An Arts and Crafts Activity
With this activity, you can create a jungle scene complete with moving animals.
(more…)
Visual Learning - on demand subtitled
video, quizzes, study tools, lesson plans
video, quizzes, study tools, lesson plans
We have The Missing Piece!
Zane Education Latest Articles & Posts
Childrens Activity 1: Animal Footprints
An Arts and Crafts Activity
Your children make their own mystery tracks in snow or dirt – and then lead an expedition to track the elusive animal.
(more…)
Activities for Children
Activities for You and Your Children & The Value of Parent Child Play
Today we start our new series on Activities for Children.
Each day we will publish one new activity for you and your child – or children – to do together. These activities will fall into one of the following groups:
- Arts and Crafts
- Creativity
- Fantasy Play
- Food Stuff
- Group Play
- Indoor Play
- Math and Numbers
- Memory
- Older Kid’s Play
- Recycled & Reused Household Materials
- Science
- Tiring Them Out
- Toy Making
- Words & Language
- Activities That Need Time Only
These activities will help you spend meaningful time with your child while at the same time helping them develop a wide range of skills and abilities.
(more…)
Why Is Autism On The Increase?
Is Autism Really on The Increase – or Are We Just Diagnosing it Now?
A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that 1 in 88 children in America has Autism – which appears to indicate a 23 percent increase since the last report in 2009.
And another report I read recently indicated that over the last 15 years that the incidence of Autism had grown by more than 1000% – but interestingly that report also noted that Autism or ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), is a relatively new disorder, and was not actually being diagnosed and monitored 20 years ago in the way that it is today. Hence one explanation for this dramatic increase. But are there other potential explanations that we should be taking a much closer look at?
(more…)
Teaching With Subtitled Educational Video
Teaching and Providing Equal Access in the Classroom
With up to 94% of teachers now using educational videos in the classroom as a valued teaching resource, it is interesting to see that many teachers use online educational video that only benefits some of their students and not all.
Video produced and originally intended for television distribution, and video of conference presentations is not video that is going to be particularly effective for teaching K-12 curriculum subjects. Content used to effective deliver curriculum should be developed specifically for that purpose. But yet many teachers are attempting to use that type of video because that is all they believe is available.
But there is much more to it that this. If teaching with educational video is to be effective, it must provide access for all students in the classroom, and not just some.
The soundtrack must be specially prepared so as to be able to provide that content to the blind student or the child with visual impairments.
The video should now by Federal Law, include the use of subtitles, otherwise known as closed captions. This of course provides for the deaf student, or those children with hearing impairments.
Those subtitles should be provided using enlarged fonts that are easy to read, again for those students that have mild visual impairment.
And then there is the need to provide for different Learning styles. By providing video with both specially prepared sound tracks and subtitles positioned in a dedicated position at the bottom of the video, we provide each child with the choice of watching, listening to, or reading each presentation, and in doing so we are provide for the widest range of Learning Styles.
(more…)
The Power of Music in Education
Using Music to Improve & Motivate our Children’s Education
My memories of the only time that music ever made an appearance in my education involve a class of ten year old boys standing around a piano and being asked to learn a song that I had never ever heard of before. Worse still I had never ever been informed what singing in tune involved, and as a result I recall standing there wondering why the sound of my own voice did not seem to quite fit in with those of my classmates. This was neither a pleasant introduction to learning music, nor an experience that allowed music to become a meaningful part of my education.
Looking back forty years later I feel utterly robbed of what music could have become in my life, and the paths it could have led me down. And bearing that I now play two or three different instruments with varying degrees of success, simply for the sheer enjoyment and relaxation it brings me, it is one of the few areas of any regret that I have in my life.
However as I have come to understand and appreciate in recent years, music has far more to offer us then simply joy and relaxation – and that is particularly the case when it comes to our children and their education. To our children it can make the difference between not only enjoying and motivating their education, but also the pleasure and effectiveness of the learning process itself. (more…)
Do You Blog about Education?
Educational Bloggers – We Have a Proposal for you!
If you actively maintain a Blog, or website, that is focused on some aspect of Education including Teaching, Home Education, Special Needs or the use of Technology in Education we have a proposal for you.
What We Do?
Here at Zane Education we use what is currently the largest online library of fully subtitled video developed specifically to teach a wide range of curriculum subjects, to provide a unique online subscription-based Visual Learning solution.
The use of properly subtitled video enables each child to choose whether to watch, listen to, or read each presentation, thereby providing for the widest range of Learning Styles and abilities. More importantly though, this enables each student to study each particular curriculum topic, and improve their Reading and Literacy Skills simultaneously – and this is unique!
The use of online video also enables each student to study at their own speed, thereby enabling them to achieve their greatest potential.
With each of our 260+ curriculum topics we also provide online quizzes, interactive video study tools to enable the student to thoroughly explore each topic, Lesson Plans for each topic, free Users Guides for a wide range of specific student requirements, plus a growing selection of other educational resources.
Our use of subtitled educational video and our Visual Learning service provides significant benefits for students of all ages and abilities in the classroom, homeschooling, a wide variety of Special Needs, reading improvement, and for students studying English as a second Language.
Why We Want You?
Zane Publishing
Zane Publishing Educational Software Now Available Online
If you were a teacher, student, homeschool parent or child at any time between 1995 and 2000 you may well recognise the name Zane Publishing, and this would be because Zane Publishing quickly became an established Brand in the K-12 education market during that time as one of the largest educational software publishers in America.
Unlike many of the educational software publishers at that time they chose not to focus their efforts simply on the core curriculum of Math, Reading and Writing. Instead they developed more than 260 educational CD-ROM titles specifically to teach a comprehensive range of K-12 curriculum subjects that also included Art, Music, History, Literature, Geography, Science, Biology, Health and Sex Education, Social Sciences, Library Skills and Religious Studies.
Not only did they produce material developed specifically to teach the K12 curriculum, they also developed a resource of over 23,000 multiple-choice questions to provide testing for each of those 260 curriculm topics – currently the largest testing and assessment resource still available – with every correct or incorrect answer being explained so as to ensure that the learning process continued.
The primary concept behined Zane Publishing’s educational software was to ensure that each child was able to study at their own speed thereby enabling each child to achieve their greatest potential. But the academic importance of this educational software was highlighted by the fact that every single visual presentation was subtitled – otherwise known as closed captions – which ensured that each child had the ability to watch, listen to, or read each presentation. Not only did this mean that the educational material provided for the widest range of Learning Styles – as subsequent research has successfully shown – the availability of subtitles enabled each student to improve their reading and literacy skills as they studied each curriculum topic.
But this article is not intended to be a history lesson. The demand for Zane Publishing’s educational software continues to this day, and we receive a steady stream of enquiries wanting to know where upgraded versions of these educational software titles can be purchased that will run on the latest version of the Windows and Apple Mac operating systems.
But Zane Publishing was sold in 2000 and the new owners quickly identified the potential problems caused by the constant changes to those operating systems. The solution was to deliver all of that valuable content online. Now after 4 years preparation work, all of that educational material is now available online here at Zane Education.
(more…)
Education for Dyslexia
Educating the Dyslexic Child – Do We Expect Too Much?
Here we are in the 21st Century using a system of Education, a system that was originally designed in the time of the Renaissance, and we are confronted with the challenge of Dyslexia.
That being the case, what do we attempt to do? Yes, we attempt to recreate the wheel.
While I do not want to over-simplify the situation, and I must certainly bow to the knowledge of the experts, to me it appears that we are demanding that those 1 in 8 children with Dyslexia learn another language before we provide them with The Gift of Education – and that is the Language of Text.
If a family decides to move to live in another country where another language is spoken, they expect and plan to be confronted by their children having to learn another language before they can effectively attend school – but surely not in our own country!
In many ways it is ridiculous as expecting a person to learn how to catch and prepare fish before they have a right to eat it.
Visual Learning opens the doors for a child with Dyslexia, and yet we want those with the severest cases of Dyslexia to be removed from school, and placed in special schools for Dyslexic students when the reality is that many, many of these students are extremely intelligent, and simply need to be given an alternative to the textbook.
And the story gets much worse because many of the parents, when they attempt to get those children into those special schools, either find there is no spare places available, or that the costs are prohibitive.
Delivering the curriculum content that the child is required, and often wants to learn and study, by means of audio visual delivery is such a straight forward solution for many of those kids. And the technology is now available to do just that – and it’s available online.
The use of subtitled online educational video developed specifically for the K to 12 curriculum, enables those students to absorb and process the same information being studied by their peers, by watching and listening to video. And the icing on the cake for those with milder forms of dyslexia can use the video subtitles – otherwise known as closed captions – to improve their reading and literacy skills.
For the vast majority of dyslexic students this is a very real and meaningful alternative solution to the use of textbooks, but the significant benefits of using this method, lies in the fact that they can see the words, hear how they are pronounced and from there start to learn more about correct sentence structures, the appropriate context in which to use word and much more.
While many companies are now introducing the use of online educational video, this is not enough, and only one company has taken this to the level where they have added the all-important subtitles in the appropriate manner, to content specifically developed to teach a wide range of topics as required by the K-12 curriculum.
Zane Education is a company that many teachers, schools, parents and dyslexic students themselves are now turning to because they provide a service that delivers this effective Visual Learning service online.
(more…)
Motivating Children to Learn
What Can We Do To Motivate Our Children’s Interest in their Education?
I have just completed a period of research into the education market in India and was extremely impressed about just how motivated such a large percentage of both children, and their parents, are towards their own education and learning.
My research revealed two interesting facts.
A recent research survey in the last 12 months indicated that parents across 16 of the largest cities in India, saw education and learning being such important that the monthly expenditure on their children’s education ranked just second on their list of spending priorities. Only their monthly spend on Groceries and food shopping came ahead of their child’s education. In most Western countries, the monthly spend on education would be considerably less important.
Then I discovered that approximately 20 million students in India have a private tutor even though they attend school on a full-time basis. That number equates to just under half of all the children studying at school in the United States.
So what is it that motivates children in India to take such and interest in their own education.
In an effort to find out more about this I have spoken to many people in India. They have explained that both children and their parents realise that education is the only way that they can hope to fight their way out of poverty.
Many also explained that because of the sheer number of people in the country the competition to get into the better schools and universities was fierce, and to succeed students really did have to achieve their best.
Others explained to me this motivation towards education was simply part of their cultural beliefs and their approach to life in the same way that the respect children have for their elders is so different to that in many countries in the West.
I suspect that there is another factor too. With the exception of periods like the Great Depression of the 1930’s, and maybe also the years during World Wars I and II, most countries in the West have never really ever experienced times of real hardship, or oppression. As a result we have bred generations of people that have a reasonably “soft” life. It is well known that hardship and adversity bring out the best in a person’s nature, yet for most of us since the 1960’s life has become easier and easier.
We now live in a generation were the range of social security and support facilities provided act as a “safety net” for those that are unemployed, or don’t want to work. Loans and credit is made available to virtually everyone by the banks, whether people can afford to repay it or not. In many ways the recent generations have never had it so good. In fact many would suggest that today’s students and children expect the world to come to them, rather than having to go out and earn whatever they want. Many students expect success to be handed to them on a plate rather than having to earn it.
So with this air of “expectancy” being part of many children’s lives, is it any wonder that few place any importance on learning and their own education.
(more…)
- News / Social Media
- Zane News Blog
- Press Releases
- You Tube
- Media
- Contact Zane
- Contact Us
- Locations
