When I first saw Zane Education, I had a “Eureka!” moment. Videos with closed captioning and still pictures on over 380 topics!
My daughter is a very hands-on, right-brained learner. Oldest, on the other hand, is all about words: words he can see, words he can hear, words he can write, words he can spell. Zane Education just might be a perfect fit for both kids!
The topics range from K to adult, which means I’ve watched a few with my soon-to-be four year old, and I’ve watched a few all by myself for my own enrichment (“The History of Organized Crime” sounds especially appealing, doesn’t it? I mean, who hasn’t wanted to know more about Al Capone). And so many to choose from!
We watched a video on Bach, a video on anatomy, a video on animal classifications, and others. Also, I have a number of other videos lined up for next year: Ancient Egypt, Cradle of Civilization, Greeks and Romans, Greek Myths, History through Art, etc.
Because of the closed-captioning, the videos are especially good for beginner or struggling readers. In every subject, the child has the opportunity to both see and hear the text. And because the videos are composed of still pictures, there is minimal distraction. Though lesson plans and quizzes are provided, I found most of these to be way over my children’s skill level and thus did my own quizzing on information after the videos.
A “Study Center” is also provided with resources like a dictionary, encyclopedia, world fact book, and more. The text within the video would show up in blue to indicate that a word was included in one of these resources for further study.
One caveat is that evolution is prevalent through many of the science videos. There are also a few videos in the health topics for older children that would definitely require some adult supervision and/or censoring. It’s not a program where I would just let my child loose, but then I wouldn’t let them loose on the Discovery Channel either. I also felt that the site might have still been under construction to some extent. Icons within the video looked as though they ought to link to something but did not.
Overall, I had more good experiences than negative ones with this product, and it’s definitely a practical supplement to our program.
Monthly Subscriptions start as low as $8.99 per Subject, $12.99 per Age/Grade Level, or Full Access – All Subjects – All Videos for $17.99. Yearly Memberships are also available, starting at $98.89 per Single Subject through the Best Value –Full Access – Gold Membership for $197.89. There are options to subscribe by topic or by grade. With each subscription is a free homeschool user guide with more information on how to use the product to fit your needs.
Visit the website and try out some of the videos, or “like” them on Facebook and get to know others who use the program. Then, check out what other reviewers thought at the Schoolhouse Review Crew.
