Visual Thesaurus 3

Get students excited about language!

The Visual Thesaurus is a tremendous resource for improving your students' reading, writing and communication skills. Students find the Visual Thesaurus captivating and playful, and are quickly engaged in learning new words and concepts. The Visual Thesaurus can be used by a wide range of students from elementary school to the college level and beyond.

Although you may have used a thesaurus before, either in book form or as a software application, you will find the Visual Thesaurus to be an entirely new experience. It gives you insight into the structure and intricacy of the English language. The Visual Thesaurus is a dictionary and thesaurus with an intuitive interface that encourages exploration and learning. Visual Thesaurus is a marvelous way to improve your vocabulary and your understanding of the English language.

To truly experience the power of Visual Thesaurus, you've got to see it work!
Click Here! to be amazed!

Find the right word and explore. The Visual Thesaurus has over 145,000 English words and 115,000 meanings. Search for the word you're looking for and then follow a trail of related concepts.

Improve your grasp of the English language. The Visual Thesaurus's intuitive interface helps you find words through their semantic relationship with other words and meanings. This focus results in a more precise understanding of the English language.

Hear words pronounced correctly. (Internet connection necessary) The Visual Thesaurus offers a choice between a British and an American English accent.

Understand the relationships between English words and meanings. In addition to synonyms, the Visual Thesaurus shows 16 kinds of semantic relationships. You can see that a nose is part of a face, that a horned poppy is a type of flower, and that epinephrine is a type of vasoconstrictor.

Expand their search to the Internet. From any word, your students can initiate an Internet search for either web pages or images.

Check spelling. The Visual Thesaurus suggests alternatives so your students can find the right word even when they're not sure of the spelling.

A Better Dictionary

Audio pronunciations. Visual Thesaurus 3 offers audio pronunciations in either a British or an American English accent. (You must have an Internet connection for this feature to work.)

Other languages. For online subscribers only, try searching using the new beta versions of Dutch, French, German, Italian, or Spanish.

American or British spellings. You choose whether to see American spelling, British spellings or both. (E.g. color or colour)

More words and meanings. Visual Thesaurus 3 now has over 145,000 words and 115,000 meanings.

More proper nouns. Visual Thesaurus 3 now includes more than 39,000 proper nouns, so you can now use the Visual Thesaurus to more fully explore geography, world leaders, and even trademarks.

More types of relationships. The Visual Thesaurus adds three new relationship types for even finer control of your navigation.

A Better Interface

Spell checking. When you type in a word, you are provided with a list of suggested spellings.

Expand your search to the Internet. Search the Internet for words or related images.

Back and forward buttons. Clearly labeled back and forward buttons make it easy to retrace your steps.

Better filtering of content. With four levels of content filtering and the ability to lock content filters, you determine what's appropriate for you, your family, or your students.

More control of the display. Use presets to quickly choose from among three display modes (including new Free Association Mode). Also fine-tune your display using sliders.

Two print formats. Print single page view of your word display, or print multiple pages with color-coded definitions.

Keyboard shortcuts. We now provide keyboard shortcuts for many commonly used actions.

Benefits for Students of all Ages
Institutional online site licenses offer a number of features that make it ideal for a school environment.
These include:

Ages 8-11: For younger students, the Visual Thesaurus makes clear what a thesaurus is and how powerful a tool it can be. Through the Visual Thesaurus's innovative interfaces, students can immediately see all the words and meanings that are related to their word. Students also learn how the words are related and can learn from sentence examples, pronunciations, and word usage. The Visual Thesaurus reinforces lessons on the parts of speech and on understanding words in context. Plus there is built-in spell checking, which is crucial for this age group!

Ages 12-14: For this age group, seeing the richness of the English language can spark explorations in vocabulary and word usage. It's not unusual to see students from this age group spending hours clicking through the Visual Thesaurus, finding words that they hadn't seen before, and listening to pronunciations. As they explore, they are learning new words and concepts, and discovering subtleties of the English language.

Ages 15-18: Older high school students can use the Visual Thesaurus as a vocabulary builder and will benefit from using more descriptive words in their creative writing, poetry writing and essay writing. The Visual Thesaurus also helps students prepare for the SAT. Science and medical terms from the Visual Thesaurus dictionary can be integrated into upper level science courses.

Ages 19 and up: College students and adult learners can use the Visual Thesaurus across a wide range of coursework: English, Literature, Creative Writing, Humanities, and Social Sciences. The medical and science definitions can also be employed in science coursework to learn about related biological and anatomical systems. Professionals in writing and creative fields like advertising praise the Visual Thesaurus for its ability to spark creativity and the brainstorming processes.

English as a Second Language: Students who are learning English as a second language love the Visual Thesaurus because it helps them to understand that many words can mean the same thing, and that there are subtle differences among similar concepts. The meanings list can help in comparing word meanings at a glance. Sentence examples help the student confirm that the right English word is chosen. Word pronunciations also help in the learning process for ESL students. Also, subscribers to the Visual Thesaurus automatically have access to our beta program for the International Edition.

English-speaking Students Learning Other Languages: For the online edition only, we offer the Visual Thesaurus in multiple languages through our International Edition (Beta). Students can try the Visual Thesaurus in French, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, or German. They can see how words are related in different languages to aid their memorization of words and understanding of word concepts.

Features for Administrators and Educators
Institutional online site licenses offer a number of features that make it ideal for a school environment.
These include:

Teachers' Guide and Student Workbook. We offer lesson plans that are designed to improve reading, writing, and vocabulary skills. These lessons can be used as the basis for integrating the Visual Thesaurus into your curriculum.

Flexible Authentication Options. We offer a choice of three authentication options: Referrer-based Authentication, IP-based Authentication, and Username/Password Authentication. You can use a combination of these to provide access to your students and teachers both at school and at home.

Administrator Control of Content Filtering. As an administrator, you decide which of the four levels of content filtering is appropriate for your students.

No Installation Necessary. If you choose the online subscription option, students can access the Visual Thesaurus immediately with no need for installation. In addition, you will automatically get new features, updates, and improvements.

Adding a Search Box on Your Web Page or Intranet. You can put a search box on your Intranet that allows your students to open the Visual Thesaurus. We provide you with the code.

Access to Subscriber-only Features. Subscribers get access to our subscriber-only features such as Word of the Day and our online magazine dedicated to language and the creative process.

System Requirements:

Mac

Mac OS X

128MB RAM

100MB Disk Space

Windows

Windows 98, ME, 2000, or XP

128MB RAM

100MB Disk Space