Jordan Education Media Completed Projects

Recent Projects

	In Becoming Jane, the new release from Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, British novelist Jane Austen is a young girl who dreams of becoming a writer. In the early 1800's, successful writers were almost exclusively men. Successful women writers were rare. Through hard work Jane succeeds, achieving her goal "to live by my pen." The teaching lesson of this program is empowerment. Educators seek ways to encourage students to "reach for the stars," to believe in themselves and in their ability to achieve their goals. In high school language arts, one way to understand empowerment is by learning how authors attain success. This is the teachable message of Becoming Jane.


	Many times, the elements of video games can form the cornerstone of contemporary educational programs to help educators teach and students learn. In this case, The Sims 2 Castaway from Electronic Arts is a tool to help high school teachers improve their students' communication skills through composition and creative writing exercises. The program helps students make connections between the Sims characters and events and apply this learning to their own lives through a variety of writing and pre-writing activities.


	In My Sims, the new simulation game from Electronic Arts, players shape their own characters, visit a new world, and create elements to furnish that world. At each step of the way, players demonstrate their creativity through exercises designed to help them achieve the goals set before them. From an educational perspective, teachers know that creativity contributes to learning and that important life lessons are often creative, challenging, and fun. The classroom activities in the My Sims program help students to expand their innate creativity. They offer lessons in cooperation, collaboration, tolerance, and appreciation, and can also be used to build a strong, supportive home-school con-nection.


	The new game from Electronic Arts, SimCity Societies allows players to construct not only a variety of cities, but their cultures, societal behaviors, and environments as well. Educational elements central to social studies and the sciences are woven throughout the fabric of the game. Through the educational classroom DVD and print activities provided, teachers will help their students measure the carbon footprints of several nations, discover where human activities produce greenhouse gases, and learn what real, tangible steps they can take to "go green."


	With fire breathing dragons, magic, and an array of non-human characters to add color, Eragon is an exciting tale that's helping English/Language Arts educators in elementary schools to teach their students lessons about fantasy adventure storytelling as a first step in learning creative writing. Eragon, from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, provides teachers and students with a colorful, contemporary way to learn.


	Suppose the balance between good and evil in classic fairy tales was altered, so that not every story ended "happily ever after." That's the premise behind the highly entertaining Happily N'ever After from Lionsgate Home Entertainment. This skewed storyline and its comedic components provide teachers with a fun, engaging way for early grades students to learn how to tap into their own creativity and imagination to create their own fairy tales. The end result is an inspiring way to help young authors to bring their fun stories to life in the classroom.