Each of these was developed and put into users' hands quickly, with subsequent iterations using feedback from the prototypes. Note the huge amount of text here, compared to graphics. We quickly discovered that kids don't want to read this much text off of a computer screen. More graphics in this one. Note the much smaller logo at the top of the page.
Screen space is at a premium in the schools.
It's easy to lose sight of that when working from the university. Our field observations of the prototypes told us this might work, and when we put this prototype in place, we found that students did make some use of it. One drawback to this prototype was that it tried to do too much teaching. This seemed especially true of the help section. If you visit this site, you'll see that we have made it more graphically oriented than some of the earlier generations.