The Great Action Adventure is an interactive CD-Rom which allows
students to have fun learning about verbs. Students as young as 2 can
easily play the action videos by themselves and learn the associated
nouns or signs. Older children who already know common nouns and verbs,
can use a more-advanced setting to learn appropriate verb tenses.
Because some students learn through play, and others learn better in
a highly-structured setting there are two separate areas on the CD - a
play area and a structured teaching area. Both areas are
fully-customizable for each student. You have the ability to choose
which words are taught, how they are presented, and how the student is
reinforced and prompted. Skills taught include receptive noun and verb
matching, sign language, word matching and verb tenses.
As shown below, there are separate teacher and student areas. From
the teacher area, you set up the program for individual students and
track progress. From the student area, students can choose to play or
do a lesson. Students cannot exit their area without knowing a secret
key combination.
Sample Teacher Panel

Main Student Panel

Let's Play Area

Kids love the Let’s Play area. Here they can scroll
through 140 different videos of verbs (over 70 unique verbs).
Navigating is simple with the arrow heads at the bottom of the screen or
the alphabet bar at the top. You can
control how many verbs are in the play area, and whether or not the
alphabet bar, related nouns and sign language buttons appear. If your
computer has a touch screen, children too young to use a mouse can
simply touch a verb on the screen and watch it come to life.
Shown above is a sample screen from Let’s Play. In
this example, the color scheme is set to primary colors. You can
change this to plain blue, however, if it is too distracting.
When a student clicks on a verb in the play area, a
screen similar to the one below will appear. A video of the verb will
play, and the student can see related nouns or sign language.
In this example, the present tense is being taught.
You can also choose to have other tenses taught, such as "going to cut",
"cutting" and "cut". Learning tenses with video is much easier than
learning with still flash cards.

Teach Me
The Teach Me area of The Great Action Adventure can be
fun too. You choose ahead of time how the student is
reinforced and how often. Kids will love the animated reinforcers and
sound effects. Of course, if these
reinforcers are too distracting, you can always select the picture or
audio rewards instead. Prompts fade in or out depending upon the
student’s success rate. This helps to build the student’s confidence
and reduce frustration.
As shown in the sample screens below, there are 6
different lessons that students can take. For each of
these lessons you can specify which words the student needs to work on,
whether an item is already mastered,
and how the student is prompted, corrected and rewarded. The student’s
progress is tracked and new words are
introduced when the student is ready.
 |
In the receptive verbs lesson, students are given a spoken
command such as "find stand", "touch stand", or "where is
stand?" Initially there will only be one picture to choose
from, so the student should be able to answer correctly. After
several successes, the number of choices will increase to two.
If the student begins to have difficulty, the program will
prompt the correct answer or reduce the number of choices. The
number of pictures on the screen will increase up to a number
which you specify (for example, 4)
You have complete control over what command is given, how the
student is prompted, how quickly pictures are increased and
which verbs are taught. You can also select how the student is
reinforced and how often. |
 |
The receptive nouns lesson is set up like the receptive
verbs program. The nouns that are taught are all related to
verbs. For example, foods that you eat or things that you
blow. As with the verbs program, you can select the items that
you would like to teach and the order in which they are taught. |
 |
In the verb sight words lesson, students drag the written
word to the corresponding picture. As with the other lessons,
initially there is only one choice on the screen. Choices
increase as the student is successful. |
 |
The noun sight word lesson is just like the verb sight word
lesson. Students drag the written word on top of the correct
picture. |
 |
The verb tenses program teaches present, past and future
tenses. First a video will play either partially, half way
through, or all of the way. The computer will then ask, "What
is he doing?", "What is he going to do?", or "What did he do?"
Students must complete the sentence by dragging the correct word
to the blank spot. As with all other lessons, you can select
how often students are prompted and rewarded, and how quickly
new verbs are introduced.
|
 |
The sign language lesson plays a video of a noun or verb
sign. The student must then click on the corresponding
picture. As with all other lessons, you can select which signs
are taught, and how quickly they are introduced. |