Digital Resources: Seeing is Believing

Video and animation will turn learners into repeat visitors

By Shonda Brisco -- School Library Journal, 1/1/2008

Whether you're trying to introduce new technology applications as part of staff development for your teachers or presenting difficult instructional concepts to elementary or middle school students, capturing the minds and attention of either group can be challenging. Fortunately, here are two unique instructional programs that both sets of users will continue to return to long after your class has ended.

ATOMIC LEARNING
movies.atomiclearning.com/k12/home

Grades 5–12+ adults

Cost Volume pricing is available at a significant discount for school districts. For quotes, go to: store.atomiclearning.com/store_group_training?site=k12. Individual subscriptions are $99 a year.

The Big Picture Atomic Learning, Inc. was formed in 2000 by a group of technology educators to create useful and affordable products to teach people how to effectively use technology. Atomic Learning offers a library of thousands of short, easy-to-view and understand tutorial videos that can be used as an integral part of a professional development program, a valuable curriculum supplement, and an anytime/anywhere software training resource. As a tool to assist educators in fulfilling state assessment standards, Atomic Learning's tutorials are correlated to the International Society for Technology in Education's (ISTE) National Educational Technology Standards for Students framework.

Atomic Learning, Inc. also offers Atomic Training, a secure hosting and publishing platform that can be used for training, professional development, and more. To learn more about these programs, go to www.atomiclearning.com.

Look & Feel Atomic Learning's appearance is simple, clean, and direct. If you are accustomed to colorful banners, multiple search options scattered around the page, bright boxes filled with facts, or flashing icons, Atomic Learning may seem to be a mediocre Web site. But a quick click on the Our Tutorials link immediately eliminates these thoughts, as users discover the powerful content offered in this program.

Other links offer access to Resources, Support, and Atomic Training. The Web site also offers a simple Search for those who want to jump right into the program. There is also Quick Link access to Getting Started, a User's Forum, and more. An icon link provides an overview of the newest tutorials added that month (700 at the time of review). Also displayed are the new software package tutorials, including Google Docs and Spreadsheets, Excel 2007 Series, iPhoto '08, and the New Dreamweaver CS3 series.

How It Works Atomic Learning provides users with a video library of short on-demand tutorials focusing on how to use technology. With access to over 25,000 software training movies throughout the calendar year, as well as the 500 or more new tutorials added every 45 days, Atomic Learning provides valuable professional development for educators or instructional content for students. It also allows for individual user tracking to determine which programs are frequently accessed and how much time is spent on each instructional video topic.

Tutorials include how to use basic software programs such as Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Access, but also include how to blog; how to create a podcast; and how to use Audacity, iTunes, Moodle, Dreamweaver, FileMaker Pro, GarageBand, and hundreds of other applications, including many open-source products. Users can search tutorials by title, publisher, platform, or even by closed-captioning. Additionally, users can search by state or ISTE standards.

Because most tutorials are between two to three minutes in length and are segmented into brief components, viewers can use as many segments as needed. For example, by selecting Our Tutorials and then PC, I have access to over 200 tutorials from how to use Access 2000 Advanced to how to create a blog using WordPress. By selecting the application OneNote 2003, I find that the instructional content is broken into 11 instructional modules. To watch the entire instructional program would take over an hour. However, with the instructional modules broken into smaller segments, users can access what they need immediately.

Within the Resources area of Atomic Learning are Lesson Accelerators, which provide short videos demonstrating how to implement technology-based projects in the classroom. Users select project lessons by title, type, application, or platform. Again, they can search state or ISTE standards for specific lessons.

The Teacher2Teacher segment offers technology training instruction for educators. Because of the ease of use and short segmented videos, instruction can be introduced at different levels. The activities within each instructional segment include Teacher Instructions, Sample Projects, and Student Planning Sheets.

Other instructional components within the Resources area include: Workshops (which can be used individually or as full staff development instruction), Resources for the Classroom (in this case, StoryBoard Pro, a free download that provides teachers with the opportunity to use video in the classroom), the Video Storytelling Guide (step-by-step details of how to use digital cameras and video), and an Assessment Framework (which allows users the opportunity to rate their knowledge and skill of technology applications). Finally, a User Forum is also available to discuss projects, ideas, or problems.

For Students and Teachers Atomic Learning can provide instructors who are reluctant technology users with the opportunity to try applications without the fear of failure. For tech-savvy instructors, light-years ahead of the others, Atomic Learning is advanced enough to keep their creative juices flowing.

Students who may have missed specific areas of technology instruction will find that Atomic Learning allows them to learn at their own pace. Through the ability to access these videos in English, Spanish, and in closed-caption, most students will be able to easily use many technology applications without remedial or one-to-one instruction.

Report Card Atomic Learning earns an A+ for providing a much-needed resource for many students, teachers, librarians, IT departments, and even technology directors. With thousands of tutorials for hundreds of software programs and online applications, no other program offers both students and teachers the instructional resources or staff development opportunities that Atomic Learning does so brilliantly.

Grades 3–8 (A newly released BrainPOP, Jr. is available for K-3; at www.brainpopjr.com)

Cost Subscription rates are available for computer labs, single schools, or districts. A computer lab access subscription is $575 a year and includes access by 35 simultaneous users; a single school with a maximum of 1,000 student users and teachers is $950; district access for multiple sites with a maximum of 1,000 users per campus starts at $1.80 per student.

The Big Picture BrainPOP is an animated subscription program that features instructional content in science, math, social studies, arts and music, English, health, and technology. Topics covered within the program contain a two-to four-minute animated video featuring a teenager named Tim and his computer companion, Moby. Each instructional segment introduces students to a specific topic through humorous cartoons featuring these two main characters. In addition, the instructional segments also include an Interactive Quiz, an Experiment, a Comic Strip, a hands-on application, a Timeline, and a printable Activity Page.

Aligned with both state and national educational standards and searchable by state standards, the subjects range from air pollution to Shakespeare. With over 600 movies currently available—in English, Spanish, and with closed-captioning—students can search for subjects of interest or find topics that inspire them to independently investigate.

Look & Feel BrainPOP's Web site provides a postage stamp-like grid, with each box containing a subject. By clicking on a topic, any visitor can sample some of the video content. Subscribers can search subject areas even more specifically by clicking on the category boxes at the bottom of each subject Web page.

A Search box is available to access content by keywords, or users can simply select a subject area box to begin their query. To the left of the grid box are specific content items such as the Featured Subject (in this case, the Nobel Prize). There are also subject boxes labeled Resources for Parents, Resources for Teachers, Newsletter Sign-Up, State Standards, and more.

How It Works Using BrainPOP is as simple as clicking on the subject area box and browsing video content descriptions. Within each subject Web page is a grid of small boxes labeled with easily identifiable subject-related pictures and terms to allow for a quick search. There are also links to instructional movies with short descriptions.

For example, in the Arts and Music area some of the instructional movies include: '60s Folk music, Analog and Digital Recording, Cubism, Photography, Reading Music, and Woodwinds. Each video provides a quick overview of the topic for users in grades 3–8.

An in-depth search of all subjects can be done from any page by clicking See All Arts and Music, See All Social Studies, See All Health, etc.. For example, in the Arts and Music section the content is grouped into six areas: Artists and Musicians, Musical Genres, Instruments, Art Concepts, and Learning Music. Choosing Musical Genres provides three categories: '60s Folk music, Blues, and Jazz.

By selecting '60s Folk music, a new Web page with a similar grid appears with Moby's computer hand indicating where to click to begin the movie. Below the movie grid box is a Take a Pop Quiz box; users can take a Graded Quiz (immediately scored online), a Review Quiz, or a Printed Quiz.

For Students and Teachers BrainPOP provides students with the opportunity to investigate several subject topics and easily find information without requiring them to understand in-depth search strategies. Through the continual appearance of BrainPOP's cartoon characters, students become familiar with the presentation and will easily grasp basic concepts and information.

Teachers will find that the on-demand feature of short videos allows them to introduce or review a large variety of subject areas. Lesson plans are forthcoming.

Report Card While BrainPOP promotes itself for grades 3–12, it is unlikely that many high school students will utilize this cartoon format. However, if you're a middle school student wanting to know more about Albert Einstein or an elementary teacher needing to present the concept of atoms, BrainPOP offers a format both entertaining and engaging. As an innovative way to make some difficult subjects more entertaining, and for encouraging continual learning at the elementary and middle school levels, BrainPOP receives an A+.