| Product Name: |
The Integrator for Biological Psychology: A Multimedia Introduction to Psychology CD-ROM |
| Level: |
Second Year Tertiary / Third Year Tertiary |
| Platform: |
Macintosh® / PC - Windows® |
| Supplied Information: |
This powerful tool was designed from the ground up as a multimedia extravaganza. Integrating animations with dramatic audio and video sequences, The Integrator covers a wide range of content, including material to complement the full range of topics of the Introductory Course.
Dramatic new ways for students to learn and instructors to teach! Using The Integrator, students can bring psychological topics to life! With a click of the mouse, they can reinforce their learning or explore independently by calling up: interactive experiments, animations, homework assignments, video clips, transparencies and photographs, audio clips, dynamic images, demonstrations, study pages and interactive surveys
Easy to use, fun to explore, and pedagogically sound!
Using The Integrator independently or in conjunction with their text, students will not only have more fun studying psychology, they'll also "see" psychological concepts come to life in ways that simply are not possible when they're taking notes in lecture or highlighting their textbooks.
A powerful presentation tool
Professors can quickly and easily create and present professional multimedia lectures using the built-in "LectureMaker" - and students can use it to develop dynamic class presentations and oral reports. Because The Integrator is "platform transparent," users can create a multimedia presentation on either a Macintosh or Windows computer and then present the lecture on either platform. For more advanced users, selected multimedia elements can be exported for use in popular presentation programs, such as PowerPoint, Persuasion, and Astound.
Highlights:
The CD includes a "Psychology Resource Stack" includes 1600 static images, 32 homework assignments, 25 dynamic images, 12 demonstrations, 8 interactive experiments, 12 study pages, and 16 surveys.
Students can use the Integrator as an electronic tutorial that will help them better understand difficult concepts. Many of the experiments on the CD explain material that is not fully discussed or explored in the text. In addition to the materials on the "Resource Stack," the student CD contains more than 50 homework and extra credit assignments, including surveys, demonstrations, and experiments. The homework assignments are self-grading, produce custom verification sheets, and consist of a random selection of questions.
|
| Possible Use: |
This product is suitable for Second Year Tertiary / Third Year Tertiary courses. |
| Price: |
$28.75 US, Site License $500.00 US |
| Developer/s: |
Arthur and Wendy Kohn |
| Review: |
This package sets out to supplement some second or third year topics as presented in a related textbook, Biological Psychology by James Kalat (same publisher as CDROM). The function of the software is primarily designed (although not explicitly stated) for teaching concepts, for use in classroom, and for testing students. The package can be used by students without supervision (ideal), by students in laboratory classes, by teachers during lecture classes (with the associated lecturemaker package. The material covered is factually correct and probably pitched at the right level for the users at second Year University level. The navigation options allow students to explore the material in any order they choose, or to follow the logical within-chapter order as given. The inclusion of animated explanations and interactive parts of the study enhance the topics considerably. The factual information present in the package is insufficient for a standalone study tool.
The aspect of the package designed for lecturers is easy to use and allows images and animations to be assembled into a lecture/presentation. This can be managed with the supplied software or can be exported to Microsoft PowerPoint for delivery. The flexibility here is very reasonable, but would be further improved if some of the Microsoft drag and drop attributes were supported.
The documentation is sparse, but the user should not have to consult the user manual or readme files. One annoying feature is for floating descriptions to appear when the mouse hovers over a hyperlink. While the information is welcome, it covers up the other choices in the list.
The major drawback with the package is the assessment/quiz section. The answers have to be exactly as the authors decided the answer should be. For example, critical period was "incorrect", the "correct" answer given was sensitive period or critical period. This is one example of many.
Overall, fairly impressive, but should be used as an adjunct or teaching aid for a textbook covering the same material-it will probably assist sales of Kalat's text.
|
|
Mark Schier, Swinburne University of Technology
|
| |
| Supplier: |
Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, 511 Forest Lodge Road, Pacific Grove, CA 93950-5098, USA |
|
info@brookscole.com
|
|
http://www.brookscole.com/ |
|
phone: (408) 373 0728 |
|
fax: (408) 375 6414 |
| Date Record Last Modified: |
7/1/99 |
