Educational software

Some kids can not pay attention for five minutes, but give them education software that turns everything into a game, and they will sit in front of it for hours.

I used to have some pretty strong feelings about kids educational software.

You see, I have been a teacher for about 15 years, and I have seen countless fads come and go.

It seems like there is always some new trend or other in education.

Educational software programs seemed like the newest "next big thing", but they didn't seem to offer any advantages over traditional methods of learning.

Why would software education be better than actually getting instruction from a teacher?

Teachers can give you answers, explain things that you don't get, and custom tailor their lessons plans to your needs.

Educational software, however can do none of these things.

I wanted no part of it, and wished my school wouldn't become involved with it either.

The school board, however, decided to build a $20,000 dollar new computer lab.

Despite the budget crunch and the fact that the teachers haven't had a raise in a few years, they thought that educational software was important enough to make it a priority for the kids.

To say that the teachers were angry would be a massive understatement; we were furious.

Why would they spend all this money on educational computer programs when they were cutting drama, art, music, and other important parts of the school's elective arts programs?

Nonetheless, I decided to try the educational programs since they were already there.

I was surprised by how useful the educational software was for some kids.

Some kids can not pay attention for five minutes, but give them education software that turns everything into a game, and they will sit in front of it for hours.

There is even an education software program that quizzes the children on ancient Egyptian history.

In this particular piece of educational software, they get to pretend to be archaeologists exploring the depths of the pharaohs tomb.

Along the way, they learn all kinds of facts about the ancient Egyptians.

I expected them to come out of it as zombies -Not remembering thing that they learned during that time.

To my surprise, however, the educational software seems to have some impact.

Many of the poorest learners came out with much more knowledge of the subject matter.

I haven't exactly been won over to the side of educational software, but I am certainly willing to give it another chance.

It appears that, for certain students, software education really does provide a valuable addition to more classic modes of learning.

I don't think educational software will ever replace one-on-one instruction, but it might complement it very well.



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