In my search for educational software I was overwhelmed by the amount of things available to help children learn. On the website www.yourchildlearns.com/map-puzzles.htm, I found something that interested me greatly and I am an adult.

The website was created by Owl and Mouse Educational Software and on the page the link above directs you to, there are free online interactive maps which provides instruction on countries , continents, states, capitals borders etc. The picture above is an example of one such map.

What really grabbed my attention was the bright, pretty colours used on the maps and I know this will also attract children's attention. Also, the maps are for all over the world so there is information there relevant to Caribbean classrooms.

Computers and the internet are not yet readily available in all schools but the option provided to print the maps is also very useful to teachers. Also besides links to other software provided by Owl and Mouse, on the right of the webpage are numerous links to other other maps available.

Overall, the website provides software that is easy and convenient to use, will be highly interesting to students and will provide fun while learning in the classroom for both teacher and student.

The software represented in this site has a drill and practice function. It provides puzzles and questions and after completion of these, the user recieves feedback on the work done. The feed back is not so detailed that the software can be confused with tutorial software but it is sufficient to guide the learner on a path to progressive learning. It is important to note that this software is not to introduce new concepts but rather to reinforce ones already taught. This does not mean that it does not present opportunites for learning, while playing with a map of the United States for example, I came to realise that Texas is the largest continental state. It is really up to the user to take from this software what they will.

This software is an example of directed instruction and follows the philosophy that learning takes place when knowledge is transmitted to people and they store it in their minds (Roblyer, M.D. , 2009, p.35). Some of the learning theories supported by this software are the information-proceesing and cognitive- behavioral theories. According to Roblyer (2009) information-pocessing instruction must provide the right kind of application and sufficient practice to ensure encoding, retention and recall and cognitinve-behavioral instruction must provide events to support the type of learning: students must demonstrate they have learned prerequisite skills. These two objectives are adequately supportd by the software and so will be especially applicable to those teachers who hold the directed instruction or objectivism as their own philosophy of teaching.

Other examples of drill and practice websites are:

www.schoolforge.net as discussed in the blog: www.alexiyya.blogspot.com and www.macroworks.com.au as discussed in the blog: www.shomarihector.blogspot.com