Microsoft Student With Encarta Premium 2007 - E
Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that this educational software can help kids with their math and language classes and even reports. They need an Internet connection and a Microsoft .NET Passport to be able to use the Hotmath help, the Encarta Web Links, and other online resources. The math help is extensive and can be tied into the student's specific math book, so families will want to check whether the book used by their school is listed.
Families can talk about how to best use this resource. Are the links that come up when researching in Encarta helpful? When researching, do they prefer to use multimedia resources or written materials? Do students find they use the encyclopedia, the language arts help, the foreign language help, or the math help the most?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Jinny Gudmundsen
Parents who want to assure that their kids have homework help and authoritative resources available to them 24/7 during their next school year should take a look at MICROSOFT STUDENT WITH ENCARTA PREMIUM 2007.
This all-in-one homework helper for students in 6th through 12th grades combines the excellent Encarta Premium Edition encyclopedia with a variety of homework helpers in math, foreign languages, and writing. It also helps students with researching, outlining, and writing projects.
Microsoft Student opens up to a clean interface offering three methods of navigation: Homework, Projects, and Discover & Learn. Under Homework, students can find help with math and foreign languages, or search tools. By selecting Projects, kids can get help with papers and reports, charts and graphs, and presentations. Discover & Learn is the gateway to Encarta, as well as college guidance and an assortment of learning games.
In Encarta, students get an excellent, easy-to-use encyclopedia. In addition to the more than 66,000 articles and extensive multimedia content, the software also includes a dictionary, a thesaurus, and an interactive world atlas. When students enter a search, the results not only include Encarta references, but credible Web sites as well.
The foreign-language help covers French, German, Spanish, and Italian with additional Web site links to Latin and Japanese dictionaries. Kids can get help with translations from English to the various languages and also find verb conjugations in French, German, and Spanish.
Students may be impressed by the Book Summaries found under the Projects heading. Covering hundreds of classic books, the summary section offers author information, analyses of the themes and characters of each book, and lists of possible ideas or themes for reports and papers.
Students can also obtain step-by-step homework help for math problems from their specific math book via a partnership with the outstanding Hotmath Web site. New to this year's version of Microsoft Student is Microsoft Math, a resource that provides both tutorials and step-by-step solutions to many pre-algebra, algebra, and trigonometry problems. Students will also find an onscreen graphing calculator, a triangle solver, and an equation library of more than 125 formulas.
Inevitably, preteens and teens discover that they need homework help late at night. With Microsoft Student 2007 loaded on the family computer, many of these late-night crises can be avoided.
To get the full benefit of Microsoft Student 2007, families will need to own Microsoft Office XP or 2003. Microsoft Student 2007 offers a variety of presentation templates that rely on Microsoft's Power Point. The software also uses charts and graphs found in Microsoft Excel, including an excellent Grade Tracker spreadsheet.
Families will need an Internet connection and a Microsoft .NET Passport to be able to use the Hotmath help, the Encarta Web Links service, and other online resources.
Overall, this is an excellent, comprehensive resource.
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Educational ValueHomework help on everything from math to foreign languages to essay writing. This software also has an excellent encyclopedia. |
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