Extra Credit: Goodies for the Teacher and Student

Credit: NFAA

YoungARTS

www.nfaa.org [1]; 1-800/970-ARTS

The National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts seeks out budding artists, offering scholarships and opportunities -- internships, exhibitions, and workshops -- for talented teens to flex their creative muscles. YoungARTS, the NFAA's national magazine, launched in September, interviews teachers, young artists, and awardees and is published three times a year. In January, the Miami-based nonprofit holds its annual NFAA Arts Week, during which outstanding high school seniors attend an all-expenses-paid extravaganza and mingle with distinguished artists, musicians, and dancers, such as the upcoming event's honorees: singer/actress Vanessa Williams and San Francisco Symphony conductor Michael Tilson Thomas.

Credit: Bill Duke

JA Titan

titan.ja.org [2]; 1-800/THE-NEW-JA

Get ready for a dose of raw capitalism. In this free business simulation for high school students, the user is CEO of a manufacturing company and sets the product price, monitors production levels, and oversees marketing issues. The game is set in 2030, and the playing screen looks like the dashboard of a spaceship.

Through video instant messaging with key associates, such as your head of marketing, the game deals with concepts such as capital investment and supply and demand. The interactive display trains a young eye in reading bar and line graphs as well as spreadsheets. Students can name their company and personalize the game, changing economic factors and the number of players. A teacher version with lesson plans is also available (through ja.org [3]).

Credit: Bill Duke

Instructables

www.instructables.com [4]

Want to wow the world with the scooter you made out of clay? Eager to show how you converted dusty electronic parts in your garage into a robot? This free "step-by-step collaboration system" lets your natural creative impulses roam free; you record and share projects with photos, text, and "ingredient lists." You can learn to make a marshmallow gun and a "Pimped-Out Megaphone Helmet," or test someone's home remedy for poison ivy or read a how-to guide to ward off muggers with your cell phone. Users browse other makers' profiles, which list their projects, images, and interests, in a virtual social-networking site -- in the spirit of Friendster and Yelp -- specifically for the DIY enthusiast.

Credit: Bill Duke

Kidspiration 2.1

Single user, $59; five-pack, $289; ten-pack, $489 www.knowplay.com [5]; 1-888/994-9995

With an inviting interface resembling a Photoshop for kids, this K-5 graphic organizer lets emerging artists and presentation givers hone all kinds of visual skills. Kids can create Venn diagrams, combine pictures and text with cool features on the toolbar, bring their ideas to life with a library of 1,200 symbols, and personalize images with the Symbol Maker. They can even enhance the visual package with spoken-word recordings and tape their own narration. The software, including seventy-five ready-touse activity templates, gives early readers a blank canvas to discover how images, color, and design can combine to create big ideas.

Credit: Harvard University Press

Imagination and Play in the Electronic Age

By Dorothy G. Singer and Jerome L. Singer; $30; Harvard University Press (224 pages)www.hup.harvard.edu [6]

The typical twenty-first-century child is hotwired for the television, the video game system attached to it, and the computer on the other side of the room. Electronics affect a child's real-life actions and imaginations, and the minds of adults as well. The authors explore these effects -- such as how violent images may stimulate a child's aggression -- though they also consider the cognitive potential of multimedia on us. In fact, the Singers contend that screen time, along with broadening your children's creative abilities, may actually prepare them for school. Perhaps keeping the tube on longer may have some benefits.