Tektoma

As part of the Homeschool Crew I was given a 3 month membership to TEKTOMA to review.
So what is TEKTOMA?
TEKTOMA is a website that offers video tutorials to teach game programming. These tutorials require a free version of gameMaker software from YoYo Games, that you download for free. Children ages 7-17, (and even us adults), can learn to create computer games using these very friendly and easy to understand video tutorials.
The tutorials will teach varying skill levels from beginner to those with more experience.
The complete game tutorials include:
Racing game
Arcade game
Memory game
Platform game
Fantasy game

My 12 year old son who loves playing computer games, was excited to try this out and make his own game. Once we downloaded the required free resources and watched the tutorial: "How to watch the tutorials" he was ready to go on his own. He decided to create an arcade game which is for all skill levels and 1 hour 37 minutes long. He spent more than this time, working through this as when he was overwhelmed he would walk away, then come back and "see" easily what he was supposed to do. The video tutorials are really very good and each step explained well. Though this child decided playing is much more fun than creating! I have another son wanting to try this now.
I was really impressed that these videos take you through this process of programming a game
and made it very easy to understand with the result being the reward, your own game!

Membership to TEKTOMA is: $14.95 per month or $140 per year

If you are interested to see what other CREW members had to say please click HERE

Web Design For Kids (...and Curious Grown-ups!)

Web Design For Kids (...and curious grown-ups) is an instructional DVD that will take you step by step through the process of building a web page. You will using Notepad, Internet Explorer and paint. These 3 basic programs are included within Microsoft Windows

Brian Richardson, a middle school computer literacy teacher, guides you through each lesson. He demonstrates each of his verbal instructions on his computer so you can see each of his instructions being carried out. A wonderful plus for us visual learners!

There are 7 lessons that will teach you the basics of HTML code. This is accomplished as you build 3 different web pages.

Some of the topics covered on this DVD are:
basic HTML code
adding pictures
designing backgrounds
making text move across the screen
The DVD also includes a bonus section on file management featuring information on saving and organizing files.

My daughter was very excited to get this one! She was supposed to spend some time working with this program over the course of a few days. When she got started, she was so excited and engrossed with the material that she spent all day working through the lessons and then promptly asked when the next level of the program would be available! The kids all loved learning about the moving text (and all of the topics). I was called over numerous times to see their creations. This is truly great for kids. (Also a great tool for some of us clueless adults who do not have even a faint idea of what HTML is!) :-)

Please click here to view a sample of the DVD

Web Design For Kids sells for $40.00. For a limited time it is on sale for only $19.99 plus shipping!

Another great thing about this product is that a portion of the sales of Web Design For Kids goes to the following charities:

The Smile Train
Ronald McDonald House
Children Miracle Network
Miami Project to Cure Paralysis
The American Foundation For The Blind

See what other TOS Homeschool Crew members are saying about Web Design For Kids here