Kid Pix Deluxe 4
© 2004 Riverdeep, Inc.
Designed for schools, this version of the legendary creativity program offers a new interface, a larger workspace, new Teacher Tools and improved networking capabilities. It also has some serious drawbacks that should be improved. The interface is cartoon-like and child-friendly, although its functionality remains clumsy. For instance, it takes time to figure out how to drop a stamp once it's used. Our test children also didn't understand that the boxes placed around text disappear automatically -- kids kept trying to delete them, but they go away on their own. And like previous versions of Kid Pix, you have to save to Windows menus, which can intimidate younger users. While these weaknesses may be small, they become huge issues when multiplied by the number of schools who have grown to depend on Kid Pix as the standard draw and paint program for K-6. On the positive side, the art tools include over 2,200 stamps, 90 brushes (including wacky ones like toothpaste and colored sand), 30 special effects, and 150 paint fill patterns. Rollover tool descriptions are available in both English and Spanish. Gone is the make-your-own animations studio, although some of the stamps are animated and you can still put your artwork into slide shows. New Teacher Tools include a feature that lets teachers add voice and written instructions to activity templates they then make available to students. Teachers can limit which graphics libraries will be active within a template, helping students focus more on the activity and less on the stamps. The program ships with two copies of the CD and a Teacher Resource Binder that offers 30 lesson plans, a graphics index, tutorials and more. Site licenses are available. Note: Mac users should consider a different product--- Kid Pix Deluxe 3 from MacKiev.com. It's essentially the same program as KPD4, but cheaper and designed with more Macintosh specific features.
$89.95, Windows, Macintosh
Teaches: creativity, art