{Crew Review} Zane Education

Children learn in various ways. In fact, finding your child's learning style is an important key to them learning effectively - no matter where they are educated.  Zane Education understands that many children are visual learners. They have created an online streaming library of videos geared to children in grades K-12. Zane offers over 1500 videos on 400 topics.

The one thing that makes Zane stand out from the rest, is that every single video is also subtitled allowing all children to use them effectively - hearing or not. Subtitles have also been shown to help reading and literacy skills improve. This is "The Missing Piece" that Zane offers.

  

Zane includes more than just videos, however. Each video or series of videos also include interactive quizzes. Once the course of study is complete, the student can test their knowledge in a quiz about the material. I appreciated that the quiz area would list the videos that should be viewed prior to taking the quiz. Some could be completed after only watching one video, but some were part of a series.  The Study Centre includes online reference materials for the student to use to delve further into their study of the topic. Included  in this area are a World Fact Book, Dictionary, Thesaurus, Encyclopedia, Video Glossary, and a copy of the Video Catalog and Downloads. Lesson Plan guides are also included as part of membership.

Zane offers a number of different subscriptions. You can join Zane for free but you will only be able to check out demo versions of the videos. However, you can access all the quizzes and and the non-subtitled math videos. Schoolhouse Crew Members were given a Gold Membership for a year. Gold membership allows full access to the entire site and all that it has to offer. A month of Gold Membership is $17.99 and a full year is $197.98. A Silver Membership allows full access for a single grade level. The cost for that is $12.99 for a month or $142.89 for a full year. The next level is a Bronze Membership which allows for access to all videos in a single subject. This costs $8.99 per month or $98.89 for a year. Lastly you can also purchase a "Topic Taster" Membership. This allows for access to videos in a single topic. The cost is $5 for 30 days of access. At the bottom of their cost page, you can see a handy chart that compares all the various options for membership and what is included in each.

The subjects included are:

• Art
• Biology
• Geography
• Health
• History
• Library Skills
• Literature
• Mathematics (Please note that Zane does not own these videos and has an agreement with another company to use theirs. These videos are not subtitled.)
• Music
• Religious Studies
• Science
• Social Sciences

I found Zane to be a great supplement to what we were already learning. Two years ago the three boys and I began piano lessons. In browsing the music offerings, we were able to watch videos about theory that were very well done. We also enjoyed geography videos. I used the videos we watch with all my boys together, although, it would be easy enough to assign them to be watched on their own, take the quizzes, and then to print out the results. This means we also did the quizzes together.

Please note: There is evolutionary content in many of the videos. If this is an issue for your home, you may wish to preview videos before sharing them with your children.

Overall I thought this was a very unique and great supplemental resource. Be sure to head over to the Schoolhouse Crew Review blog to see what other members had to say about this service.

Disclaimer: I was not paid for this review.  All opinions shared are my own. Schoolhouse Review Crewmembers  are given the product free of charge in exchange for our unbiased opinion of the product.