The Kid's Encyclopedia adds fun to learning

The Kid's Encyclopedia adds fun to learning

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): We all know that the wheel is undoubtedly one
the greatest human inventions. But, who invented it?

It was only after I explored Random House Kid's Encyclopedia
that I became aware that the wheel was most likely an invention
of the ancient people who lived in Mesopotamia, and it was
probably invented there about 5,500 years ago.

Come to think of it, weren't these people -- who lived in the
plain between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers that is part of
present-day Iraq -- true geniuses and extremely resourceful
inventors?

A report in BBC News Online two weeks ago even said that, in
addition to inventing beer and bread, they also discovered the
method of creating artificial rocks that were needed to grow
certain crops, including grains, in the fertile plain where they
lived.

The Mesopotamian civilization aside, this two-CD encyclopedia
is also a step forward in combining fun and learning for children
of all ages. It is published by Knowledge Adventure (KA), one of
the leading publishers of multimedia education materials for
children.

However, it is definitely not a complete source of information
It doesn't have anything on the city of Jakarta, one of the
world's large and most notorious cities, but it has quite a
decent entry on Myanmar, though.

All the information in this encyclopedia is presented in a
very interesting style. It mostly has the right level of detail;
I think more detail might simply scare children away.

The encyclopedia comes in two discs because it is jammed
packed with multimedia files. KA calls one of the CDs the
"Reference" and the other the "Games" CD. When it is time to
insert the other CD, a message will pop up on the screen.
Unfortunately -- and this is the first glitch that I encountered
-- there is no Cancel button for our children to click in case
they change their mind or they're too lazy to swap the CDs.

The version that I used did not support multiple CD-ROM
drives, so even though I had a CD changer made by NEC, I still
had to swap the discs. As DVD-ROMs become more common, we won't
have this kind problem any more. A DVD-ROM can easily hold the
contents of a couple of standard CD-ROMs, so a DVD version of
this encyclopedia can come in a single disc and we will no longer
have to swap CDs in the middle of our browsing.

Every single entry in the encyclopedia, called the Fact-ory,
has an accompanying audio file. While the text scrolls down the
screen, the children will be able to hear it read for them. They
can choose to silence the voice, of course, and the narrators
won't protest.

However, KA has chosen people with really nice voices to be
the narrators. The quality of the audio recording is really
excellent. In fact, the audio feature of this encyclopedia can
also be used as an excellent practice or test material in a
listening comprehension class.

Another flaw that I've found in the encyclopedia is the
absence of a search tool. If I wanted to learn what a combustion
engine is, for example, the software has no shortcut that will
allow me just to type in the phrase and sit back. I would have to
hunt for the entry by clicking on the E button that you can see
in the picture of the screen, and then scroll down the list until
I arrived at the word engine.

And, while the explanation of the various types of engines is
quite interesting, there is no detailed explanation on how an
internal combustion actually works. But, then again, this
encyclopedia is not meant for an adult, it's for our children who
want to find out more about something their teacher might have
discussed in class.

Some of the games are interesting even for adults. My favorite
is Letter Rip, a Wheel of Fortune-like game by which we can test
our vocabulary, even though it doesn't feature Vanna White. In
this game we have to guess what the required word should be
without using any clues, not even knowing the category of the
word.

Another interesting game is the Zoomscape. This is interesting
particularly because it demonstrates how a Walk-through works on
a computer. Once inside the Zoomscape, our task is to hunt for
certain categories of objects or people. Then we are placed
inside a 3-dimensional maze.

If we move the mouse up, we walk forward in the 3-D space.
Move the mouse to the left, and we'll see the west wall of the
room or corridor we are in. Bump on a door, and it will open and
let us enter another room in the maze. We keep doing this until
we get to the room where the objects or the pictures of the
people hang. The 3-D rendering works smoothly on my test PC, a
233 MHz AMD K6-based Presario.

Other games are more for children, but they always have good
information values. For example, in the Match-o-rama players will
be asked to match the box containing the text "He discovered the
Theory of Relativity" with a box containing the picture of Albert
Einstein. After a while, the children will automatically
associate the person and the thing that made him famous.

I also found Brain Blazer a very useful part of the
encyclopedia. It's not a game, it just shows a video screen in
which the four hosts will appear in turns saying "Did you know
that..." Each time there will be an interesting piece of
information for our children to remember.

The screens are very colorful and rich. Children can choose
among the four young but smart hosts that will accompany them as
they explore the encyclopedia.

This encyclopedia, which was published in 1996 at US$29.95, is
no longer on the list of products offered on the Web site of
Knowledge Adventure, nor can it be found on Random House's site.
I'm afraid this means that it is no longer available from the
publisher. However, it might still be available in software
stores. If you happen to find a copy of it, you should grab it
for your children. It contains a lot of informative fun. And
that's the best way to expand one's knowledge, isn't it?