Software Review

Looking to the future, I enjoy finding interesting lesson plans and information to use in my classroom one day from others and online. My friend from home and I also like to share this information among each other. Having a big interest in History I choose to specifically look at some software that is all about Ellis Island. I ended up looking at 2 different sites that reviewed the same software on The Ellis Island Experience by Southpeak Interactive.

The first site, http://www.superkids.com/aweb/pages/reviews/socstud2/ellis/merge.shtml, gave the product a 5 all the way across the board. It briefly said that teacher and students enjoyed the product and it was easy to use. But that didn't really say much to me, anyone could have said that. And there were not any comparisons of reviews or other products, they just showed one review. I wanted to know more.

The second site that I for a review from, http://www.albany.edu/jmmh/vol3/ellis/ellis.html, was from a teacher who has used these kinds of educational software just for fun use in her classroom. Then she rethought that and reviewed this software. Overall, I would purchase this software from her review. She said that this software has a lot of primary resources and transcripts that students can listen to. The pictures of the artifacts are also very good, she adds. If I was doing a project or even small lecture on Ellis Island, I would think to look into using this software in my classroom.

The only thing that could turn someone away from using this product is that Donna says that a lot of the information is also in the books that she uses when doing an Ellis Island Unit. Thus taking away from the students reading. I would be interested in knowing what books correlate with this. It doesn't mean that I would not buy this product because it would have the same information as some books that I could use, but it would allow for different books to be used along with this product.

Overall I think this product would be beneficial to a classroom. The pictures and information that Donna gives on her review looks very interesting and student friendly. This seems like a fun way to share my love for History among students in a fun and interactive way.