Q Steps
© 1998 GesslerQ
This 2 CD Spanish program is a real mixed bag in terms of quality, with both strengths and weaknesses. Children begin the experience at the main menu, which shows a map with eight destinations. When kids click on a place, a little car and driver zip to the building and the lesson, which is taught by a penguin, begins. For instance, if kids choose to go to the paint store, they watch the penguin introduce five colors. All teaching is done in Spanish, which quickly immerses the child in the language, but at the same time can be pretty confusing. Kids can click through the brief lesson if they like, and segue right to the activities on the page. In the paint store, children are asked to identify colors and they can record themselves saying the words. They can also play a cash register game and a bingo-like game that reinforce color and number words. There are several activities and layers of content in each location on the map, with vocabulary covering clothing, colors, the family, numbers, the body, food, school and feelings. The focus is on listening and speaking-- not reading and writing-- and the games, songs and activities are plentiful and educationally solid. Unfortunately, there are some design flaws that interfere with the learning process, for example, the interface takes some getting used to. You have to click in a certain spot to interrupt animations and the menu bar for controlling the activities is non-intuitive (until you memorize its functions it's hard to figure things out). Other flaws include some non-interruptible animations and the omission of record keeping or progress tracking mechanisms. It's also a fairly expensive package, relative to what you get for the money. On the positive side, the software is accompanied by lesson plans and other teacher support materials. Our conclusion: QSteps is a useful but flawed program that could be vastly improved with progress tracking and some interface changes.
$139, Win 95, 98; Mac OS (CD-ROM)
Teaches: foreign language, Spanish, French, German, English