by Tina MacCauley-Gray
I always got a big kick out of that tea commercial that featured the classic line, "Only in Canada, you say? Pity." Kudos for our country to be the only one to carry this great tea. Unfortunately, people sometimes think that's all we've got. We're inundated with so much American commercialism, it's hard to know what's Canadian anymore.
As an educator, I find this a bit disconcerting, so it was with great anticipation I agreed to review The 1998 Canadian & World Encyclopedia.
Following are the six main parts of The 1998 Canadian & World Encyclopedia: Encyclopedia, Dictionary, Media, Timeline, Quiz and the Year in Review. It's easiest to examine each section individually.
I must admit, I spent a great deal of my time surfing through the Encyclopedia, just checking out a wide variety of 'stuff'.
One feature I would rank quite highly is the Internet link. This allows you to hook-up to the Internet and download related articles on your subject from the 1998 Canadian & World Encyclopedia Web site. Its Internet links are supposed to be updated monthly with the inherent logic being that your CD-ROM will never be out of date. In this world of computer technology upgrading every minute (well, almost) it's nice that someone is trying to give their software a longer useful life.
A second feature I found useful in the Encyclopedia section, is the Smartsearch capability. It does have the traditional Boolean search options, as well as Subject search and an Integrated search option. Smartsearch, though, is unique in two ways. First, it allows you to phrase your request in 'common language' (as it says on the box cover) and, second, the results you get are exactly identified with your subject by the main words.
The Encyclopedia has a wide range of Canadian subject material. This is most helpful to students doing projects in school as they can find abundant sources for research on our national identity. The links to the Internet and the Columbia Encyclopedia (5th edition), make this an even more valuable research tool as they allow you to easily expand the search to encompass a wide range of sources. But the maple leaf symbol always identifies the information which is Canadian and makes it easily recognizable. A further bonus is the highlighting of articles from the dean of Canadian news magazines, Macleans.
The best part of having a dictionary with this program is that it increases the likelihood of students actually using it! With this feature, they can access the correct spelling and word definition quickly.
The dictionary also has a thesaurus to broaden their vocabulary. The two features can be combined so you can look up the word happy and find five synonyms for it, plus the definitions of each synonym. Not to say this replaces dictionary skills which are invaluable but it does allow children to actually learn the meaning of the word instead of just how to spell it correctly.
Here is where you find one feature that truly makes this a Canadian CD-ROM: It has French/English and English/French
dictionaries -- a particularly useful addition.
The graphics and sound effects on the CD are uniformly high in quality. In the Encyclopedia, the voices of people, animal sounds and musical selections are quite clear. The pictures and videos are also high resolution and finely detailed.
There are a number of multimedia selections to choose from including maps, tables, pictures, videos, sound and a 'way cool' (as the kids say) feature called 'VR'. This lets you take a 3D tour of a few places including the Canadian Museum of Civilization and downtown Toronto. You can move around, zoom in for closer looks at objects or zoom out for a panoramic shoot. Personally, however, this made me a little dizzy as I could only go around in circles and couldn't find a way to move backward and forward in the pictures.
This is the required game to make kids want to check out this CD. You answer questions on a wide variety of Canadian topics and with each correct answer, a piece of a puzzle is revealed. The puzzle is jumbled up and, when you have all the pieces, you must then unscramble it.
The questions are a bit hard for most elementary/junior age students (they will quickly become discouraged) but, for older kids or adults, it's like playing Canadian Jeopardy (complete with applause for each correct answer)!
One unique feature found here, 'Canadian Firsts', lets you find such information as the founding date of the first Canadian hospital. 'This Day' lets you pick a particular date and then lists corresponding historical events.
This is the feature I mentioned earlier in reference to Macleans magazine. News briefs from January, 1995, to May, 1997, can be viewed in chronological order with the option for related links in the Encyclopedia. A nice tie-in to current Canadian events.
For all you people who, like me, are not tremendously 'computer literate' and need help occasionally, this is an important note. Well, when I called the help line, I only got an answering machine. Their hours of operation are listed as 7:00 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. (EST), but nobody was there to answer my call at 5:10 p.m. The polite voice told me to check out their Web site, send an e-mail message or leave a voice message. Call me picky, but I wanted to talk to a real person right away.
Also, as I was surfing through the 'sound' section of the Encyclopedia, thinking how impressive it was (the teacher thing, again) that students could view pictures of talented Canadians and listen to their music or words -- I hit a snag. Clicking on a contemporary Canadian playwright, I heard him recite a passage from his play that contained one sexual vulgarity, one reference to drugs and several other questionable references. Please don't misunderstand me. Children do need to be educated about these matters but I'm concerned about the ones who hear these things (taken out of context) and cannot place them in their proper frame of reference. Parents and educators definitely need to be aware of what children are listening to. I could not use this CD in my classroom because of this sound bite.
As an added bonus with this CD, you receive a second CD-ROM titled Lives & Times of the Prime Ministers. It includes video footage, historical notes, political cartoons, etc. on all the Canadian leaders to date. Now, this is something worthwhile for any Canadian.
This is a terrific CD that promotes Canada as a unique, interesting country with a wealth of history. It has a musical montage of 'O Canada' that is quite breathtaking. With proper parental supervision, it could be a useful tool for research and educational support.
Only in Canada, you say? Yippee!
The 1998 Canadian & World Encyclopedia --
Contact:
McClelland & Stewart
481 University Ave.,
Toronto, Ontario / M5^ 2E9
Windows:
 | Multimedia PC -- 486/DX or better (Pentium class machine preferred) |
| 8 MB of RAM (16 MB recommended) |
| Windows 3.1, 95, NT 3.51 or better |
| 256 VGA colour display or better |
| Sound Blaster 16 or compatible or better |
| 2x CD-ROM drive or better (8x or better preferred) |
Macintosh:
| Multimedia 68040 Mac (Supports all video and graphics, 'but some sounds not available'.)
Multimedia Power Mac preferred ('Accelerated for Power Mac') |
| System 7.x |
| 8MB of RAM (16 MB recommended) |
| 256-colour / 14 in. display |
| 2x CD-ROM drive or better (8x or better preferred) |
Tina MacCauley-Gray is an Ottawa area elementary school teacher and freelance writer.