Whenever we and our kids are about to step into unknown edutainment territory it helps to have a trusted friend and adviser out there ahead of us. That's exactly how we'd describe Children's Software Revue , edited by educators who are also parents of young children. We recently interviewed CSR's founder and editor Warren Buckleitner to get a feel for their review process. In Children's Software Revue, you'll see everything - the good, the bad, and the ugly. The Web site has a database of more than 4,700 software reviews, and it's constantly growing.
Families come in and browse our new-software shelf.
They'll check out a product and take it for two weeks. Letting a software product find its natural market or user tells CSR a lot, Warren explained. If a kid knows action games very well, he's going to be able to tell right away if the new one will measure up. The amount of time he spends with it also tells CSR what the product's longevity is going to be like - not something they'd find out in a controlled testing environment. Besides the local testers, CSR taps the expertise of 130 families nationwide.