Best practice: software to tutor problem-solving

My biggest discovery so far this year has been the value of computer-aided instruction. I used to think that most computerized learning programs were crap. Actually, I think most of them probably still are. One that's amazingly good is Carnegie Learning's Cognitive Tutor Algebra I curriculum. Key features of the Cognitive Tutor software:

• The entire curriculum is mostly problem-based, rather than drill-based. It scaffolds learning precisely in most students and teachers biggest blind spot: modeling real-life situations with algebra, and solving problems out of those models. In other words: a functions approach, presented in the context of situations that are meaningful in the students' world.
• It's not "fuzzy math". It's problem-based like lots of reform curricula, but it's structured toward the essential goals: modeling linear situations with equations, tables and graphs; solving equations; graphing lines; solving systems, etc.
• Students receive immediate feedback to students on what they got right and wrong. The software doesn't just check students' final answers, it checks their whole work process. And anywhere in the process of solving a problem, it can provide hints (they're actually well-written and useful to students) about how to proceed if they're stuck.
• Students can't just SIT THERE and pretend to be paying attention to your class. They have to work. If they don't type something on the keyboard, nothing appears on the screen. There's no way to just "blend in" with the rest of the class anymore. Many students say that part of my class where they work the hardest is on the computer.
• The software is designed to be used 2 days/week. The other 3 days/week, you're in your regular classroom working out of the textbook (which is designed to go hand-in-hand with the software...I don't think the software would work well if you weren't also using the textbook). I think it's essential that learning software not take over your class. Personally, I had to rewrite a lot of the material in Carnegie Learning's book, and hopefully I'll be able to post my stuff up here.
• Students absolutely love to work on the software. The only limitation on how long they'll work on it is what time I decide to go home. It's literally common for students to stay after last-hour class for an extra 1.5 hours to work on it. And it's not a game! It's just solving word problems and equations, graphing lines, etc. But they can see their progress filling in on a bar graph that shows their skill levels in each of a bunch of different categories, and they get instant feedback, which they ABSOLUTELY LOVE.

To look at the software (and the whole curriculum), go to http://www.carnegielearning.com/products_algebraI.cfm and click on the screenshots for the software and text to see a quick preview.

So, if you've never heard of it and you teach Algebra I, email Carnegie Learning and ask them to send you a demo copy of their Algebra I software. The demo will convince you. Maybe next time I'll discuss Aleks or something (which I don't really like).