Choosing Software

During our two-year YDC Pilot program, the Morino Institute sought the advice of experts and researched a number of different software applications for use in out-of-school learning programs. We've updated the recommendations and have included them at the end of this section. Here's why we selected them:

    • The applications support the inquiry-based learning approach—they allow users to produce, manipulate, publish and exchange original visual, text and audio content, as opposed to emphasizing the practice of rote skills or the absorption of predeveloped content.

    • The applications support multipurpose use. Both beginning and advanced students can use them for simple or complex tasks.

    • The applications will operate over a network and allow users to import and export files across the network.

    • In developing proficiency with the applications, children and staff will learn marketable and widely applicable software skills. Many of the recommended applications are commonly used by professionals worldwide.

    • The applications are made by established companies that provide reliable customer support.

When selecting software for children's learning programs, ask yourself the following questions:

    • Is my use of software driven by project themes and activities, or is the focus on the software itself?

    • What kinds of skills do I want children to practice? How will the applications introduce them to the information or help them produce work products related to the project?

    • Does the software allow children to create original visual, text or audio content?

    • If preproduced content comes with the software, is it age and culturally appropriate?

    • Are the content and features complex and flexible enough to allow for continuous reuse and sequential skill development? Is it sophisticated enough to accommodate both beginning and advanced users?

    • If the tools or content are just for beginning users, does the software have a natural link to a more advanced application? What will children move on to after they learn to use the software?

    • Do the graphics and sound in the software positively enhance the experience of using the program, or are they distracting? Can the sound and other features be adjusted or modified?

    • Can the software be used for group projects (i.e., can it import or export files over a network, or does it have other collaborative features)?

Recommendations

The types of applications that you select will be a factor of your learning goals, budget and more. Remember that in most cases, you will have to buy a license for each machine that runs a particular application and that you need enough storage capacity and memory on your hardware to run all the programs you intend to install.

Keep in mind that although we have identified them by the main application purpose, many programs, especially those for creative applications, have features that also appear in other types of programs. If you're in a budget crunch, for example, you may find that some of the outlining and charting features in a presentation program like PowerPoint will suffice to replace a thought-organization program like Inspiration or that the drawing features in an image-manipulation program like PhotoShop are easy enough to use that you don't need a child-specific drawing program like KidPix. In an ideal world, however it would be great to have them all.

Word Processing and More
Microsoft Office
Company: Microsoft
Microsoft Office is an integrated software package that includes a word processing application (Microsoft Word), a spreadsheet (Microsoft Excel), a multimedia authoring/presentation product (Microsoft PowerPoint), and a variety of other applications and utilities. Several editions are available (e.g., Standard and Professional), each of which provides a different combination of applications. In our view Office provides the most functionality at a good price. Moreover, its popularity in the market makes it easier to transfer files between people and gives kids exposure to tools they'll use in the real world. It is possible to buy each Office application separately and swap in some applications from other companies, but we find the package deal to be the most cost-effective and easiest to integrate.

Organizing Thoughts and Ideas
Inspiration
Company: Inspiration Software, Inc.
This helpful product allows the user to organize and generate creative ideas with graphic organizers. The company also offers products for encouraging and using visual learning in the classroom. A child-specific version, Kidspiration, is also available.

Image Manipulation, Drawing and Painting
PhotoShop & PhotoShop Elements
Company: Adobe Systems
PhotoShop is one of the most powerful creative programs around. It is mainly used to edit graphic images, such as making changes in photos and translating images into various file formats. It also has powerful drawing and painting tools. In many projects that incorporate digital photography, you'll have kids bring their pictures into PhotoShop to adjust and enhance them, then export the pictures in a form suitable for the Web or other use. PhotoShop has a vast array of highly sophisticated functions that professional image editors use to correct images for publications. Although you and your kids will probably never use those functions, by introducing kids to PhotoShop, you'll expose them to a real-world application that can help them get jobs.

Kid Pix Studio Deluxe
Company: Broderbund
KidPix is a multimedia authoring application specifically designed for children that consists of a suite of drawing and painting tools. It's interface is "child friendly," and it lacks some of the more sophisticated functions that might confuse kids and which they are unlikely to need. Although it is an authoring product, it's drawing and painting functions are particularly easy for kids to use.

Multimedia Authoring and Presentations
HyperStudio
Company: Roger Wagner Publishing
A multimedia authoring system is used to combine words, pictures, sounds, animations and/or videos into a single presentation. It's simplest form is the slide shows we see so often at lectures or conferences, but more sophisticated applications can animate movement, add audio files and create video-type effects, such as wipes and segues. HyperStudio is a good, all-purpose authoring tool that is a bit more powerful than KidPix and somewhat easier for kids to use than Microsoft PowerPoint, a program which is mostly targeted at business users.

Recommended Optional Software Titles

Microsoft Publisher
Company: Microsoft
Use: Desktop publishing

Encarta
Company: Microsoft
Use: Reference library, including a dictionary, encyclopedia, atlas and thesaurus

Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing
Company: Mindscape
Use: Teaching keyboarding skills

Scratch
Company: The Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab
Use: Programming environment for animation, graphics, sound and games

Microworlds
Company: Logo Computer Systems
Use: Programming environment for animation, graphics, sound and games

Premiere & Premiere Elements
Company: Adobe
Use: Video editing

Reading Magic Library Series, Graph Club, Etc.
Company: Tom Snyder Productions
Use: Multiple K-12 subject areas