Technology & Learning - February 2009 - (Page 26)

PRODUCTREVIEWS PRODUCT: ADAPTIVE CURRICULUM: SCIENCE www.adaptivecurriculum.com Retail price: $299 for a single teacher license or $10 per student for a school-wide license This interactive Web site allows for student remediation or acceleration in science based on state standards. Many of the interactive experiments are ones that science teachers used to do in the classroom but now, because of expense or safety regulations, cannot. These interactive experiments let students explore the full scientific method using “real” experiments and collecting “real” data in a safe manner. PROS: Activities are linked to current state standards. The program has a user-friendly interface that is easy to learn. A teacher can assign individual activities to an individual student. You can set the assignment for the entire class or selected students. You can also specify a time period for the assignment. CONS: Not all state standards have activities associated with them. OVERALL EVALUATION: Often in science, students conduct experiments that have little or no relevance to what is being studied; it’s just for the sake of doing an experiment. Science is a mental process, and the physical process of the experiment is to prove the mental process of the hypothesis. Adaptive Curriculum does a terrific job of challenging the students through its interactive experiments. PRODUCT: DUKANE AIRSLATE 3 www.dukcorp.com Retail price: starting at $399.99 tablets, but since it uses RF instead of Bluetooth, it should not have any of the communication problems the others have. CONS: Pen requires one AAA battery. The fact that the pen uses a AAA battery means that a supply of AAA batteries will need to be kept on hand. Also, dead batteries will cause false support calls for faulty equipment. OVERALL EVALUATION: The RF technology makes the AirSlate superior to other interactive tablets on the market. (Rumor has it that all interactive tablets will be moving to RF technology in the next 18 to 24 months.) So, with the price of the AirSlate being less than that of other interactive tablets, why wait? This Interactive Writing tablet lets students interact directly from their seats with images being projected in a classroom or lets a teacher interact from anywhere in the room. Up to 50 AirSlate 3s can be connected to one computer, so in effect, every student in the room could have an AirSlate. Since the AirSlate uses RF, it can operate up to 125 feet away from the computer with no problems. This allows a teacher to ask questions and have students respond via AirSlate. Or an entire class could work on a drawing together, or a math or science problem, or compose a poem together. PROS: It is at or slightly below the price of other interactive 26 | TECH & LEARNING http://www.adaptivecurriculum.com http://www.dukcorp.com

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Technology & Learning - February 2009 Contents Editor's Desk News & Trends How It's Done - The Science of Class Collaboration Put to the Test: T&L Editors Take Some New Products for a Test Drive NComputing X550 Epson DC-10s Samsung UF-130DX Digital Presenter Brother MFC-6490CW All-in-One Adaptive Curriculum: Science Dukane AirSlate 3 A Second Life for Professional Development Control Room 11 Tips for Better Laptop Learning One-to-One Veteran Advice What's New They Said It

Technology & Learning - February 2009

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