Discovery Education Science for Elementary
[Discovery Education (216) 320-8941, Grades 3-5]

Discovery Education Science for Elementary is a simple-to-use, comprehensive online service which brings life to science concepts, thereby making learning fun for children. It also offers teachers a variety of tools for classroom management and multimedia lesson creation. Drawing from over 5,000 full-length videos and 50,000 content-specific videos available through its affiliate service, Discovery Education Streaming, educators can enhance lessons with multimedia content correlated to state standards.

DE Science for Elementary  is organized into four areas: Learn, which introduces scientific concepts through reading passages and e-books, inquiry-based introductions with audio support, and video segments; Explore, which offers virtual labs for exploration of topics; Demonstrate, where students show what key concepts they have learned;  and Extend, where activities encourage additional learning and exploration.

The program uses large buttons to provide access to sub-areas of Earth Science (such as Earth's Features, Earth History, Weather and Climate, The Earth, Sun and Moon System); Life Science (including Plants, Animals, Cells, Human Body, Living Things); and Physical Science (Matter, About Energy, Sound, Heat and Light, Electricity,  Magnetism, and more). In a typical lesson entitled, "Cells: The Basic Units of Life," there is a 23 minute video which can be viewed in 7 segments, making concepts easier to grasp.

DE Science for Elementary is an exceptionally well-designed program which was awarded a BESSIE in the Upper Elementary Science Website category.

     
NetSupport School
[Net Support Inc. (770) 205-4456]

NetSupport School, the 2009 BESSIE winner for Teacher Tools - Productivity, is a networked training software application suitable for any milieu - from elementary schools to college classrooms, even to corporate training.

NetSupport School allows teachers and trainers to teach in a networked environment while monitoring, managing, collaborating, and supporting the entire classroom, either one-on-one, in small groups, or the entire classroom without leaving the dedicated teacher console.  Just a few of the special features of this stand-out program are: Interactive lesson plans, student surveys, testing and quiz components, virtual interactive whiteboard, instant messenger monitoring, Internet metering and control, and, not least, a dedicated technician console which allows the IT department to keep an eye on every networked computer in the school.

Teaching or training facilities using networked computers should take a good, long look at NetSupport School - they'll wonder how they ever lived without it.