Interactive World is a brand new company offering computer classes — with a twist.

"We don’t just teach you how to use the computer, we use the computer to help students learn," said Celia Perdomo, president and CEO.

Interactive World, located at 14338 SW 88 Ave., across from King’s Bay Shopping Plaza, offers computer classes for children and adults, as well as one-on-one educational tutoring. Class size is kept to three to five students to allow for personalized instruction, and the technology is presented in a fun, friendly manner.

The staff also is completely bilingual and offers instruction — and software — in both English and Spanish.

"We use a lot of the software the kids are using in school, but we can help them by giving them more individual attention," said Perdomo, a former professional computer programmer and educational software specialist.

"Most of this software can be purchased by parents at any educational store, but after the children play with it a while at home, they tend to lose interest," Perdomo explained. "We can help the parents by teaching them how to use the parent’s guides that come with the software, and we can help the children by keeping them motivated and showing them how to have fun while they are learning."

Interactive World has five computer labs, a digital camera and a video camera. They accept children as young as 4 years old, and will soon start a "Mother and Child" program for moms with kids ages 3 and under. They also teach classes for kids from kindergarten through high school, with special computer training classes for teens getting ready for college.

For adults, Interactive World teaches computer literacy for home users and business-related software and applications for professionals.

"In most computer stores, the classes are intensive, one-day sessions, where everything you need to know is crammed into six or eight hours, and you are expected to remember everything all at once," Perdomo said. "Our format is more realistic, offering classes in one-hour sessions over a period of several weeks. But our chief characteristic is adaptability — we’ll design a program to fit your busy schedule."

And there is no age limit. Perdomo said she recently enrolled a 75-year-old whose son bought her a new computer, "and she wants to learn everything."

Some of the projects for younger kids include creating an electronic/digital portfolio of all their school projects so that they will have a show-and-tell of a lifetime. One group even learned how to produce their own movie, by adapting a classic fairytale to modern tastes. The Three Little Pigs became The Three Lizards from Space, and the students created the puppets, the sets, staged the action, wrote the script, filmed the scenes, edited the film, and produced a movie.

"We like to give our students specific projects to work on, because we find that when they’re excited, they learn faster," Perdomo added. "We have a lot of fun, and along the way we help them learn math and science and reading, as well as the technology."

Interactive World also offers personalized tutoring by Paul R. Hoopes, PhD, who has more than 40 years of educational experience.