New Products: Multimedia Tools That Kids Will Love

EZedia's new visual learning tools allow teachers to tailor lessons to various learning styles and abilities. Plus, they give students tools to let the auteur within shine. EZediaMX users can combine text, graphics, video, sound, and animation to create digital storybooks, multimedia slide shows, and interactive CD-ROMs. Art students can use eZediaMX to create electronic portfolios of their work to include with college applications.

EZediaQTI is interactive QuickTime authoring software. Ideal for schools and school art departments using Macs, it lets students and teachers easily create Web sites, portfolios, and other multimedia presentations. Matt J. Fuller, director of technology and media services for the Wilmette (IL) Public Schools, reports that the products take multimedia authoring a big step forward and have a low learning curve. "It's a lot better than HyperStudio," says Fuller. "It gives you more options."

There's also iMovie Plug-ins, including eZeMatte, eZeScreen and eZeClip, for making movies. Users can even create a video for French class that looks as if they're standing in front of the Arc d'Triomphe. Look out Hollywood.—M. M.