ExploreLearning News

Site Sluggish

Along with several of you who've reported such, we've noticed on again off again periods where the ExploreLearning.com website seems sluggish.

We are aware of the problem and are trying to isolate and fix the exact cause. We'll let you know when we resolve the problem.

In the meantime, if you find yourself experiencing said sluggishness while using the site, please let us know: support@explorelearning.com

Thanks for your patience and understanding.

Journey To A Comet

The European Space Agency is getting ready to launch a spacecraft that will land on a comet ten years from now. The launch of the Rosetta is currently scheduled for 07:36 UT on February 27. Where were you ten years ago? Where will you be in ten years when it lands on the comet?

The Rosetta will travel many, many miles on this journey.

Random Coin Toss?

National Public Radio ran a very entertaining story this evening. A professor has done research to see whether a coin toss is truly a random event. The conclusion - NO! If you have seven minutes to listen to a fun story...

Listen to The Not So Random Coin Toss on the NPR Site.

Beam To Moon Update

The Beam to Moon (Ratios and Proportions) Gizmo was recently updated. Several issues with rounding of numbers were fixed so that cross multiplication would yield consistent results in all situations. The gravitational constants of the planets and moon were slightly changed, and only integer values are accepted for the weight of the person.

Thanks to Susan L. for reporting this issue. Aloha.

User Support: A Team Effort

Regarding our user support, ExploreLearning customer Michael Franke from the Spartanburg Day School writes:

"I want to thank you for your incredible tech support. As I mentioned to Paul, I was in the software business for 17 years prior to getting into teaching, and I've seldom seen better. You can quote me on that."

Thanks, Michael!

From the start, we've made customer support a very important part of our business. To that end, then, we've made sure every ExploreLearning team member gets first hand experience with customer support. For instance, the "Paul" whom Michael refers to in his praise above is Paul Cholmsky, our Director of Research and Design.

So while Paul is busy writing grants, designing Gizmos, and researching the effectiveness of virtual manipulatives, he also participates in one, four hour support shift each week. We all do.

If you ever find yourself having to contact user support, don't be surprised if the EL team member helping you is the president of the company or one of the folks who codes the Gizmos or designed the site.

Sneak Peek

Work continues on new science Gizmos ;) A few snapshots are shown here.

Albemarle County (VA) Public Schools pilot program

Paul Cholmsky and I visited Albemarle HS and Monticello HS, both in Albemarle County, VA, (surrounds our fair city of Charlottesville, VA) last week to train math teachers on the use of our site. This served as a kickoff to ExploreLearning pilot programs at middle schools and high schools throughout the county.

Many thanks to the teachers who took time out of their day to stay an extra 90 minutes after school. I think they found it to be a worthwhile hour and a half -- theoretically, they were ready to begin using Gizmos with their students the next day!

Also, thanks especially to Marlene Robinson, Carla Hunt, and Matt Blundin for help in organizing the two training sessions!

We look forward to working with the teachers of Albemarle County. We hope that this will be beneficial to them and their students, as well as to ExploreLearning.

New Math Exploration Guides and Assessment Questions

We are pleased to announce the addition of new Exploration Guides and new sets of Assessment Questions for 11 of our math Gizmos. We now have Exploration Guides and Assessment Questions for 99% of our math library!

Here are the 11 math Gizmos that have just received the new materials:

• Solving Equations with Decimals
• Multiplying Exponential Expressions
• Dividing Exponential Expressions
• Multiplying Fractions
• Solving Using Trend Lines
• Classifying Triangles
• Surface and Lateral Area of Prisms and Cylinders
• Surface and Lateral Area of Pyramids and Cones
• Sine, Cosine and Tangent
• Arithmetic and Geometric Series
• Quadratic and Absolute Value Functions

Search Gizmos by Title

We've added the capability to search Gizmos by title. You'll find the search box located in the sidebar on all "Browse the Catalog" pages as well as "My Homepage."

Please note that this search capability is limited to just words found in a Gizmo title, so it may not meet all your needs for keyword or topic searching. We are working behind the scenes on a more robust search solution, but wanted to roll out this temporary search in the meantime.

We hope you find this helpful.

The Software Behind the Gizmos

As I've mentioned before, all of our Gizmos are built with Macromedia's Director software. Director MX 2004 was released today with a wealth of new features. Without Director it would be hard to create our high quality Gizmos, so thanks to all the people that helped out with the development of this new version of Director!

We'll start investigating the new features, and look for ways to improve our current Gizmos. We'll also think about other nifty things we can develop in the future ;)

If you (our great readers!) ever have an idea for a useful/educational Gizmo, feel free to drop us a line and we'll see what we can do.

Science Gizmo Change

A minor change was made to the Photosynthesis - Activity A Gizmo earlier today. The oxygen production now levels off as the carbon dioxide level increases. Previously it decreased at high CO₂ levels.

Work continues on the Exploration Guides and Assessment Questions for many science Gizmos. The first stuff may start appearing on the site within a week. I will also post a few more 'sneak peek' screen shots of science Gizmos that are nearing completion.

Important Password Information

We've uncovered a known issue that is causing some users to have problems attempting to login to the site:

1. If you're creating a new account, do not start your password with a zero (as the system removes it).
2. If you've already created an account where the password starts with zero and you're having trouble logging in, try dropping the zero.
   
   For example,
   if you're password is 04MyPassword, try 4MyPassword instead.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.

Introducing Our "Learn More" Content

We just added a new section to the site called "Learn More." It currently includes a tour of a teacher's version of "My Homepage" and, more importantly, contains the research evidence on the effectiveness of ExploreLearning Gizmos in the classroom.

You can access the Learn More at any time section by way of the "EL" icon on the top right of every major page in the site. Or follow this link to go directly from here.

And this is just the beginning of content we'll be adding to the "Learn More" area of the site. Stay tuned!

Course Code Font

Several users have alerted us to problems they were having with Course Codes: It was difficult, for instance, to discern the difference between an "l" (lower-case letter el) and an "I" (upper-case letter eye).

Since the Class Code is case sensitive, this created a problem enrolling students.

We've since changed the font-face from a sans-serif face to a monotype, e.g., courier.

Hopefully, this will remedy the problems. Please let us know if it does not.

Spirit and Opportunity

For the first time since landing on Mars, both Spirit and Opportunity are fuctioning as expected! If all goes well they will be performing experiments on Mars for the next three months.

Visit MarsQuest Online for more information about the rovers. It sure would be fun to have one of those ;)

Space.com also has a special report on the Mars rovers.