The Buzz : Site Announcements

ExploreLearning Office Closed on July 4th

In observance of Independence Day, the ExploreLearning offices will be closing at 3pm on Thursday July 3, 2008.

Our offices will reopen on at 8:30am on Monday July 7, 2008.

Elementary Science library updated!

The EL development team is proud to announce five new Gizmos to have been updated in our elementary science library. They are: 

• Circulatory System: Trace the flow of blood through the heart and blood vessels.
• Measuring Trees: Practice measuring skills and determine the age of trees.
• Pattern Finder: Where will that frog hop next?
• Pond Ecosystem: Measure the temperature and oxygen level, then relax and go fishing!
• Radiation: Try to pop a kernel of popcorn with a very powerful flashlight.

We had a lot of fun developing elementary science Gizmos this year, and we hope you enjoy using them. Send us a message and let us know what you think!

ExploreLearning Offices Closed for New Year's

ExploreLearning's offices will be closed December 31st and January 1st for New Year's.  Customer support will be unavailable during this time.

During this period, you can still activate a 30-day Free Trial directly from our website and instantly have access to our full library of ExploreLearning Gizmos.

Thank you for your support and we wish all of you a Happy New Year.

Begin the new year with new Gizmos!

With 2008 right around the corner, we are happy to announce five new grade 3-5 science Gizmos.

• Measuring Motion: Go on safari to determine the speed of animals.
• Phases of Water : Observe  molecules in ice, water, and water vapor.
• Conduction and Convection: Compare two methods of heat transfer.
• Inheritance: Determine how traits are passed down from parents to offspring in an alien creature.
• Homeostasis: Try to maintain a constant body temperature in a hostile environment.

Happy holidays and have a great start to the new year!

ExploreLearning Holiday Hours

ExploreLearning's offices will be closed December 24th & 25th.  Customer support will be unavailable during this time.  We promise to get back to you as soon as possible when our offices re-open on Wednesday, December 26, 2007.

During this period, you can still activate a 30-day Free Trial directly from our website and instantly have access to our full library of ExploreLearning Gizmos.

Thank you for your support and we wish all of you Happy Holidays.

Seasonal Gizmos

Two new Grade 3-5 Gizmos will help you and your students understand why winter is cold and summer is warm.

The first, called Heat Absorption, explores the heating of materials through radiation of light from a very powerful flashlight. Students will see that light is much more concentrated (and therefore much more powerful) when it is vertical than when it strikes at a low angle. This relates to seasons because sunlight is much more direct in summer than in winter. Students can also use this Gizmo to explore how different colors of light interact with various colored objects.

Seasonal changes are further explored in the Summer and Winter Gizmo. In this Gizmo, students can directly compare the angle of sunlight, day length, and temperature on June 21 and December 21 for any location. They will see that during winter days are shorter and sunlight is much less direct than during summer. They will also see that southern hemisphere seasons are opposite those of the northern hemisphere. In Australia, summer is just about to begin!

This would be a great Gizmo to present to your class on the solstice next Friday, December 21!

Conan inspires Gizmo

The 1982 cult movie Conan the Barbarian is not known as an intellectual triumph, and it is unlikely that many teachers have used it to illustrate scientific principles. One scene in this movie did provide the inspiration for our latest simple machines Gizmo, however.

Loosely based on the "Wheel of Pain" from the movie, the Wheel and Axle Gizmo features a large wheel that can be turned by barbarians. By adjusting the radius of the wheel or axle, students will see how mechanical advantage can be maximized.

Check it out!

Back to the basics

Weight and mass are some of the most basic principles in physical science, but these terms are often confused by students and teachers alike. It's no wonder--in our everyday lives we use the terms interchangeably. We in the development team at EL can testify to several occasions when a mysterious Gizmo error was traced to a failure to convert a mass to a weight or vice versa.

The Weight and Mass Gizmo was designed to address the basic distinction between mass and weight. Students measure mass and weight in a variety of locations (Earth, the Moon, Mars, and Jupiter) to discover that while the mass of an object is constant, its weight will fluctuate depending on the strength of gravity.

Enjoy!

New Color Gizmo

Colors are all around us, but why do we see the colors we see?

This question is addressed in the new Color Absorption Gizmo.

Your students will see that white light is actually a mixture of three primary colors of light: red, green, and blue. They will produce a wide variety of colors (orange, purple, teal) by placing pieces of red, green, and blue glass into a light box.

Enjoy!

Elementary Gizmos -- Not just for elementary students

After a long effort, the development team at EL is proud to announce the launch of our new line of elementary Gizmos. Twenty-five new Gizmos are available now.

These Gizmos were redesigned from the ground up, featuring vibrant colors and large, easy-to-use controls. Curriculum materials include worksheets (available in Word for easy customizing), answer keys, vocabulary sheets, and helpful teacher guides. Keep in mind that while these materials were designed with the elementary student in mind, they are completely appropriate for older students with a little modification.

We had some fun along the way. Lift an oinking pig or gobbling turkey in the Lever Gizmo, watch a gigantic pitcher get knocked down by his own throw in the Gravity Pitch Gizmo, and hear a cuckoo tolling the hour in the Pendulum Clock Gizmo. In February our offices in Charlottesville were filled with turnip, tomato, and green bean seedlings as we created the Growing Plants Gizmo.

So check out the new Gizmos, and enjoy!

Labor Day 2007 Holiday -- Office Closed

ExploreLearning's offices will close at 3pm EST on Friday, August 31 and will be closed Monday, September 3 in observance of U.S. Labor Day.

We will respond to customer service and technical support calls on Tuesday, September 4.

We sincerely appreciate your business and apologize for any inconvenience during this time.

Have a safe Labor Day weekend.

Site Maintenance Scheduled

In order to perform maintenance, the ExploreLearning site will be unavailable between approximately 9:00 p.m. on EDT Friday, August 24 and 6:00 a.m. EDT on Saturday, August 25, 2007.

We apologize for any inconvenience this causes you.

ExploreLearning Office Closed on July 4th

In observance of Independence Day, the ExploreLearning offices will be closed on Wednesday, July 4, 2007. Our offices will reopen on Thursday, July 5, 2007

Site Maintenance Scheduled

In order to perform routine maintenance, the ExploreLearning site will be unavailable between approximately 6:30 am and 11:00 am on Saturday, June 16, 2007.

We apologize for any inconvenience this causes you.

Another Award for ExploreLearning!

ExploreLearning has won a 2007 Distinguished Achievement Award from The Association of Educational Publishers (AEP) for the Best Science Instruction Website. This is the second time that ExploreLearning.com has garnered this award, further validating the exceptional instructional value and innovation of Gizmos! For over 100 years, AEP has supported and promoted the educational publishing industry. Their annual awards program honors the best materials and accomplishments in educational products and education marketing. Judged by peers and experts, the awards provide an objective, authoritative evaluation of educational products and marketing programs. Winning products are widely recognized as exhibiting outstanding quality and achievement. For a list of all of this year’s Distinguished Achievement Award winners, please visit http://www.aepweb.org/awards/curricwin.htm. Congratulations to the entire ExploreLearning team for bringing home this significant award! A contingent from the Charlottesville, VA ExploreLearning staff attended the gala in Washington, D.C. last night to accept the award. The hard-working "men in black" below proudly display our newest award plaque:

And I also got a chance to show it off:

Click here for official press release.

Explorelearning closed for Memorial Day

In observance of the Memorial Day holiday, the ExploreLearning offices will close at 3:00PM EDT on Friday, May 25, 2007 and remain closed through Monday May 28, 2007. Our offices will reopen on Tuesday, May 29, 2007

ExploreLearning named a finalist in 2007 AEP Awards

ExploreLearning has garnered another award nomination! We are pleased to announce that we’ve been named one of three finalists for a Distinguished Achievement Award from The Association of Educational Publishers (AEP), in the category of Science Instruction Websites for grades 9-12.

We’re very happy that Gizmos have been recognized again from AEP as outstanding materials in the field of teaching and learning. We won an AEP Distinguished Achievement Award in 2005 and we were a finalist for a Golden Lamp Award in 2006.

Once again, thanks to our entire team for making this possible!

ExploreLearning wins coveted CODiE Award for the 2nd year in a row!

ExploreLearning.com has won a 2007 CODiE Award for Best Science Instruction Solution. We won this same award in 2006 and we’ve been nominated for several other CODiE Awards over the years as well. Congratulations to the entire team at ExploreLearning for making this possible.

Our developers have really been working hard to make ExploreLearning the best site for inquiry learning in science and in math. In 2006, we added over 40 new science Gizmos, greatly increasing our coverage of key science topics. This year, the team is heads down in development of our new Elementary Science Gizmos, which will debut this fall. Keep up the good work, team!

Link: official press release.

ExploreLearning Offices Closed for New Year's

ExploreLearning's offices will be closing at 1:00 PM on Friday, December 29th, and reopening at 8:00 AM on Tuesday, January 2nd. Customer support will be unavailable during this time.

During this period, you can still activate a 30-day Free Trial directly from our website and instantly have access to our full library of ExploreLearning Gizmos.

Thank you for your support and we wish all of you a Happy New Year.

New Features for Assessment Results

Recently, we incorporated a great user-suggested improvement to the way Gizmo assessment questions are stored.  Previously, teachers were unable to assess a given class or student multiple times, since student assessment answers were permanently recorded.  Now, teachers can reset assessment results for a single student or an entire class, as many times as they (not the students!) wish.

Secondly, as we continue updating the assessment questions for certain Gizmos, it's possible that existing assessment results will be rendered obsolete.  Rather than clearing the data, we archive these student answers for a period of at least 45 days.  If this happens to one of the Gizmos you use, special instructions will appear above your class's results table in the assessment results window.

We always enjoy receiving ideas from our users on site improvements, so please keep 'em coming!

ExploreLearning Holiday Hours

ExploreLearning's offices will be closed from Friday, December 22 through Tuesday, December 26.  Customer support will be unavailable during this time.  We promise to get back to you as soon as possible when our offices re-open on Wednesday, December 27, 2006.

During this period, you can still activate a 30-day Free Trial directly from our website and instantly have access to our full library of ExploreLearning Gizmos.

Thank you for your support and we wish all of you Happy Holidays.

Scientific Classics

The end of the year has arrived for the Gizmo coders! During 2006 the two main goals were 1) to update the important "Classic" science Gizmos, and to build new Gizmos to broaden our collection in the sciences.

The Classic Gizmos were created many years ago (some as far back as 1997). Several that we updated include: Shoot The Monkey, Inclined Plane, Density Lab, Air Track, and Doppler Shift. Several screen shots comparing the Classic Gizmo to the modernized Gizmos are shown below. Needless to say, we are excited about the new and improved versions. Besides just the graphical enhancement, a tremendous amount of work went in to improving the overall user friendliness and the feature set of each Gizmo.

Our other goal was to increase our coverage in the sciences. Several of our new Gizmos include Phase Change, Pulley, Refraction, Star Spectra, Evolution: Natural and Artificial Selection, RNA and Protein Synthesis, and Orbital Motion - Kepler's Laws.

All in all we modernized 20 Gizmos, and created 22 new Gizmos. It has been a very busy year and we are looking forward to creating a wealth of new Gizmos next year. We always hope you are finding the Gizmos a great benefit to your teaching. We love getting feedback from teachers so that we can continue to make improvements to current Gizmos, as well as make new Gizmos from your ideas.

We are looking forward to an exciting 2007, and we hope you are as well. See you then.

New Inclined Plane Gizmo

Anybody who has carried furniture into a moving van, wheeled a chair up an access ramp, driven on a switch-back road or skied down a bunny-slope understands the usefulness of inclined planes. Inclined planes can reduce the effort needed to lift an object up or slow the descent of a falling object.

Both aspects of inclined planes can be investigated in our new Inclined Plane - Simple Machine Gizmo. Observe the forces acting on a brick as it slides down a ramp, then measure the force required to push the brick back up. This Gizmo can be used at a variety of levels, from middle-school to AP Physics. (For a real challenge, check out the proof at the end of the Exploration Guide - feel free to write to customer support if you need a hint!)

Our library now boasts three Gizmos that can be used to study simple machines (the other two are Pulley Lab and Torque and Moment of Inertia), and more are planned for the future. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving Holiday -- Office Closed November 23rd and 24th

ExploreLearning's offices will be closed Thursday, November 23rd and Friday, November 24th in observance of Thanksgiving Day (US).

We will respond to customer service and technical support calls on Monday, November 27th.

We sincerely appreciate your business and apologize for any inconvenience during this time.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Great science fair Gizmos updated

As science fair season is rolling around and students are hunting for topics, we have recently updated several Gizmos your students might consider using for a project. These are also among our most exciting and "gamelike" Gizmos to try.

In Reverse the Field, students can see how well they adapt to reversing the direction that the cursor moves when they move the mouse. Students can measure their reaction times in Sight vs. Sound Reflexes, and test their time-estimation skills in Time Estimation and Real-Time Histogram. The new Exploration Guides for these Gizmos highlight data-analysis skills and are full of tips for creating excellent science fair projects as well.

Many people know the famous story of Archimedes running naked through the streets of Syracuse yelling "Eureka!" But few can explain what Archimedes' Principle actually says. To find out, check out our new Gizmo Archimedes Principle, which mimics a popular lab of placing weights into a rectangular boat and measuring how far it sinks. By combining lab observations with the precise data available in the Gizmo, the beautiful symmetries of Archimedes' Principle will be revealed.

New Math Gizmo - Adding and Subtracting with Chips

It's been a busy year on the science side for ExploreLearning, but I'm happy to announce that we've uploaded a brand new math Gizmo...

Adding and Subtracting Integers with Chips

Using chip models can make adding and subtracting integers more visual and tangible for students... and with this Gizmo you can use chips without dealing with the post-lesson clean-up!

The trickiest concept that this Gizmo can help with is subtracting negatives. By using "zero pairs" in the Gizmo, students can really understand (rather than just memorize) why "minus a minus is a plus."

Enjoy... We hope this helps you and your students!

Teacher ideas incorporated into updated Gizmos

Since beginning work here in Charlottesville a year ago I haven't had much chance to get out of the office, so I jumped at the chance to do several teacher training sessions lately. One of the really nice things about training sessions is the chance to talk to teachers about Gizmos. Several recent teacher ideas have been incorporated into our Gizmos. For example, two teachers from Dekalb County, Georgia, requested more specific information about the role of enzymes in our Building DNA and RNA and Protein Synthesis. Their suggestions have been added.

A teacher in Iowa was bothered by the fact that the parent mice were housed in separate cages in our two genetics Gizmos: Mouse Genetics (One Trait) and Mouse Genetics (Two Traits). So we put them in the same cage, and revised the Exploration Guide and Assessment Questions of the Two Traits Gizmo as well. (For a bit of fun, try holding the "Shift" key down while pressing "Breed". Nothing bad, we promise!)

Updated Gizmos

Other recently updated Gizmos and/or Exploration Guides include Greenhouse Effect, Electron Configuration, DNA Fingerprint Analysis, Additive Colors v2, and Subtractive Colors v2.

New Gizmos

Ray Tracing - Lenses is beautiful to look at and is a big addition to our optics offerings. Inclined Plane - Rolling Objects complements the new "Inclined Plane - Sliding" Gizmo and allows students to compare a variety of rolling objects - rings, disks, solid balls and hollow spheres.

In the coming weeks, we will be working on several other customer requests, including a new math Gizmo that covers adding and subtracting integers with algebra tiles. So keep on telling us your great ideas for Gizmos!

Labor Day Holiday -- Office Closed Sept 1st and Sept 4th

ExploreLearning's offices will close at 3pm EST on Friday, September 1 and will be closed Monday, September 4 in observance of U.S. Labor Day.

We will respond to customer service and technical support calls on Tuesday, September 5.

We sincerely appreciate your business and apologize for any inconvenience during this time.

Have a safe Labor Day weekend.

New and Revised Gizmos

Over the past few weeks we have updated and released several Gizmos. Here is a list:

New Gizmos

Pulley Lab: Explore the dynamics of pulleys in this new Gizmo, our first on simple machines.

Orbital Motion - Kepler's Laws: Adjust the starting velocity and position of a planet, release it and see what happens! Special features of this Gizmo will allow students to discover each of Kepler's Laws.

Doppler Shift Advanced: This Gizmo, which complements Doppler Shift, has a quantitative focus. Students use the data they gather to write equations for wave frequency in front of and behind a moving source, or for a stationary source and a moving observer.

Updated Gizmos

Freefall Laboratory : We have added new objects, a free-body diagram to show forces, and a variety of manual settings to accomodate a wide variety of experimentation. The Exploration Guide now allows students to calculate the final velocity for objects falling in a vacuum from a known height.

Air Track: We have updated the graphics and interface of this classic Gizmo, and added an exploration guide and assessment questions. Students can discover conservation of momentum and energy for elastic and inelastic collisions.

Limiting Reactants: We have updated the layout and curriculum materials for one of our most visually stunning Gizmos. Not only is this a great Gizmo for teaching about limiting reactants, but it is an exceptional depiction of a chemical reaction as well.

Inclined Plane - Sliding: Our old Inclined Plane Gizmo is in the process of being replaced by a series of Gizmos. In this Gizmo, the focus is on energy conversions for sliding objects. Future related Gizmos will focus on rolling objects, vector diagrams, and simple machines.

Pluto demoted

Well the verdict is in, and Pluto is out. In a vote last Tuesday, the International Astronomical Union voted on a new definition of "planet" that would exclude Pluto and other icy objects in the outer parts of the solar system. Ironically, the new definition stipulates that a planet has "cleared the neighborhood around its orbit," which would exclude the gas giant Neptune as well (Pluto's orbit  overlaps the orbit of Neptune). However, Neptune was officially reinstated as a planet by special footnote. Pluto (and other newly discovered bodies, such as Xena and Sedna) is now a "dwarf planet."

Unlike textbooks, ExploreLearning was able to respond to the change quickly by adding a few notes to our Solar System Explorer Gizmo. We left Pluto in because it has such an interesting orbit, but made sure we referred to it as a "dwarf".

On the topic of planets, check out our brand-new Orbital Motion - Kepler's Laws Gizmo. In this spectacular new Gizmo, you can change the position, mass, and velocity of a planet, then observe its motion around a central star. It was a great surprise to me that almost any starting configuration results in a stable orbit - things don't gradually spiral in to the star as you might expect. Just as Kepler did in the 17th century, you will discover that the planetary orbits conform to some very interesting laws.

Golf Range Gizmo Updated

This week we have updated one of our oldest and most popular Gizmos, Golf Range! The unique combination of sports and projectile motion makes this a fun and vital physics lesson. Along with great-looking new graphics and a complete set of curriculum materials, we have added several new features:

• Horizontal and vertical velocity vectors, allowing students to see which component of velocity changes as the ball travels through the air.
• A grid and crosshairs, allowing students to plot the parabolic trajectory of the ball.
• An adjustable cliff, allowing the golfer to tee-off from any height.

With all of these new features, the Gizmo can be used for an informal exploration of the factors affecting flight, or for an in-depth, quantitative physics lesson on projectile motion. Check out the Exploration Guide for more suggestions on how to approach this fundamental topic.

Of course, the one feature we didn't change was the sound clip of Gizmo inventor Raman Pfaff announcing, "Hole in one!"

New Doppler Shift Gizmo

The ExploreLearning development team is proud to present a new Doppler Shift Gizmo. This new Gizmo offers several features that transform a very popular Gizmo into one of our best. Students can listen to a sound file of an ambulance passing by, then manipulate the source speed, wave frequency, and speed of sound. A ruler is provided to measure wavelength in front of and behind the source, and the observed frequency can be displayed as well. Altogether an eye-catching and ear-opening activity!

We have also released an updated version of Photosynthesis - Activity A (the new version is called Photosynthesis Lab). Among other changes, we have added a temperature slider and updated the Exploration Guide and assessment.

New Gizmos Released!

As Summer officially begins this week and most of you are relaxing after a long school year, we are as busy as ever at EL. This week we have released three new Gizmos and have enhanced several others. In the Refraction Gizmo, students can observe and measure the bending of light as it moves from one medium to another. Evolution: Natural and Artificial Selection is a follow-up to the current Evolution: Mutation and Selection Gizmo. Together, these two Gizmos provide an unbeatable simulation of evolution, as students can see how favorable mutations gradually accumulate in a bug population.

To complete our strong suite of evolution Gizmos, we have created the Human Evolution - Skull Analysis Gizmo. Many kudos go to our talented graphic artist, Beth Hollen, for creating the accurate drawings of real fossils you can see in this Gizmo. By measuring and analyzing the skulls like real paleoanthropologists, your students can come to their own conclusions about what this evidence shows. (By the way, check out the latest issue of National Geographic for an excellent article on the development of bipedalism, or walking on two legs.)

We have also continued to work on enhancing older Gizmos as well. First on our list was the classic Density Laboratory Gizmo, which has been updated with new graphics and several new objects to measure, including three "gold" crowns. (Can you find the two fakes?) This Gizmo is a great example of our new Gizmo "skin", which includes a larger display area, larger and darker text, and a cleaner look that is specially designed for projection. Keep your eyes open for more of these Gizmos coming in the next few weeks!

Other enhanced Gizmos include Tides, Distance-Time Graphs and Distance-Time and Velocity-Time Graphs.

Enjoy!

Ongoing Gizmo Enhancements

This spring we have continued to modify and enhance our Gizmo library. Last week a user pointed out that the view of the Moon portrayed in the Moon Phases and Moonrise, Moonset, and Phases Gizmos was actually a photo taken from space, showing the Moon from an angle not possible to see from Earth. Luckily, our own Raman Pfaff is something of an amateur photographer, and he had on file a beautiful photo he had taken of the Full Moon. We all agree it adds a nice personal touch to a popular Gizmo!

Raman can also take credit for a fantastic new animation on Cell Division , and we have improved several other Gizmos as well, including Solar System Explorer , Rainfall and Bird Beaks, Food Chain , and Beam to Moon. Enjoy!

ExploreLearning Evolves: New and Enhanced Gizmos

As the school year is winding down, we at EL are gearing up with new Gizmos and enhancements of some of our existing Gizmos. We are very excited about our new Evolution: Mutation and Selection Gizmo, in which you can see a population of bugs adapt to any background color you choose through random mutation and natural selection. Play the Gizmo slowly, and you will see individual mutations appear and slowly accumulate, as some bugs with favorable mutations have a slightly higher chance of survival. Play the Gizmo fast, and you will see how a near perfect match to the background is achieved over a hundred or so generations. It's the perfect tool for teaching a difficult concept.

On the topic of natural selection, we have also updated our popular Natural Selection Gizmo, spreading the moths out over several trees and making the well-camouflaged moths much harder to find. We have been making changes to several other Gizmos and their associated Exploration Guides and Assessment Questions as well, including:

• Disease Spread
• Rabbit Population by Season
• Water Cycle
• Rock Cycle
• Building DNA
• RNA and Protein Synthesis

Enjoy!

New Chemistry and Astronomy Gizmos

After a bit of vacation from our busy 2005 publishing schedule, we are pleased to announce the release of our first batch of 2006 Gizmos.

One of the most basic ideas in physical science is the connection between temperature and particle motion. Three new Gizmos investigate different aspects of this connection. Temperature and Particle Motion explores the relationship of particle velocities to temperature for an ideal gas. In Phase Changes, students can observe phase transitions at the molecular level. In the Collision Theory Gizmo, temperature is one of several factors that influence the rate of a chemical reaction.

The other new Gizmos relate to astronomy. 2D Eclipse is a companion to last year's 3D Eclipse, allowing students to investigate the geometry of eclipses in a more basic setting. In the Star Spectra Gizmo , students are asked to match the spectrum produced by a star to those of known elements. Not only is this a fun challenge, but a surprising amount of information can be gained by analyzing these stellar spectra.

Enjoy using these new Gizmos, and keep your eyes open for more to come!

Assessment Results Color Code Change

Please note the following change in the Assessment Questions Results table available to teachers: We've removed the color coding from the total results column. (Refer to the image.)

We felt the colors were visually over-emphasizing the totals at the cost of drawing attention away from the right/wrong shading of the columns for the individual questions.

Finalist: AEP Golden Lamp Award

We are pleased to announce that ExploreLearning is one of four finalists for the prestigious Golden Lamp Award from The Association of Educational Publishers from a field of 34 entries.

The Golden Lamp is the most prestigious award within the field of educational publishing. Publishing professionals, educators, and librarians recognize winners as providing the most outstanding materials for learning. In addition to encompassing content and design that transcends the best in its category, Golden Lamp pieces are critiqued on their fulfillment of their educational mission.

The winners will be announced on June 9, 2006, in Washington D.C.

ExploreLearning Friends Present at VCTM

ExploreLearning is excited to be a part of the VCTM conference March 10 and 11 in Blacksburg, Virginia. Dave Shuster, founder and president of ExploreLearning, and Eric Frenchak, our new Educational Consultant in the Southeast, will demonstrate from our new collection of Gizmos at the ExploreLearning booth. In addition, several of our ExploreLearning friends will present throughout the conference. Below is a list of must see presenters. (And, if you mention that you read about our presence at VCTM in the BUZZ, you could receive a really cool ExploreLearning water bottle.)

Build Mathematical Thinkers: Use Highly Effective Instructional Strategies in Middle School (Grades 6-8)
Marlene Robinson, Albemarle County Public Schools

The McREL study about strategies that enhance student achievement identified 9 highly effective strategies for instruction. We will give examples for different ways to integrate these strategies into the 6-8 Connected Mathematics curriculum to help students better understand mathematical concepts and improve their mathematical thinking, reasoning, and communication skills.

SOH-CAH-TOA, the Unit Circle and Trig Functions: What's the Connection? (Grades 9-12)
Jeffrey Steckroth, University of Virginia

Students often see right triangle trigonometry, the unit circle, and the study of trigonometric functions as three distinct topics, failing to see the connections among them. This presentation will include multiple representations and use Sketchpad, Excel and TI-SmartView animations to illustrate just how closely the three topics are related.

Get SMART (boards) and the Case of the Inquisitive Classroom (Grades 9-12)
Susan Socha, Fairfax County Public Schools

You've tracked down a Smartboard…now what? Agent 86 and Agent 99 investigate ways to inspire interactivity and increase student participation. Uncover how a worksheet can be transformed into an exciting exercise. Examine web pages that require student input. It's the old manage the classroom while you're learning new tricks!

Explore Learning in the Algebra Classroom (Grades 9-12)
Cathy Coffman, Albemarle County Public Schools

Participants will discover the power of Gizmos (using Explorelearning.com) in their classrooms. Gizmos are dynamic, interactive, discovery tools for math (and science) students.

Improved Printing of ExploreLearning.com Pages

During a recent trip to Albemarle High School with the digicam to catch some footage of "teacher and students and Gizmos in action," one of the things I noticed was that not only was the teacher printing out quite a few EL pages for use in her class but also that print quality on the pages was poor. And by poor I mean that there was all sorts of junk —— navigation buttons, search boxes, login buttons — appearing on the printed page and making it look cluttered and difficult to use.

I'm happy to say that this problem is now I fixed. I took sometime this week to write and apply a print-specific style sheet to all ExploreLearning.com pages. (Previously, only the Exploration Guides were getting the special print treatment.) So now if you're using a so-called "modern" browser (i.e., IE6, Fire Fox, Safari) you'll get a much cleaner and readable printed page.

If you ever dabble with your own web pages and want to know more about print style sheets, I highly recommend this article from CSS guru Eric Meyer: Going to Print.

One More New Gizmo!

One more new Gizmo is live, with supporting Exploration Guide and Assessment Questions — it's the Polling: City Gizmo.

This Gizmo provides an interesting study of polls.  How reliable is a given poll for an upcoming election? How likely is it that the outcome predicted in the poll will turn out to be incorrect? What factors increase reliability? Interesting and relevant questions!

Polling: City is a perfect followup to the Polling: Neighborhood Gizmo.

14 New Gizmos Released!

We are pleased (and more than a bit relieved) to announce the arrival of 14 new Gizmos. These Gizmos span a variety of topics, from electrostatics to statistics to human health and perception.

Several of the new Gizmos complement other recently released simulations. For example, the Bohr Model of Hydrogen Gizmo is a perfect follow-up to the Bohr Model: Introduction Gizmo released last week. Advanced Circuits provides some challenging problems for students who have mastered the Circuits Gizmo.

Evolution has been a hot topic in the news media lately, and we are proud of our two new Gizmos that explore the connections between evolution and population genetics: Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium and Microevolution.

We also have great news for any math teachers who have felt neglected by our science focus this year. Polling: Neighborhood, Populations and Samples and the soon to be completed Polling: City provide a great sequence in statistics and probability. Logarithmic Functions: Translating and Scaling provides a more advanced follow-up to our current logarithm activities. And don't forget the math applications that can be found in many of our science Gizmos!

Here is a complete list of our new Gizmos:

• Polling: Neighborhood
• Populations and Samples
• Logarithmic Functions: Translating and Scaling
• Colligative Properties
• Bohr Model of Hydrogen
• Advanced Circuits
• Pith Ball Lab
• Torque and Moment of Inertia
• Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium
• Microevolution
• Sound Beats and Sine Waves
• Hearing: Frequency and Volume
• Dye Elimination
• Drug Dosage

ExploreLearning a Codie Awards Finalist

We are very honored to announce that ExploreLearning is finalist in the 2006 Codie Awards in the categories of "Best Instructional Solution: Mathematics," "Best Instructional Solution: Science." and "Best Instructional Solution: Web-based or Online."

Presented by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), the Codie Awards celebrate achievement and vision in software, education technology and digital content. The Codie Awards holds the distinction of being the only peer-recognition awards program of its kind in the industry, providing a unique opportunity for companies to earn the praise of their competitors.

New Gizmos Highlight Chemistry and Life Science!

As part of our ongoing effort to publish 40 new Gizmos, we are very pleased to announce the release of eight new science Gizmos.  Several of these highlight our commitment to chemistry, and atomic structure in particular. 

• Nuclear Decay
• Photoelectric Effect
• Electron Configuration
• Covalent Bonds  

We will continue this trend in the next few weeks with the release of Gizmos on the Bohr model of the atom, ionic bonds, stoichiometry, and colligative properties.

Another major focus this year has been to develop new life science Gizmos.  In this group are two Gizmos that focus on homeostasis:

• Paramecium Homeostasis
• Human Homeostasis

In each of these fascinating (and fun) simulations, the user can control the activities of an organism to survive in a harsh environment.

Other new Gizmos include Building Topographical Maps which was designed as a companion to the recently-released Reading Topographical Maps.  In this activity, students can create their own topo maps using a "water level" slider, and explore the concepts of gradient and profile as well.

Physics has always been a strong suit of our Gizmo library, and the new Atwood Machine Gizmo fits right in.  Whether in the lab or on a computer simulation, the Atwood Machine Gizmo is an intriguing demonstration of Newton's Second Law.  We will soon be releasing other physics Gizmos on torque, Coulomb's law, and advanced circuits as well.

Enjoy!

Updated Element Builder

In response to comments from several users, we are pleased to announce an updated version of our popular Element Builder Gizmo. The new version boasts several improvements to the original:

• More information is given about the isotopes of each element, including the approximate half-life (if radioactive) and the percentage of the element that each isotope makes up.
• Isotopes that are not found in nature (or the lab) are listed as "Not valid"
• The minimum number of protons is now set at one, eliminating hard-to-explain situations such as electrons orbiting a nucleus with no charge.

Holiday Office and Support Schedule

ExploreLearning's offices will be closed from Friday, December 23 thru Monday, December 26, and again on Monday, January 2. Customer support hours (telephone 434-293-7043 and email support@explorelearning.com) will be curtailed from Tuesday, December 27 through Friday, December 30. We promise to get back to you as soon as possible when our offices re-open on Tuesday, January 3, 2006.

During this period, you can still activate a 30-day Free Trial directly from our website and instantly have access to our full library of ExploreLearning Gizmos.<.p>

Thank you for your support and we wish all of you Happy Holidays.

New Version of RNA and Protein Synthesis

We are pleased to announce a revised version of the RNA and Protein Synthesis Gizmo. With help from Steve Uyeda, a high school teacher in Tucson, Arizona, we have changed the animation to more accurately show how amino acids are joined together to form a protein. Check it out!

New Science Gizmos Posted!

We are happy to announce a mountain of new content has been posted today!We continue to add to and enhance our Gizmo library. (Included in here is our first foray into "3D" for science Gizmos. It's some pretty amazing stuff!)

Check them out! (And watch for more to come in coming weeks. We're well on our way to meeting our goal of 40 new Gizmos this year!)

Brand-New Gizmos:

(Note: If you're viewing this page in a popup, taking the links below will close the popup and open the Gizmo Details page in your main browser window.)

• Seasons in 3D
• Seasons: Earth, Moon, and Sun
• Seasons Around the World
• Lunar/Solar Eclipse
• Chemical Equation Balancing
• Dehydration Synthesis
• Interdependence: Plants and Animals
• Penumbra Effect
• Reading Topographical Maps

New Exploration Guide and Assessment Questions:

• Moonrise, Moonset, and Phases
• Moon Phases (revised EG and assessment)
• Mouse Genetics (Fur Color)
• Chicken Genetics
• pH Analysis (Quad Color Paper)
• Pendulum Period - Large Angle
• Calorimetry Lab

New Assessment Questions:

• Density Laboratory
• Photosynthesis - Activity B
• Doppler Shift
• Half-life Laboratory

And finally, as we mentioned earlier in the Buzz, we also posted a new and improved Circuits Gizmo today.

Big stuff is afoot in the ExploreLearning development wing!

New Version of Circuits Gizmo Released!

As mentioned in a previous post to The Buzz, we've been hard at work on a new version of the popular Circuits Gizmo -- and we're extremely happy to announce that it is now live on the site, completed with updated Exploration Guide and assessment questions.

Use the link below to get there quickly:
Circuits Gizmo

In addition to eliminating a bug with the previous version's handling of certain 'short' circuits, the new version includes:

1. circuits can have multiple batteries
2. an ohmmeter to measure resistance -- also, you can now directly control the precision (# of decimal places displayed) of all the meters          
3. fuses

Let us know what you think!

New Version of Circuits Gizmo: Surging With New Features!

We're extremely happy to announce that a new version of the popular Circuits Gizmo will be released in November. In addition to eliminating a bug with the previous version's handling of certain 'short' circuits, we took the opportunity to add some exciting (some might even say 'electrifying') new features:

1. circuits can have multiple batteries
2. an ohmmeter to measure resistance -- also, you can now directly control the precision (# of decimal places displayed) of all the meters
3. fuses

One key benefit of being able to use multiple batteries on the grid is that this enables you to have more than one functioning circuit onscreen at the same time. For example, you can build simple series and parallel circuits beside each other. This lets you and your students quickly compare measurements of voltage, current, and resistance between the two circuits, and also use the 'current visualization' feature to compare the current's direction and intensity in both circuits.

Of course, as the screenshot shows, we encourage you to use your creativity to build and explore more complex circuit designs!
Let us know what you think!

[Screen shot of the new Circuits Gizmo at 50% scale]

Change in Site Functionality

We've made two recent changes to the functionality of the site that we want to bring to your attention.

1. Order of class tabs after edit/rename
   If a teacher edits his/her class tabs, the class tabs will no longer rearrange themselves from left to right based on alphanumeric order; instead, the tabs will stay in the same order, i.e., Tab 1 is first, Tab 2 is second, and so forth.
2. Added Search Capability
   Previously, our search engine only searched Gizmo Library. Now the search engine will also search all of our help document and all postings in the Buzz blog.
   
   You'll now see your search results displayed in tabs such that Gizmos, Help Documents, and Blog Postings all get their own tab with the number of results (if any) displayed on each tab.

We hope you find both of these changes helpful.

Textbook Correlations Abound!

Over the past month, several of us here at ExploreLearning have been involved in a project to get many, many textbooks correlated with Gizmos. As a teacher, you can easily choose a textbook from our listing, and have a direct link to Gizmos that we feel best complement each section, unit, or chapter.

Currently there are over 90 textbooks from Brooks/Cole, Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, Holt, Houghton Mifflin, McDougall Littell, and Prentice Hall that have been correlated to our Gizmos.

To look for your textbook just browse through our correlations by textbooks (we also have correlations by state and grade/topic). More information about browsing through the Gizmo collection can be found at the bottom of that page.

Going through 90 textbooks was not an easy task and I'd like to thank everyone that was involved in this project. We will continue to add new textbooks in the future, and update our correlations as new Gizmos become available. If you use a textbook that is not listed among the correlations, please drop us a line at support@explorelearning.com and we will add the book to our task list.

Site Maintenance Scheduled

In order to perform routine maintenance on our servers, the ExploreLearning site will be unavailable for approximately 1 minute on our about midnight tonight, i.e., 12:00 am EDT on Tuesday, October 11, 2005.

We apologize for any inconvenience this causes you.

Site Maintenance Scheduled

In order to perform routine maintenance on our servers, the ExploreLearning site will be unavailable for approximately 1 hour at some point between 12:00 am and 6:00 am on Tuesday, September 14, 2005. The most likely time for the outage is 3-4 a.m.

We apologize for any inconvenience this causes you.

Teacher Home Page Interface Change

We've made a change to the Teacher and Home user versions of "My Homepage" to make the "Import Gizmos" function more clear and easier to use.

The change is as follows:

• In the "Class Tools" links the "Get Gizmos" link has been replaced by an "Import Gizmos" link.
• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGE: Clicking the "Import Gizmos" link will spawn the "Import Gizmos from Another Class" popup and functionality, i.e., users will no longer be first directed to the "Get Gizmos" page.

For additional information on Importing Gizmos, please refer to the following help document: Adding Gizmos to a Class or Classes

Life Science Gizmo Idea = ExploreLearning Hat

SUBMIT YOUR IDEAS FOR NEW EXPLORELEARNING GIZMOS(TM) AND WIN AN EXPLORELEARNING HAT!

We are looking for new ideas for ExploreLearning Gizmos(TM) for use in life science (middle school) and biology (high school) classes. Some of our best ideas have come from you, our customers and ExploreLearning friends.

Some of the Gizmo topics we have recently published are Human Karyotyping and DNA Fingerprint Analysis. We have several new life science Gizmos currently under development including: Interdependence of Plants and Animals, Drug Resistance, Paramecium Osmosis, and Drug Dosage.

Some of the broad topics/areas where we think a great Gizmo idea may be lurking include: human biology (digestion, circulation, skeletal structure, etc.), classification of organisms, microbiology, environment, etc. Anything related to life within and around us.

To be eligible for a hat, your submission should include the following information:

1) A title for the Gizmo
2) A brief abstract/purpose for the Gizmo
3) A short description of exactly what the Gizmo will do (typically three or four sentences)
4) Your school and role at that institution
5) Your mailing address (to receive your hat!)

Here's an example of how a recent idea (that is being Gizmo-ized) was described:

Title: Interdependence of Plants and Animals

Purpose: Students will design and conduct an experiment that demonstrates the role of plants and animals in the carbon-oxygen cycle.

Description: The Gizmo will allow students to drag up to a maximum of four elodea and/or snails in to test tubes that can be placed in light or dark rooms. The tubes will contain water with Brom thymol blue. As time passes, the students will be able to observe color changes in the water (due to increased CO2) during a 24 hour period. Small bubbles may also appear near the elodea when placed in a light room (due to oxygen production). Students will then be able to learn through observation that snails consume oxygen, and plants create oxygen.

You are eligible to receive one hat for each idea that is Gizmo-ized.  Let's hear from you by emailing "ideas@explorelearning.com" with the subject line "Life Sci Gizmo idea!"

Thanks from your friends at ExploreLearning

Labor Day -- Office Closed 09/05

ExploreLearning's offices will be closed on Monday, Sept. 5 in observance of the Labor Day Holiday.

We will respond to customer service and technical support calls on Tuesday, Sept. 6.

We sincerely appreciate your business and apologize for any inconvenience during this time. Have an enjoyable Labor Day Holiday.

CLRN Certified

We have recently been informed that ExploreLearning Gizmos have met the review criteria of the California Learning Resource Network (CLRN) and are considered a supplemental electronic learning resource that both meet local instructional needs and embody the implementation of California curriculum frameworks and standards.

The review criteria established by CLRN are rigorous, so we are quite pleased to learn we are in compliance.

Update: Demo Movie Load Time Improvement

We've added a nifty preloader to all of our demo movies that drastically increases the speed in which the movies will begin to play on your computer. For example, users with a fast connection (T1, DSL, cable) will see the movie begin to play after only a couple of seconds. Users on slower, dial-up modem connection will also experience a much improved load time.

If you haven't already checked out the demo movies or you tried to but gave up after waiting too long for the movie to start playing, now is the time to give the demo movies a try.

ExploreLearning Wins AEP Distinguished Achievement Award

We are pleased to announce that ExploreLearning was awarded the Association of Educational Publishers' Distinguished Achievement Award in the "Educational Science" category.

For 37 years, the Distinguished Achievement Awards have honored the diversity and quality of supplemental publishing products made for the home and school. In 2004, the AEP expanded the categories to reflect the growth of electronic publishing and the expanding educational publishing industry. Additional information can be found at the AEP Awards website.

A special thanks to the AEP, who made the awards banquet a fabulous event, and gave us the chance to meet with many people devoted to education.

Now Showing: Gizmo Demo Movies!

ExploreLearning has gone Hollywood! (sort of...) We've added five demonstration movies to our site:

• An Introduction to ExploreLearning.com
• Teaching with Gizmos - Fraction Sense
• Teaching with Gizmos - Exploring Quadratics
• Teaching with Gizmos - Genetics and Mouse Breeding
• Teaching with Gizmos - Force and Motion with Fan Cart, Part 1

The introduction movie is perfect for first-time visitors to ExploreLearning.com. It answers the question, "What is a Gizmo?" and also shows how Gizmos can help improve teaching and learning. (All that in under 8 minutes -- not bad, huh?)

The four Teaching with Gizmos movies show how you might teach a specific lesson using Gizmos. Each of these movies focuses on one Gizmo and highlights what that Gizmo helps you do to enhance student learning. (These movies are about 4-to-6 minutes each.)

We hope these movies are helpful to you. Maybe they can even help you take your teaching with Gizmos to another level. Let us know what you think!

Links to the movies are on the front page of ExploreLearning.com, and also in our new-and-improved Help Center (click on the small gray '?' at the top right corner of the screen).

By the way, these movies are large files (anywhere from 2 MB to 6 MB). They take some time to download -- depending on the speed of your internet connection, of course -- so be patient. They're well worth the wait!

National Sales Manager Joins ExploreLearning

We are pleased to announce that Rick Roegiers (pronounced "Rogers") joins ExploreLearning as its new (and first ever) National Sales Manager. Since its February 2005 acquisition by ProQuest Information and Learning Company, ExploreLearning has been working to expand significantly its sales and marketing workforce. "Mr. Roegiers," as he is affectionately referred to in the office, will lead the effort to build our inside and field sales capabilities.

With ProQuest since 2000, Rick leaves a position as Delray Beach FL-based Southeastern Regional Sales Manager for ProQuest Information & Learning where he managed sales professionals and trainers in a 17 state region and achieved the greatest new business revenue for the company in 2004. Rick began his sales career in 1993 as Florida regional sales rep with SIRS which was subsequently acquired by ProQuest.

Rick and his wife Susan have two daughters - Ashley, 4 and Jamee, 19 months. Rick enjoys traveling, running and reading a good book (when he has the time!)

If you would like to talk with Rick about how ExploreLearning Gizmos can be a part of your everyday classroom experience, either on an individual teacher, classroom -wide, or district-wide basis, drop us a line at sales@explorelearning.com.

Welcome to the ExploreLearning neighborhood, Mr Roegiers!

Finalist: AEP Distinguished Achievement Award

We are pleased to announce that ExploreLearning has been selected as one of four finalists for the Association of of Educational Publisher's Distinguished Achievement Award in the "Educational Science" category.

From the AEP letter announcing our selection as a finalist:

"Because no more than four finalists in each category were selected, being one is a true honor. You and your staff have helped define the standards of excellence in educational publishing."

For 37 years, the Distinguished Achievement Awards have honored the diversity and quality of supplemental publishing products made for the home and school. In 2004, the AEP expanded the categories to reflect the growth of electronic publishing and the expanding educational publishing industry. Additional information can be found at the AEP Awards website.

It is an honor to be among the finalist. Winners will be announced at the annual awards gala this June in Washington, D.C.

Science Curriculum Writers Needed!

We are hard at work on our next batch of new science Gizmos (including some great 3D stuff... stay tuned!), and we are now in search of some talented writers/teachers/Gizmo users to help us write curriculum material (Exploration Guides and assessment questions) to go with the Gizmos.

Ideally, we'd like to hire someone (or multiple people) ASAP, and the work would likely extend through the summer and into the early fall.

The ideal candidate has some science teaching experience at the middle or high school level, knows (and is excited about!) science Gizmos and how to teach with them, can write clearly and concisely, and has some free time coming up. In fact, this could be a perfect";summer job" for a science teacher and Gizmo fan!

For more information (including how to apply), see our Employment page.

New Feature: The 5 Minute Gizmo Pass!

Starting today, visitors to ExploreLearning.com can access every Gizmo in our library with our new "5 Minute Gizmo Pass."

Previously, non-subscriber visitors to the ExploreLearning.com could preview just one Gizmo per day. We realized that, as our Gizmo library expanded (and it's always expanding), allowing just "one Gizmo per day" isn't enough. Now all visitors will be able to get a real sense of Gizmos' broad course coverage in math and science.

Employment Op: Seeking Gizmo Designers (Science)

We are actively seeking Science Gizmo Designers who will be responsible for designing highly interactive simulations and virtual manipulatives that support students in understanding and mastering scientific concepts. Note: Technical / programming skills are not a requirement for this position.

To learn more, read the full job posting.

Seeking Gizmo Subject Ideas

For all of you teachers out there that use our site, now is your chance to speak up. The developers here at ExploreLearning are getting ready to start building lots of new Gizmos, and we want your ideas! As you use the site have you ever had the thought, "I wish there was a Gizmo that does yada yada yada." If you could drop us a line about your yada, the Gizmo idea might make it on to our list, and you could be using it in the upcoming year.

Don't miss out on this opportunity! We always want to make Gizmos that teachers want and will help students learn concepts in state standards.

You can send your Gizmo ideas to . Remember, the more details you include in the idea, the greater the chance of getting that idea turned in to a Gizmo. If possible, be sure to include your name in the message.

To get you started, here is how the idea for the Fan Cart Physics Gizmo could have been written.

I have an idea for a Gizmo that would help me when teaching about Newton's Laws. In the Gizmo, there would be a cart that has a certain mass. On the cart you could place one or more fans (which have a mass) that would cause the cart to accelerate. Fans could be switched on and off, and be placed on the cart in either a forward or backward direction. Students would be able to get data about the position, velocity, and acceleration of the cart.

If I was really a friendly teacher, I might have included a sketch of what the Gizmo would look like :) That is definitely not required though, since we know how busy teachers are every day.

ProQuest Acquires ExploreLearning

We are happy to announce that ProQuest Information and Learning has acquired ExploreLearning.

Read the full press release here.

ExploreLearning operations will remain in Charlottesville, Virginia, and customer service and technical support contacts will remain unchanged for customers.

The best part of this news for the customers and ExploreLearning team members is that the ProQuest acquisition will allow us to grow and to reach even more teachers and students than previously.

Gizmo Searching Functionality

We are very pleased to announce that the ExploreLearning site now features the ability to search our entire Gizmo library. The search terms you input will look for matches in the library based on Gizmo Title, Gizmo Description, and Keywords on the Gizmo topic.

Additionally, if you are logged into the site, you will be able to add Gizmos to your class Gizmo List(s) from the search results page by clicking on the "Add Gizmo to Class" link in every Gizmo Record.

For your convenience, the search box is located in the header (top right) of every page on the ExploreLearning.com site.

Site Maintenance Scheduled

In order to perform routine maintenance on our servers, the ExploreLearning site will be unavailable for approximately 20 minutes at some point between 12:00 am and 6:00 am on Monday, February 14, 2005.

We apologize for any inconvenience this causes you.

Now Hiring: Multimedia Developers and Assessment Developers

Help shape the future of math and science assessment!

We are currently in Year 1 of a major, 2-year NSF SBIR grant (National Science Foundation Small Business Innovative Research) to develop a next-generation online assessment system for math and science. We are seeking Multimedia Developers (Macromedia Director) and Assessment Developers (Mathematics).

To learn more, visit our NSF SBIR jobs posting page.

New Science Exploration Guides

Yesterday, we posted a whopping 28 new Exploration Guides and sets of Assessment Questions to our site! These accompany some of our newest and best science Gizmos (listed below).

In fact, this was a bit of a landmark here, as this wraps up our latest round of development of 75 brand-new science Gizmos and associated curriculum material.

To check out the new Gizmos, Exploration Guides, and assessment questions, use the links below.

• Additive Color v2
• Cell Division
• Cell Energy Cycle
• Cell Structure
• Coastal Winds and Clouds
• Earthquake - Determination of Epicenter
• Greenhouse Effect
• Household Energy Usage
• H-R Diagram
• Human Karyotyping
• Hurricane Motion
• Identifying Nutrients
• Laser Reflection
• Mystery Powder Analysis
• Natural Selection
• Plate Tectonics
• Pollination: Flower to Fruit
• Rabbit Population by Season
• Rainfall and Bird Beaks
• Rock Classification
• Rock Cycle
• Solar System Explorer
• Subtractive Color v2
• Vectors
• Virus Life Cycle (Lytic)
• Water Cycle
• Water Pollution
• Weather Maps

Holiday Office and Support Schedule

ExploreLearning's offices will be closed on Friday, December 24 and Friday, December 31. Customer support hours (telephone 434-293-7043 and email support@explorelearning.com) will be curtailed from Monday, December 27 through Thursday, December 30. We promise to get back to you as soon as possible when our offices re-open on Monday, January 3, 2005.

During this period, you can still activate a 30-day Free Trial directly from our website and instantly have access to our full library of ExploreLearning Gizmos.

Thank you for your support and we wish all of you Happy Holidays.

Introducing "InstaTrial," A Quicker, Easier Way to Activate a Free Trial

We are pleased to announce an important piece of new and improved functionality on the ExploreLearning website: Instant Free Trial Activation.

If you've previously had a Free Trial with ExploreLearning, then you know that the process for activating the trails was, er …, a bit cumbersome to say the least. But not anymore. In keeping with our philosophy to always strive for a better ExploreLearning website, we totally revamped the system.

Now you can enjoy the benefits of an ExploreLearning Free Trial simply by picking a username and password and telling us who you are and where you teach (if you're a teacher rather than a home user). The entire process can be completed in just a couple of minutes.

Moreover, now the Free Trials, both the home version and teacher version, come preloaded with a sampling of ExploreLearning Gizmos in various subjects. A Free Trial user can, of course, choose to modify the Gizmo Lists in any of the Free Trial classes, adding, deleting, rearranging Gizmos just like any other ExploreLearning subscriber.

If you're not already an ExploreLearning subscriber nor a previous Free Trial user, why not take a moment and activat