Interactive Webpages

I'll admit that I've never been a huge fan of interactive sites, probably because that's not why I use the Internet. For me, the Internet is largely a resource-gathering tool, and I mainly use it to find information to read. I think my lack of interest in on-line interactives/games stems from not being allowed to play computer/video games as a child (apparently the one time I was allowed to play "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" I played for six hours straight, and they were all largely off-limits after that). I wonder, as well, how on-line interactives fit into the different learning styles that are out there. I want to be able to read about something, and then experience it, but ACTUALLY experience it, not just on a computer screen.

Regardless, here's what I came across:

Firstly, very few of the sites I visited told me straight off what programs my computer would need in order to run these interactives. I have an aversion to loading my new computer up with lots of add-ons, and (even though I don't really even know what my computer has to begin with), it's nice to be told the requirements.

Also, I found that a lot of the games were slightly mis-leading as to what would happen/what I would learn (or perhaps my expectations were off, but if mine were I can only assume others were as well). It's like a game the Boston Children's Museum website used to have that led you to a quiz involving topics like "Fetal Alcohol Syndrome" (the game's now gone, only to be replaced by a cartoon drawing of a kid in construction worker's clothes, and you click on an item and a box pops open to tell you what it is -boring). For example:

The Natural History Museum in London's "Nitfit"
In this game you're a louse who has to navigate your way around a person's head and answer questions to win. I thought I would get to behave like a louse: eating dandruff, laying eggs, causing kindergarten mothers to panic, but no, no louse-y behaviour. Well, then, maybe I'll get to answer questions about lice? Nope, wrong again. Instead I answered questions on topics like:
-the shape of person's hair who's of African descent
-what religion Rastafarian-ism has it roots in (roots, ha ha, roots)
-why Buddhists might chose to shave their heads

I also learned that the word shampoo comes from the Hindi word chhmpo, which means to massage, and am now just waiting for that one to show up on Jeopardy!

The game had text, animation that I got to control, and lots of loud annoying sounds that they kept throwing in, because what noise does a louse make, anyway? No idea what plug-ins were necessary.

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/kids-only/fun-games/nitfit/index.html

The Natural History Museum in London's "What Dinosaur Are You?"

I'm a Cryolophosaurus! As a person I like to eat chicken nuggets, most resemble Cinderella out of a list of fair tale choices, and would go to a party if my friends were there, and that makes me a medium-sized, social carnivorous creature. Cryolophosaurus was the first carnivorous dinosaur fossil found in Antarctica (which is pretty cool, I never even knew that there had been dinosaurs there), and it lived there when the continent was closer to the equator and had a lot of plants and animals.

No real animations to speak of, just options that I could chose that would move me from link to link, but text and images.

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/kids-only/fun-games/what-dinosaur-are-you/index.html

I ended my visit to the Natural History Museum's website by playing "Hair Detectives"

This game was laid out like a comic strip mystery. I had to determine which member of the Sassy Snips stole from the Crucial Cuts dressing room right before the big battle of the bands, and only had some strands of hair as evidence. The game involved text, music and animation, and, surprising, scientific images of hair provided by L'Oreal Industries. This game definitely involved some more science than some of the other ones (I got to "use" an electron-scanning microscope), but I didn't feel that I was learning that much about hair (heck, I learned more when I was a louse).


Some confusion over the term "accessibility:"

On the Museum of Natural History website, their link to information on accessibility listed the following:

"We are committed to implementing all necessary reasonable adjustments to make our new website accessible. We aim to be fully DDA compliant (with level AA).
After consulting with our audiences, usability experts Bunnyfoot Universality and colleagues from across the Museum, we have developed, with design company Graphico New Media, a restructured site that will meet the requirements of our many diverse visitors.

Access keys are keyboard shortcuts, and help users who have difficulty using pointing devices such as a mouse.
This website uses the UK Government access key standards.Below is a description of the access keys that are used on this site:
1 Home page.
2 What's new.
3 Site map.
4 Search.
6 Help.
8 Terms of use.
9 Feedback.
0 Access key details.Depending upon your browser, use the shortcuts as follows:
Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 - hold down alt and the letter/number at the same time.
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 and above- hold down alt and the letter/number at the same time, then press the enter key.
Mozilla 1.6 and above, Netscape 6 and above - hold down alt and the letter/number at the same time." http://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/website-help/accessibility/access-keys/website-access-keys.html

I liked how they wanted to make their interactives more accessible to people who may not be able to use a keyboard for long periods of time. However, the Museum of London had a different use of the term. Along with:

"We are making every effort to make the Museum Of London Group websites accessible and easy to use for everyone, no matter what browser you choose to use, and whether or not you have any disabilities.
Please use the links below to help you with using the Museum of London Group websites."

Information that comes up as part of the instructions of the game talks about how it's a Flash game and what you need to make the game accessible to play. Some other websites I saw last week would have information about the plug-ins, etc., you would need to participate under "Accessibility," but many other sites have information more along the lines of how to enjoy the site if you're impaired in any way. I can see how the two definitions slightly fit with one another, but it's odd that the term would be used for plug-in information, as I automatically assumed it would refer to the more common definition of the word.

The Museum of London gives fair warning that some games will require flash, I like that.

"All Dressed Up" lets you chose an era and dress up a character in the appropriate clothes. There's music, animation that you control, and interesting information about the choices you make with the option to explore the topic further and see images of the object (jukebox, cameo broach) that the museum has in its collection.

http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/Collections/OnlineResources/X20L/Games/alldressedup.htm

20th Century Alien Detectives lets you travel through time collecting important inventions of the 20th century to bring back to you alien museum. Sadly, I didn't learn much about any of the inventions, but I did learn that aliens have British accents and that time travel always has to involve Jimi Hendrix-inspired guitar riffs. This was one of the games that included accessibility information in the instructions:

"Accessibility: 20th Century Alien Detectives has been designed to be an accessible flash game. If you are playing the game using a screen reader you should find that the various options on each screen are labeled. To play the game using you keyboard, as opposed to a mouse, use the tab key to move around the objects on screen, and the enter key to select an object"

http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/Collections/OnlineResources/X20L/Games/AlienDetectives.htm

During the game, all information was both spoken and written, which was a nice touch.

At the Monterey Bay Aquarium website,

Make a Tide Pool

http://www.mbayaq.org/lc/kids_place/tidepool/tidepool.asp

Had to run ActiveX control on the page, and then install Shockwave, which took forever and slowed down the other stuff I was working on, and in the end it was a boring game and the whole process made me grumpy.

I much more enjoyed the links to songs they had, where you could hear the song and read the lyrics at the same time. It was very simple, easy to use, and while I don't know what plug-ins were required (because it worked right away for me), what I liked the most was that it was something I was able to take away with me after I left the computer.

"Hold on and go with the flow" is a very catchy song, with a lot of useful and easy to understand information about how animals in tide pools attach themselves to the substrate. I've been singing it all evening.

http://www.mbayaq.org/lc/activities/lyrics_rocksong.asp?bhcp=1

Retrospectively, I wonder if I might have enjoyed the interactives more if I'd gone to ones that dealt with topics that I'm not already familiar with. I really liked the Dinosaur one at the Museum of Natural History, largely because the information about my dinosaur was so interesting at the end and it was information I hadn't known. The Tide Pool interactive at MBA didn't interest me, largely because I already knew what you'll find in a tide pool. Because most of these interactives are designed for younger children, the information presented is (hopefully) scaled accordingly. On some subjects my expertise is equivalent to a small child's (actually, on many subjects it is. Who am I fooling?), so maybe I would've had more fun learning in those areas.