Vocab Videos {Schoolhouse Review Crew}

Through the Schoolhouse Review Crew our family was given a subscription to Vocab Videos for one full year and for up to 20 students. This can be purchased at the website for $74.99/year. This program is a “vocabulary-learning tool for a variety of different tests beyond the SAT such as the ACT, ISEE, SSAT, and GRE tests (from the website).”

The videos also feature (from the website):

• Parodies of popular TV shows like Lost, The Office, 24, and Gossip Girl connect students to the material, presenting vocabulary to them in a context they can relate to and enjoy
• Outrageous plotlines and entertaining characters engage students and (dare we say) make learning fun!

Learning Tools also include (from the website):

• Searchable, alphabetized glossary including links to each video allows students to review individual words
• Downloadable quizzes and crossword puzzles by episode
• Teacher tracking tools allow educators to monitor individual student and class progress

The need for an engaging program for studying and learning SAT words presents itself to many teachers and students. Often they are stuck with boring word lists or something like that. This program makes the words come alive. Below are screenshots from one of the videos. It begins with the word being studied and has audio, saying the word and meaning. The videos are short but attention getting. It ends with the word being said again and a definition that matches the episode.

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You can try a free Teacher trial here. Check out the other options (click on either Educator or Student).

Educator options are

• up to 20 students for $74.99,
• up to 40 students for $134.99
• or up to 100 students for $254.99

Or for individual students, the options are

• 6-months $24.99
• and 12-months $39.99.

Contact:
Website: http://www.vocabvideos.com
Contact page: http://www.vocabvideos.com/contact-us/contact-vocab-videos.html
Blog: http://www.vocabvideos.com/blog/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Vocab-Videos/116213755159
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/VocabVideos
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/vocabvideos

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My thoughts:

Some things I like about this is that we can hear the word being said as well as an enactment of the word. There were quite a few words that I personally had thought meant something else. Also crossword puzzles, although not my kids’ favorite thing, are a plus for me. And finally the flashcards and quizzes are a plus. With the subscription you can see what is missed on the quizzes and then study the words again to retake the quiz. These words are ones that could be found on ACT, ISEE, SSAT, and GRE tests, not just the SAT.

You can see all the words that are included in the episodes.

These are completely secular in nature, which doesn’t bother me. What I didn’t care for was the humor in these videos. They are definitely memorable but it’s not the type of memorable I like. The humor is often crude and degrading. Not all of them are that way but for instance in one video for incisive, the video is going along just fine toward the end when the second character tosses in a rude comment. Sure I will remember incisive, but I’ll also remember the rudeness. And there are a lot of them that way. But then again, it could just have been that I chose the episodes that had that in them.

Also, and not that I’m saying it is a good or bad thing, the videos sometimes include parodies to shows we’ve never seen and so they are a little over our heads on that point.

I honestly didn’t let my kids watch the videos. I feel the need to preview them first and so far I’ve found only a handful that I’d be comfortable with them viewing. I had hoped this would be something we could use frequently to increase vocabulary but instead it has been useful for just me to use. That is totally because of my views. The program has good ideas, just the approach isn’t as ‘nice’ as I’d like.

For those who are not concerned with crude humor and/or those who enjoy tv shows popular today, this would probably be a good match when looking for an audio/visual program to study the SAT words. It most definitely does have videos that will concrete the words in the mind, as long as the other aspects of the videos don’t make more of an impression, as a few did on me. For those who have a more guarded approach to what their students use, this might rub you the wrong way. The inclusion of words and attitudes that some may not allow in their home, in any form, will most likely be unappreciated. I encourage you to read others review of this program by fellow homeschoolers by clicking the image below.

***Disclaimer: I received a subscription for the above from Vocab Videos via Schoolhouse Review Crew for free in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. I only recommend those products that I feel would be beneficial to others based on my own experiences. See Disclosure/Policies.***

Zane Education {Schoolhouse Review Crew}

As a member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew our family was chosen to receive and review Zane Education *Gold Membership*. Over 1500 videos in 12 subject areas for elementary, middle, and high school. Zane Education also includes lesson plans, quizzes and study resources.

There are different levels of access to Zane Education. Check the website for current pricing and what is included in each level:

• Basic- FREE membership
• *Gold- All videos, $17.99 per month; $197.89 per year*
• Silver- All videos for specific grade level, $12.99 per month; $142.89 per year
• Bronze- All videos for specific subject area, $8.99 per month; $98.89 per year
• Topic Taster- All videos for single topic, $5.00 a month; no yearly option

What it is (from website/vendor):

• The online subtitled videos deliver the curriculum content for each topic.
• The online interactive quizzes provide online testing for each topic.
• The interactive study tools on each video page allow aspects of each video to be further explored and investigated.
• The Lesson Plans provide further activities for the parent or teacher to ensure each topic is explored in a structured and thorough manner.
• The Study Center provides additional resources including the World Fact Book to support study and additional resources are constantly being added.

[T]hese…titles originally published as educational software on CD-ROM and used in schools, libraries and in home education across North America and many countries around the world, are available…online as the world’s most comprehensive library of purposely subtitled educational video, accompanied by a variety of online study tools, lesson plans, additional study resources and online testing – using our on-demand subscription system.

It is a complete one-stop-shop Visual Learning-based education solution that provides the curriculum material needed for children from Elementary school to College age, or from Kindergarten to Year 12.

Used appropriately, the benefits of using the subtitles include (from the website):

• Each student has the opportunity to study each topic and improve their reading and literacy skills at the same time.
• Each video can be used as a standalone reading improvement resource.
• Children learning English as a Second Language can use each video to study the same range of curriculum content as their English-speaking peers while using the interactive study tools and the subtitles to improve their English Language skills.

Read about the benefits of visual learning.

For each subject there are various videos and quizzes available. I’ve chosen Religious Studies here to demonstrate but it is the same layout whichever subject/topic you choose.

 

You can go through it based on what type of quiz you are wanting to cover {the bottom sidebar has links to find all quizzes by subject or grade- it is set up the same way on the videos pages} or by the subjects.

There are lots of videos available in the Gold Membership! We’ve not even scratched the surface. I highly highly recommend checking out the free A Getting Started Guide and other User Guides before just jumping head first. Really.

Here is a view of one of the videos and the Video Learning Tools box to the right of the videos.

The videos have highlighted words in the subtitles that can be used for vocabulary, spelling and general reading improvement. Each of the highlighted words can be found in the Video Learning Tools {which is to the right of every video} that is specific to the video.

The quizzes are all multiple choice. This is from the Religious Studies category but again, they are all laid out the same. There is a page on the website touting the benefits of multiple choice quizzes but they are not the style I would like to use most often.

The Study Center does have a nice collection of reference ‘books’. The World Fact Book is unique to this page –the others you can access from just about any other screen.

There really is just so much {well so many –as in videos} on this site that I cannot possibly tell you all there is to tell. The most prominent feature of Zane Education online educational videos is the subtitles. This is what they call the Missing Piece.

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In addition to the subscription to access all of the online educational videos, online quizzes, study tools, and fast technical support, we were also given the The Zane Learning Catalogue {270 pages} and The Christian Home Learning Guide {424 pages}. The first lists every single video that they offer, in every subject. Below is a page from this catalogue {or ‘catalog’ if that’s more your way *wink*}. I share this with you because Zane Education is more than just the videos. These are normally priced at $49.95 but are free with any 12-month paid subscription.

I also shared this page with you is to show how it is set up. It is not just a list of the videos. This is a randomly chosen page. Along the right side are clickable tabs to take you to specific places in this catalogue. At the top of the page {towards the left} it tells what subject and category this is featuring. Then it shows the topic –in this case Handel, Chopin, and Debussy; Great Composers {the category}. Under that it gives the recommended grade –K-5.

What I really like about this catalogue is that it tells you in one place what videos to watch on this topic and how long they are. It also lists the quizzes available. Finally it gives an Overview and Learning Objectives.

In regards the Christian Home Learning Guide:

It is a downloadable publication written by Marshall Foster and Ron Ball, …designed to present the evangelical Christian view of the mainstream subjects taught in school today and featured on Zane Education’s Learning Video’s. It is designed for the parents of Christian homeschoolers, as well as the parents of children in public and private schools, who wish to provide their children with the Christian view of world history, science, and literature. (See more of what they say here.)

If that doesn’t really help you understand what it is, perhaps this will. It takes every single video and tells what in the video might be conflicting to a Christian. For example:

Zane Education is having a July/August promotion that I’d like to share with you:

A 35% discount on the purchase of any annual 12-month Gold, Silver or Bronze Membership subscription through until the end of August 2012 for purchasers using the unique code: ZE722HSM (case sensitive!)

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What did I think of this program?

NOTE: I highly suggest that parent/teacher/tutor or whoever is utilizing this resource prescreen every video before showing to their student.

This isn’t the style we use for our school –quite different. I’ve tried to look at this from the point of view of others. We may continue to use these as an occasional resource but it really didn’t fit our style.

Pro: So much is included! We didn’t hardly get anywhere in relation to the number of videos and quizzes available. Broken down by month when the 12-month subscription is selected it is less than $17 a month.

Con: There are a lot of videos that I won’t let my kids watch so the number of accessible videos drops for our family. This isn’t because of conflicting views about evolution {which they are high on} but because some subjects I don’t think my kids need to learn about by video.

Pro: There are lesson plans for each video.

Con: The videos are not all formatted the same which isn’t that big of a deal I don’t suppose. Some had quite a few repeated images throughout the video, which for me was distracting. Also the audio did not always go the same speed as the video. You’d be reading along with the audio with 3 words left and it moved to the next slide or scene.

Pro: The Learning Tools for both the video and quizzes are specific to the video/quiz.

Con: The videos cannot be made larger. And they are a preset speed. You can pause, stop and play; that’s it. Some times it would be nice to slow the audio down, or speed it up. There isn’t a way to do that with these.

Pro: Customer service was very speedy and courteous.

Con: I had to log in multiple times to access any part of the site except for my account status. Granted all the videos that are available with my membership can be found at the account page, I wanted to have to sign in one time then navigate away from that page. It just doesn’t work that way but tech support doesn’t know why.

Pro: The selection of videos per subject area is impressive. I like how they are organized on the site so that you can click on a subject, then a topic, and then choose the video. I especially like the Art, Music, Psychology and Sociology selections; I was surprised by the inclusion of the last two.

Con: There is a lot of clicking needed to get to a final destination.

Pro: I think this would be a good resource for visual and audio learners.

Con: I personally cannot see this being a ‘stand-alone’ program for reading improvement as they state.

I would recommend this program for those that are looking for a resource like this: visual and audial. Also with the different subscription options, it would very easy lower the cost by choosing a more specific focus. Trying the program for $5 a month is also attractive. I think it would work well for tutors, as well.

I don’t think I would recommend it as a complete curriculum. It just seems like it is missing some facets of a ‘complete’ curriculum. Also, for those that do not use videos or the internet in their school, this probably wouldn’t be a good choice.

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Contact Information:

Website: https://www.zaneeducation.com
TECH SUPPORT & GENERAL ENQUIRY
Tel: +1.650.488-8204     
Zane Education has offices located in
NORTH AMERICA, INDIA, AUSTRALIA, and
NEW ZEALAND – HQ
30 Rewi Street
Torbay
Auckland 0630
New Zealand
Tel: +64.9.473 2280     

Zane’s Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/ZaneEducation
Zane’s Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/ZaneEducation

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Have a visit with others who also reviewed this to see how it worked for their families. Click the image below.

***Disclaimer: I received a free subscription and the above mentioned guides from Zane Education via the Schoolhouse Review Crew in exchange for an honest review. No compensation was given. All opinions stated are my own. I only recommend products that I truly feel will be of benefit to others based on my personal experience. See Disclosure/Policies***

Highlighting Links by Subject for Schooling: Art #2

Each week or so there will be a post {or two} highlighting some links that have been collected and compiled on the Links by Subject for Schooling page on my blog. At this point, I plan to go alphabetically through the subjects because that’s how I am but the websites most likely won’t be alphabetized…sorry for any confusion!

Art

This round will feature online art galleries.

CGFA Art Gallery- A virtual art museum.

Olga’s Gallery- A collection of over 300 painters with over 12,000 works.

ArtCyclopedia- Although not a real ‘gallery’ it does feature many works and the artists. Get to know more about artists and their work.

Garden of Praise Art Gallery- You can visit the second gallery here. Also there are “art lessons” that feature quite a few works also.

Avalon Arts- This goes to a gallery of children’s art! I included this to let kids see that they can be an artist, too.

Google Art Project- Search for artwork, or by artist, and search users collections.

Those are all of the links for Art Galleries that have been collected. Stay tuned for more link ‘highlights’ every so often.

TOS REVIEW: Reading Eggs

Through the TOS Homeschool Crew I was given a free trial from Reading Eggs in order to give an honest review. Since my son is on the tail end of the age range this is designed for, he used Reading Eggspress much more than the base program, Reading Eggs. This review reflects that.

I hope you like images, because this review will have quite a few! If you cannot see them well enough at their current size, click on them to enlarge. Use your browser’s back button to come back here (or open images in a new tab/window). 

Reading Eggspress is a unique learning environment for 7-13 year olds, designed to boost reading, comprehension skills, spelling and grammar. The spinning world gets students involved and motivated to learn. Children love the games, songs, golden eggs and other rewards which, along with feeling proud of their reading, really motivate children to keep exploring and learning. from the website

The website includes a variety of games and lessons that engage the reader. It is set up in a fashion where it all feels like a game yet learning is the goal. From the website on “Why it Works”:

• This powerful educational program is based on the most up-to-date research on how children learn to read.
• The lessons use animation, activities and reward games to keep children motivated.
• The program is completely interactive to keep children on task.
• Children want to come back because they are having fun as they learn.
• When children start the program, they can complete a placement quiz to ensure they are starting at the correct reading level.

Reading Eggs offers a free trial for parents or teachers. If you would like to purchase a subscription, they offer these options:

• Monthly- $9.95
• 6 Months- $49.95
• 12 Months- $75.00

They also offer book packs to go along with the online subscriptions {check the website to see what each includes}:

• Level 1- Matches the first 40 lessons of the program- $65.00
• Level 2- Matches the second 40 lessons of the program- $65.00
• Level 3- Includes all 80 lessons books- $114.95

The set up is fairly pain-free {super easy}. There is an assessment for the Reading Eggs portion {which is for beginning or struggling young readers} but not for Reading Eggspress that I could find. I had Fox take the assessment anyway. It placed him as a 5.5 year old. Below is a shot of one of the assessment screens.

From that point on, Fox was allowed to enjoy himself on the site. And he did. Immensely. So much so that he could spend hours at a time playing on Reading Eggs and Reading Eggspress. The shot below shows the Floating Island where the student chooses a place to learn, play or buy stuff with earned golden eggs.

When first starting out, the student can choose who they want to ‘be’ {their avatar}.

From the parent screen I can look to see what Fox has been up to while on Reading Eggs. The shot below shows his achievements.

And actually above that is the students reading age and comprehension age {you can see this on the parent’s homepage, at the bottom of the page, as well}. Here is Fox’s according to Reading Eggs.

 

Okay so if the student wants to go to the library to read a book, they will go here:

I took a screenshot of the books available for my son’s age range in a particular genre in the library. Comedy is what I chose to capture here.

After the student reads their choice of book, they take a quiz. They have to pass the quiz in order to get gold eggs and a trading card.

A student can also go to the Stadium to ‘compete’ {with another person or with the computer- Fox only ever competed against the computer} in different games dealing with reading, spelling, and such.

All of the things that are done on Reading Eggs and Reading Eggspress can earn the student gold eggs. These gold eggs are like currency. With them the student can go to the mall and purchase things for their apartment, clothes, and other items. One thing {no, the main thing} that Fox has used his gold eggs for is trading cards.

I hope I have given you a general overview of the program. Now here are the Pros and Cons as I see them for our family.

Pros:

• Colorful- as you can see from the screenshots, there is a lot of color in is this website. It is ‘appealing’ and draws the student in and makes them feel that they are having fun {like playing a game}.
• Fun- a lot of the activities are fun for the student, while still attempting to get them to retain important information.
• Engaging- the students want to use this program.
• My son loves it!

Cons:

• Inaccurate- on a few occasions although the lessons that were presented had accurate information, the answers that the student had to choose from were incorrect {so if Fox chose the right answer- it said it was wrong}. Also the assessment is extremely flawed. Reading Eggs is intended for beginning readers or struggling young readers. Reading Eggspress is for older, more experienced readers {although they may be struggling}. When Fox took the assessment for Reading Eggs it placed him as a 5.5 year old reading level. Even before he missed answers on the lessons, he was placed at an 11 year old reading level with a 9.5 year comprehension level. He is 12 and reads at a high school level {standardized testing has shown this consistently}. So something somewhere is not right with the assessment.
• Twaddle- the books that the students have to read from are not original works; they are edited and abridged {from what I read}. I just felt that they were not high quality works.
• Strange characters- the avatar that my son chose {since he is a boy} looks like a little man- not a boy. Also there are very odd characters throughout the program that sometimes we were just so distracted by. I think there was a centaur lady with a half-shirt-vest-type-thing. The trading cards, although my son’s absolute favorite part of the whole program, also have questionable characters on them- some parents may find them inappropriate.

Bottom line:

When we first started this, I felt it was going to be too young for my son. It never hurts to have fun when learning, though. It was good at first because he really wanted to get on it and do the lessons, play the games, hit his targets, etc. But as time went on, it’s just a game and his reading level and comprehension has gone down. Granted, I understand that this is partially {perhaps even mostly} due to the fact that my son is not applying himself as completely as he could. However, I feel this is just too much of a distraction to be continued with as anything other than a for-fun thing after his other work is done. He still loves this program and wants to play it everyday- but the results have not be as desired.

As for the cost: that is something that each family/teacher would need to decide for themselves but I think this could be considered reasonable for what is offered.

I might recommend this to others if they have a struggling child- one who is uninterested in reading and/or one that needs to have the visual stimulation. I would not recommend this to families that have strong readers.

Make sure to read other reviews by other TOS Crew members to get a better feel how it might work for your family/class.

***Disclaimer: I received a free trial to the above program as part of the TOS Homeschool Crew. All opinions stated are my own. I only recommend products that I feel will be of benefit to others. No compensation was given. See Disclosure/Policies.***

What Do You Want To Be?

Many of us are already ‘grown-up’ but there are some of us that still are not sure what we want to be. When I was growing up, I wanted to be a teacher, a dancer (although I never even danced), a nurse, an accountant…and a few things in between (like an actress, like that would ever happen!). But interestingly enough, I didn’t even think about college. In high school my counselor suggested college but I didn’t really pay much attention at the time.

I didn’t even know what I wanted to be (in terms of a career) until about 6 years ago. Once I realized what I wanted to do then I started searching for colleges that would help me get there. I searched for the top online schools. I focused on online schools because with my husband’s job we move around a lot and I didn’t think we would be in a place long enough to finish my degree on location.

There are many websites that now can help you find online degrees such as Degree Jungle. If getting a degree is something you are interested in checking into more, perhaps Degree Jungle would be a good place to look. You can find in-depth rankings of online universities.

Brought to you by Degree Jungle at http://www.degreejungle.com

Two Neat (to me anyway!) Finds

Projekt Gutenberg-DE

On one of the Yahoo! Groups I am a member of someone asked for help locating a Project Gutenberg similar site for books in German. Wow! What a great idea! So, without actually reading the responses, I went off on a search. It was a bit tricky to find. Finally, through a link at About.com the elusive Projekt Gutenberg-DE was located! Alas, I could have saved myself the searching, had I read the replies to the poster. It is in German but there is a vast collection here as at the English Project Gutenberg site. I thought it was an excellent find! My husband has some German in his bloodline (his family is very proud of their German heritage) and my ds just loves the idea of learning German.

Summer Fun Reading Program

The other 'find' was sent to my email some days ago and I just ignored it or something. I don't recall even seeing it honestly but today, one of the follow up emails caught my eye. I really should pay more attention! It is from the Homeschool Buyers Co-op (great, GREAT site!) and summer reading. They are putting on Summer Fun Month with great deals (they mean GREAT deals!), fun photography contests and reading program. The last one, the summer reading program is what caught my eye. It is based on your kids' reading times. Go to the record page and input the number of hours your child read on a certain day, the book(s)/author(s) and enter your email address. I think that the number of recorded hours is well over 9,000 now! There are prizes awarded randomly every week in June, July and August for a $15 gift certificate to Amazon, with a grand prize winner being drawn in September for an iPad. There is also a Reading Champion Certificate that will be available at the end of the summer for presenting to your child- with the number of hours AND the books read over the summer! I thought that was cool. My kids love 'awards'.

So those are my two 'finds' of the day. Perhaps more will find their way to me so that I can share with you :)