1. What is different about EOA and ScienceSchoolHouse?

2. What is interactive multimedia?

3. What are "instructive components"?

4. What are "constructive components"?

5. What are the benefits of using interactive multimedia?

1. What is different about EOA and ScienceSchoolHouse?

From its inception in 1992, and continuing to the present time, EOA has developed software that was not just icing on top of the main educational resources, e.g., books. Rather, EOA software could replace books due to the in-depth and broad-breadth of content that is included in our products. Therefore, we include substantive discussions and instruction in all aspects of the science topics.

Yet, our software also has those many components and elements that books can not provide, such as constructive, interactive multimedia and virtual laboratories.

To find out more, read further if you wish, or investigate our products page, view samples and obtain a trial subscription to the online library.

2. What is our interactive multimedia?

EOA Scientific developed the ScienceSchoolHouse Library of interactive multimedia software as a substantive solution for educating students about science.

Why software?

Harness kids' fascination with computers to teach science.
Many kids don't seem to enjoy reading books, but if they want to learn about the latest computer game they will read many screens to help them win.

Why interactive?

The best way to learn science is by doing it. If you can't do it with them, then interactive software brings students into a world of exploration and investigation.
Kids like doing things on computer, and just clicking to the next screen is not interactivity. Truly interactive software engages students in activities that virtually reflect a true engagement of activity.

Why multimedia?

Movies and animations are components of an integrated approach to science education that can bring your student into environments on Earth or planets and stars in the universe that they can only imagine.
Narrated video brings to your student a personal contact with scientists and explorers who investigate our natural world.

Why substantive?

You do not need software that covers little bits of cool subjects, teasing the mind and leaving your students to fend for themselves. You need software that covers all the topics of science with in-depth and comprehensive educational instruction.
The curriculum requirements of your Boards of Education are detailed and extensive. You need resources that satisfy all the learning outcomes that are required to succeed in both understanding and in passing standardized tests and graduating exams.

Interactive multimedia components of our software:

Visit our products page for more information, but in a nutshell, Discover! Science has 5 gigabytes of material:

15 core units on earth/space, life/environment, and physical/chemical sciences
For middle school and high school
110 chapters and 1200 lesson screens
95 chapters of 900 lesson-screens of core content, 300 of appendices for research
In the main content lesson screens, most have two levels of text and narration, each has an illustration, and additionally there are:
- 350 video clips and animations, mostly narrated
- 100 interactive exercises including virtual labs, demonstrations and animation presentations, narrated
- Quizzes and testbank documents
- 15 video documentaries of 20-30 minutes in duration, all narrated (also available in DVD-quality for classroom presentation)

3. What are our "instructive components"?

Instructive components are tutorials, for example:

A textbook or a lecturer.
Interactive multimedia instructive components combine text, narration, pictures, animations, video and certain kinds of computer-based exercises to instruct students and assist teachers.
These components provide information and demonstrations of information and discussions or demonstrations methods in science.
The computer-based exercises that are classified as "instructive" are puzzles, demonstrations, and duplication of experiments that are now called "virtual labs". However, most virtual labs lack the open-ended quality of a real laboratory. The options are limited, instructions are cook-book, and students find themselves just following instructions. While this is a good thing to do once or twice, further sorts of materials are needed to allow a sense of exploration and discovery.

Most computer-based materials are tutorials of an instructive sort. These are necessary, and can be very useful as part of a library of resources. We know that students learn better when there is an engagement of as many of their senses and cognitive faculties as possible. That is why multimedia holds a promise of being able to add to the tool-kit of teachers and parents in the education of their students and children. Good multimedia instructive materials will include words, narration, pictures, animations, videos and sound-effects. There should also be many levels of instruction, including different levels of text and multiple layers of exercises.

However, they have two fundamental characteristics that require supplementation of instructive materials with constructive materials and interactive multimedia. These two limiting characteristics are (1) passivity, and (2) lack of experimentation.

Passivity: Essentially, the student is an observer. She or he is listening, reading, looking, and is occasionally clicking a mouse. You may have heard of "interactivity" as the key to computer-based education. However, it is now an overused word. Merely clicking the mouse is not "interactivity". Since science is a mode of thought that is integrally related to action with the objects of the world, interactivity in science education requires much more.
Lack of experimentation: Science is as much a method as it is facts. We know that most students generally learn more when they are involved and engaged in activities. Therefore, computer-based materials must try to involve students in "virtual" science experiments that are more than canned demonstrations. For this reason we must consider "constructive" educational approaches.

4. What are our "constructive components"?

Constructive components are discovery-oriented exercises that require active user participation. Our computer-based interactive multimedia software contains a variety of constructive components, including:

Virtual labs that allow learners to perform scientific experiments with the virtual equipment not easily available in schools. Constructive virtual experiments should be as open-ended as possible, and have many varieties so students can do different things at different times.
Demonstrations of experimental results that challenge learners to analyze and synthesize information gained from other sources. Constructive demonstrations should not do everything for the student. The student should be required to work a little--or a lot. Demonstrate one part, but challenge them to do the next parts.
Mini-games and puzzles that are fun and also teach students to think through problems and discover knowledge not previously provided. A puzzle that once put together shows something put together doesn't really add much. Constructive mini-games and puzzles should be a way of leading students to a realm that they had not imagined at the beginning, and which has options to build--to "construct"--knowledge on their own.
The most important types of constructive components are our interactive exercises and our new and unique 3D Virtual Laboratory. The 3D Lab plays like a computer game, but learners conduct experiments on Earth and other planets and under many different conditions to learn the core of science methods and to discover the nature of fundamental concepts such as distance, velocity, acceleration, weight, mass, volume, and gravity. New experiments are being added to the Lab continually, and updates are included with all purchases.

5. What are the benefits of using our interactive multimedia?

The benefits of using our software are as follows:

Self paced instruction
Customizable for each student's needs
A huge library of materials, allowing research and exploration
Engaging interactive multimedia that keeps students awake and interested
Improves test scores
Easy for teachers and students
Teaches science method and exploration, not just facts
Accurate and up-to-date (2005/2006 revisions)