Good TV show, mediocre software.
Thanks to The Computer Museum's years of creating and testing interactive learning exhibits, The Computer Museum Guide has a unique perspective - and exceptionally high expectations - about children's software. We favor software that uses technology to let kids learn by doing ... that encourages kids to create ... to experiment ... to make choices ... to solve problems (or better still, to create problems to solve!) ... that creates a compelling environment for exploration. And for fun.
We're continually surprised at how many software publishers miss the mark. Too many simply co-opt content from movies, TV or books, add some buttons and menus, and call it interactive learning. In reality, the experience they've created is often not much more challenging than surfing TV channels with the remote control. There's lots of pointing and clicking, but not much thinking going on.
The CD-ROM programs produced by the Discovery Channel are a case in point. Ocean Planet Smithsonian, Nile: Passage to Egypt, Sharks! and In the Company of Whales all make use of existing video footage from some of Discovery's excellent cable TV documentaries. And then they essentially "deconstruct" the shows, chopping the original programs into their component parts. What started out as a cohesive narrative turns into nuggets of information, sound bytes and video clips that kids can click in any order.
Individually, some of these snippets are commendable. The video selections in Ocean Planet's "undersea theatre" are interesting. A panel of ocean experts provides informative answers to questions. The "oceanic library" offers reasonably detailed text.
Most snippets, however, yield up very little information despite the tedious amount of pointing and clicking it takes to get there. Here's the result of clicking into the "Ocean Food Web" topic: "Isn't it amazing that something as big as this whale eats something as small as these plankton?" Click on "A Sun for All Seasons" and you hear this: "You may not always need sunglasses but the sun always affects the weather in our atmosphere."
When kids click a topic titled "Land Down Under," they see a few seconds of video and hear this voice-over: "Imagine draining the water from the oceans. What would you see? The same thing you'd see on land: canyons, mountains, deserts." The video ends, the sound of the waves fades, the narrator falls silent. And kids are faced with a choice. Should they click back and choose another topic in the "Land Under Water" section? Should they click the "Related Topics" button? Should they click the "Article" button? The "History" button? If they opt for a related topic, should it be the next one on the list - Plate Tectonics - or a different one?
Yes, the kids have total control. But what they don't have is a context for understanding the oceans of information they click. There's no way for kids to assess the value of what they see and hear. There's no way to know whether one choice is better than another or which choice they should make first ... or second ... or third. There's no way for kids to know the relative importance of the different topics. There's no thoughtful agenda to provoke challenging questions and rigorous answers.
Programs like these are little more than random collections of facts. And the kids' "interactive" involvement is nothing more than deciding where to point and click. Stick to the TV shows.
