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For Immediate Release
December 17, 2003
ScienceMatrix honoured among world’s
top
five
e-science programs It’s not every day
that educational software produced in a converted barn in rural
Ontario is named one of the world’s five best e-science
multimedia products by an international jury from 36 countries.
Chosen
from more than 800 entries representing 136 countries, Cell Structure
and Function, the first module in Digital Frog
International’s ScienceMatrix series of science learning
tools, was named one of the world’s forty best multimedia
products by the World Summit Award Grand Jury.
The awards, an
initiative by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization
(UNIDO) and several European nations, focus on quality
content and innovative internet applications. Winners were showcased
as part of the Geneva World Summit on the Information Society,
December 9-12, 2003.
Digital Frog International products—which include The Digital
Frog 2 dissection and anatomy software and The Digital Field
Trip series—have won multiple awards, including a prestigious
CODIE award, the software industry’s highest honour. The
World Summit Award is among the most highly acclaimed international
honors and is the first award given to ScienceMatrix, which is
currently available as a free pre-release.
ScienceMatrix marks
several new directions for Digital Frog International. It is
the first product to be primarily distributed over the
internet, in a modular, curriculum-based model, allowing teachers
and parents to mix-and-match relevant material.
It also embraces
the philosophy of Universal Design for Learning, addressing the
needs of all students, regardless of ability or
impairment. ScienceMatrix incorporates self-voicing text-to-speech,
audible descriptions for images, and one-stroke keyboard access.
The
jury lauded the program for its multiple strengths—with
one jury member noting that the program could have easily won
in any of three categories: eEducation, eScience or eInclusion.
“Often students are turned off a career in the sciences
because they find the materials in school difficult to understand
or boring. ScienceMatrix presents
difficult to understand concepts in a captivating and engaging way,” the
jury evaluation stated. “Interactivity sets this project apart. The outstanding
visual elements easily draw the user into active participation in all processes
and bring out inquisitiveness in the search for the unknown.”
The pre-release
version of ScienceMatrix: Cell Structure and Function is available to try
as a free download until March 31, 2004 at www.sciencematrix.com.
For more information, contact:
Celia Clark (celia@digitalfrog.com)
Tel: +1 (519) 766-1097 or 1-800-621-3764 (FROG)
Links:
Digital Frog International corporate site
World Summit Awards site
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