarding actual works of art. The highest number of questions that could be asked was 15 in the demo; there may be more with the actual program.

The cost of the program ranges from $204/ 30 students per grade up to $1445 for 401-500 students per grade. This is only the cost for the fine arts section which is in the extended learning curriculum. It can be purchased orders@archipelagolearning.com or a faxed order can be placed at 877-519-9555. To view this software, go to http://www.studyisland.com/. The program can be used with any operating system that allows internet access.


 * Rosetta Stone**

Rosetta Stone is a language learning software program. The purpose is to teach language learners listening comprehension, reading, writing, and speaking in a different language. Grade levels range from K-12 grades.

Rosetta Stone uses drill and practice. It moves students through structured sequences of pictures, encouraging the association of images to words that are not understood. The program focuses on Dynamic Immersion®, where intuition, interaction, and visual stimulation are used.

On the first day of teaching ELL, I would introduce Rosetta Stone to my students. I would engage them right away in the learning process by setting up each student with a computer and demonstrate how the program works. With the experience I’ve already had with children and their curiosity for technology, I believe it wouldn't take very long for the class to be completely engaged in learning English. The Rosetta Stone Classroom program is set up for students K-12. I would use it to teach English to English Language Learners. If I were to use it in other classroom activities, I might refer to the program if a student was having difficulties understanding a particular word or phrase that I have used in another lesson. I would then turn to Rosetta Stone to help the student have a better understanding of what I am trying to say.

One of the strengths that I have found to be significant with the Rosetta Stone program is that it meets high quality academic assessments and aligns with the state and national standards. It provides a management tool allowing the teacher to set specific instructional goals and measure student progress. A weakness could be the cost of the program. For a parent that may be interested in buying it for their children, it could be quite costly. But if a child’s school or library carried the program that might solve the issue.

The Rosetta Stone Classroom program costs $549 for levels 1-5. It is available for online and CD-Rom use. The platform that works with the software program is Mac OSx 10.4 Tiger, Mac OSx 10.5 Leopard, Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard, Windows 7, Vista, and XP. It can be purchased online through www.rosettastone.com or through various websites such as www.amazon.com, www.ebay.com, and bookstores like Barnes and Noble, Hastings, and Borders.


 * Zip Zoom English**

Zip Zoom English is an extensive teaching resource that supports teachers who have limited training in meeting the needs of ELL students. It develops critical language and reading skills using technology and critical-word reader books. This program is intended for students in grades K-3.

Zip Zoom English complements core reading programs with a systematic approach to developing oral language, concepts and vocabulary in English, phonemic awareness and phonics, critical word knowledge, and content-area knowledge. The software program works in several categories including drill/practice, simulation, and problem solving.

I would use Zip Zoom English while teaching my ELL students, grades K-3. I could use all three levels when teaching about friends, school, and the community. It would nice to start the lesson with the software program as an introduction and then finish with writing and reading assignment. If I were to use the software in other classroom activities, I may want to incorporate it in when we play games, making the game a learning activity.

One of the strengths that the program exhibits is that it is focused on only four different grade levels. A concentration with three levels in reading, writing, speaking, and listening enables the program to reach a specific age bracket. A disadvantage is that it doesn't cover subject areas such as science or social studies.

This program includes interactive software, 3 levels with ten lessons in each level, assessments and printable books for $3000. It can be purchased through http://teacher.scholastic.com/product/zipzoom/index.htm by ordering online or calling 1-800-724-6257. Minimum System Requirements Web Browsers: •For PC: Internet Explorer 7 or higher; Firefox 3.x or higher; Chrome 3 or higher •For Macintosh: Safari 3.x or higher; Firefox 2.x or higher.


 * Dragon Naturally Speaking Premium II Student Edition**

This software program is for improving core skills for students of all abilities. It provides greater independence for students with physical disabilities, learning disabilities and improves the writing fluency for students learning English. The program doesn’t say what specific grade levels it caters to, but it did state that it has been used in elementary through post high school education. Research has shown that ELLs can benefit from using Dragon to harness their oral English skills to advance their academic writing. Studies have also shown that Dragon can support ELLs with note taking, paraphrasing, fluency, word comprehension, and pronunciation –skills that can help drive academic success. It is also used for all students in enhancing grammar, composition, writing, and vocabulary.

Dragon works with tutorials in explaining certain prompts and how to utilize tools within the program .If I used Dragon with my ELL students, I would be able to evaluate their progress in composition and grammar. When using Dragon, you have to know where to put punctuation and start a new paragraph. It would be interesting to see the progression of learning with this software. Dragon uses automotive speech technology meaning that the student would have to speak loud enough for the software to work and use vocabulary that they might not normally use if they were writing something down themselves rather than a program dictating their words. This program could be integrated with other subjects that would be taught in an ELL class such as science, social studies, or art history.

Dragon would appear to be strong in the communication aspect of speaking English for ELL students. I think that it lacks in instructional value. It is used more as a way to make one’s life easier by using your voice rather than your motor skills in typing. But again, in order to write a paper, construct and send an email, or search the web, a student would have to know how to use grammar and punctuation correctly.

The Dragon Naturally Speaking program for the student and teacher was found on Amazon.com for $89.90. It can also be purchased at the home website http://www.nuance.com/dragon/index.htm. The program is compatible with Windows 7, XP, Vista, and 2000.


 * Crayola’s Art Studio**

Crayola’s Art Studio is an easy to use draw and paint program for children to learn basic computer drawing skills. It is appropriate for children ages 4 and up, grades K-6.

The software program involves drill/practice and problem solving. Not so much drills are used, but the more a student practices with different tools included in the software, the better they will become at mastering techniques and drawing skills.

I would love to use this program with a third grade class to teach them basic computer drawing skills and about color theory. I would be able to integrate the program in other subject areas such as science or vocabulary if I were to use images that pertained to the subject that was being discussed. The students would have a short story and then move on to coloring a template that would coincide with the lesson.

This program is extremely affordable to teachers, schools and even parents. It offers a wide variety of tools that the students can use and learn to master. One of the disadvantages is that it would be easy to erase mistakes. If you were trying to keep a student work for a progress portfolio and the student continually erased mistakes and fixed them, it would be difficult to track progress.

This program can be found at Amazon.com for $14.98 at http://www.amazon.com/Core-Learning-CRAS-1200-Crayola-Studio/dp/B001GAR6PU/ref=dp_return_2?ie=UTF8&n=229534&s=software. It will work with the following operating systems: Vista/Windows 98/2000/Me/XP.

I was fortunate to see the Dragon Speak Naturally Software in use over at student support services, it is a neat program. It is a great asset to those students/people with special needs who either do not possess the fine motor skills necessary to type or cannot speak clearly enough to clearly communicate their needs. For example, one of my students has such profound speech issues (5th grade) he still speaks in single word answers if at all and he never talks for fun nor does he have any close friends because he will not initiate conversation with others. This would be a great tool for him; it would give him a clear voice.

The Crayola's Art Studio is neat too. It would be easy to integrate this program into any content area easily. Some of my students would be using it to learn the names of colors and familiar places where those colors would be, other students may be working on their fine motor skills, and yet others may be creating a visual representation of a story to aid in comprehension skills.

The programs you picked seem interesting. I noticed that they were all rather expensive. I looked up some of mine on web-shared sites and the programs I found were cheap. They seem good as well so you might want to look at some other effective programs that are cheaper. -Maggie Bergant