Cognitive Constructivism:
Information Banks: Electronic EncyclopediaCognitive Constructivism:
Information Banks: Electronic Encyclopedia* Content adapted from Maddux, C. D., Johnson, D. L., & Willis, J. W. (1997). Educational computing: Learning with tomorrow's technologies. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
There is one genre of new media (a term that is replacing the older term "multimedia") that is already in many schools today, electronic encyclopedias. Several companies, including Grolier, Compton's, and Microsoft, offer new media encyclopedias. They are all distributed on CD-ROM, and all have a user interface that permits students to search for information and then either save relevant data to a disk or print a hard copy.
Electronic encyclopedias can be used in much the same way as printed encyclopedias, with the added benefits of electronic support for organizing, copying, and printing material from them. Electronic encyclopedias have the added advantage of offering more than text and illustrations. Most also have movies, sound, and audio. When you study John F. Kennedy, for example, you can hear him say "Ich bin ein Berliner" instead of just reading about his speech in Berlin. Many teachers and librarians are enthusiastic about the electronic encyclopedia. Melnick (1991), for example, describes some of the ways electronic encyclopedias can be used in schools.
The examples below illustrate some of the types of electronic encyclopedia available today. The first, Microsoft Encarta, is a "general" encyclopedia. It is much like the printed World Book or Encyclopedia Brittanica which cover a wide range of topics. The other encyclopedias discussed below are specialized publications. They deal with one particular topic. Expect to see many more specialized electronic encyclopedias as well as improved general ones in the near future.
ExamplesThe first, Microsoft Encarta, is a "general" encyclopedia. It is much like the printed World Book or Encyclopedia Brittanica which cover a wide range of topics. The next screen is the title screen of Encarta.
The interface of Microsoft's Encarta CD-ROM encyclopedia is very powerful and usable. Click on the "find" button on top menu, type in the word "Houston", for example, and the related items are displayed in alphabetical order. Encarta has excellent support materials covering thousands of topics.
A click on the item "Houston, Sam" brings up the information regarding the American statesman and military commander Sam Houston with high quality picture and detailed caption. Users simply click on the scroll bar up and down to browse through the text. Or they may highlight words, sentences, graphics, or even paragraphs, copy to the clipboards, and paste to their favorite word processors to add references to their research papers.
Some words are highlighted, indicating they are linked to further information. For example, on the next screen , the words "Texas" and "Gulf of Mexico" are highlighted in red. Further information on Texas and Gulf of Mexico are there for the users to explore.
Click on the term "Gulf of Mexico" and the next screen containing texts and pictures related with the Gulf of Mexico pops up.
Encarta contains many useful multimedia clips (e.g., video, sound and music, speeches) and a very functional atlas.
Encarta also has a number of ways of searching for broad topics and narrowing down the scope as needed. For example, when I typed in the time frame from 1929 and 1936 to indicate that I am only interested in information within this specific time range, only information fulfilling this requirement were displayed in the item box on next screen.
URL: http://www.microsoft.com/education/curric/encarta96/intro.htm
The Encyclopedia of Life is an electronic encyclopedia of animals and plants. It contains over 3700 entries, 600+ pictures, and more than 100 QuickTime movies.
The interface of the Encyclopedia of Life is easy to use. The information on each topic is covered by cascading windows.
For example, if you search for the word "lion" you get a text explanation, pictures, sounds clips, and movies all related with "lion" as shown on the following screen capture.
The control panel displayed on each screen allows learners to retrace steps, explore details, navigate to related topics, or pursue a particular question. The following screen capture offers a closer look at the built-in navigation tools.
To try out this demonstration program you must click on eofl.exe in the programs/life/ subdirectory on ET-IT CD-ROM through File Manager or Windows Explorer.
Click here to know about download and installation.
This searchable database of plants on the World Wide Web contains information on almost 3,000 species. The species were selected because they are important in North American horticultural practice. The database covers herbs, bulbs, house plants, wildflowers, and roses.
There are two ways to search this database as shown on the following screen capture. Searching by name uses full-text searching technology to find a list of up to 60 plants which are close to the one you are looking for. Searching by attribute allows a search through the database for plants based on characteristics you decide are important to you.
For example, after entering "azalea" in the text box of Search by Name, the following web page tells me: "Your search for azalea in Searchable Plant Encyclopedia found 71 matching documents." The first link displays a high-quality picture of a azalea.
The high-quality picture of azalea is followed by a detailed description of the plant.
URL: http://www.pathfinder.com/@@Dv1NCQUALtT0Zxib/vg/TimeLife/CG/vg-search.html
Additional Information
Concise web-based reference source on multimedia productions developed by San Diego State University Department of Educational Technology. This site includes information on instructional design, knowledge representation, videos educational games and simulations
URL: http://edweb.sdsu.edu/EET/EET.html
This web page compares several electronic encyclopedias available in the market today, including Encarta by Microsoft, Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, and Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia.
URL: http://www.wga.org/journal/1995/0295/encyclopedia.htm
The author of this web page reminds readers that as they work with the electronic versions of various reference works, they have to remember that they need not be used exactly the same ways as the printed versions. In fact some of us may need to unlearn some of the tried-and-true rules of thumb for finding information in books, in order to take full advantage of the new indexing and navigation tools available in the electronic editions. The author also provides some "new" rules of thumb for using an electronic encyclopedia.
URL: http://www.ultra.net/~jlengel/kch/encyc.html
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