Make history come alive with beautiful images from these vast visual libraries. These interactive tools are designed to help teachers teach more effectively, and to help students teach one another.  Now thousands of images may be used in PowerPoint® presentations and student reports too!

Visual libraries are available on CD-ROM, or in a package consisting of a videodisc and CD-ROM. The CD-ROM is for individual or small-group use. The videodisc is for easy presentation in a classroom.

The CD-ROMs are packed with features. One of the most important is the Lesson Composer, which allows the easy preparation of illustrated lectures and student presentations. These can be played back either on the computer screen, or, using the videodisc, on the classroom TV. Here are some of the other features of the CD-ROM:

• Display each image either with its caption or full screen
• Search the entire CD-ROM quickly for a word
• A Quiz tests students at three skill levels
• Narrated, full-screen Overviews play back on the computer
• Dozens of "sound bytes" are embedded in captions
• The Historipix Game challenges what has been read and seen
• A "related items" button shows links between images

• Presentation playback can be pre-timed or manually advanced
• Import your own images to show on the computer screen
• Print a script with barcodes, for instant videodisc retrieval

The videodiscs provide their own unique flexibility, allowing you to create and present illustrated lectures using the classroom TV without having to use a computer. Each videodisc comes with a Master Guide book, containing a caption for every image and a barcode above each caption. Scan the barcode, and the image is instantly displayed. Its caption, which describes the image and places it in its historical context, can be read to the class and adapted to meet the needs of your students.

In addition, there are narrated Overviews, and maps especially designed for the screen. All of these have their own barcodes, for instant retrieval. The Master Guide also contains an extensive index, to help you locate just the right images for your lecture.

After you have used the disc to present an illustrated lecture in class, your students can use the CD-ROM for review, or to expand upon the material. This provides highly effective reinforcement of the lessons taught in class. A student who has missed a class session can easily use the CD-ROM to review material which was presented in class. Individual students or groups of students can use the CD-ROM for independent, creative study, pursuing their own interests at their own pace. The CD-ROM can be played on a school computer, or on a home computer, using equipment which is already available to students to enhance the classroom experience.

These CD-ROMs and videodiscs are not single-use, "canned" presentations. You will use them again and again throughout the school year, for many purposes. You are in charge of the content of each presentation, using tools to create lectures, and you remain involved by delivering your illustrated lectures to the class. Students are empowered to create presentations, and to explore history in stimulating new ways, thus becoming "hands-on" learners.

Used separately, or in tandem, each reinforcing the other, these teaching and learning tools will deeply involve your students in the study of history - in a way which has only now become possible because of this powerful new technology.

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