ANNOUNCE: Excite's offers lessons and contest for search

[Ted Resnick]

Earl, 

The content was developed by Headbone Interactive, a leader in educational
CD-ROM's, not the RNC or RJR Tobacco.  If you would like to talk to
Headbone about their choice of content for the site, please let me know,
and I can put you in touch with someone from over there.  However, if you
have not looked at the site, then you may not have seen that the
overwhelming majority of the content is not about raising awareness of
environmental issues, but about practicing problem solving and mathematical
skills within a context that would be fun for your average grade or middle
school student. 

I stated that in the first segment of the contest,

 >Players must balance their income from 
>ticket sales with expenses-renting the venue, the overhead cost for 
>each ticket, publicity, and lodging.

For an idea of what this means, I would recommend that you  

1. go to http://derby.excite.com/preview/start.htm 
2. Provide a username and password (optional) 
3. Decide what city you want to start in (the involves making an educated
choice about where to start - some places are going to be better than others)
4. Decide what concert hall to play in, and how much to charge for tickets.
 (You have 100 dollars to book the hall, and get publicity.  You have to
figure out what is the best combination of venue and ticket price.) 
5. Evaluate how much money you made and what to do with your earnings. 

I would expect the grade/middle school kids that are visiting this site to
be supervised when on the net.  It is up to parents and teachers to decide
how to best use the site. We have provided an extensive teacher's guide for
that purpose. If it is important to you that your students or children are
exposed to other points of view about environmental issues, or any other
aspect of the site, then it is up to you to bring that up as a part of
their experience.  In my experience, teaching youngsters how to think
critically is part of every learning experience, whether it involves using
textbooks, reprinted newspaper articles, TV, or the Internet.  

Excite is sponsoring the content, and what we get out of it is that if
there is a question that can be answered by searching the internet for
particular information, then Excite is the default search engine on the
page.  This is Excite's first step in working with other online content
developers to create an interactive learning experience for kids.  We felt
that there was enough interest on the part of the public to get involved in
this area. If we get a good response, we may decide to try others. Any new
endeavor involves some risk, but we decided to sponsor it as a way of
learning firsthand what may work in this new media. Comments from you and
others are welcomed and encouraged.

Hope this addresses your questions.  Feel free to email me privately so as
not to cause unwanted traffic for the list.

Regards,

Ted Resnick
Excite's Headbone Derby
http://derby.excite.com


At 05:55 AM 1/14/97 -0800, Earl Young wrote:
>     Does this site (and of course it doesn't) indicate that there are 
>     scientists who disagree with their reading of environmental science?  
>     Do they present the issue as a discussion or are they interested in 
>     making sure that only their side of the story is told?  I am in 
>     general agreement with the enviro-lobby, but I get a little nervous 
>     when children's games are used to present political views.  Ask 
>     yourself if you think this site would be as cute if you disagreed with 
>     the political content - say if it were put together by the Republican 
>     National Committee or RJ Reynolds tobacco.
>
>
>______________________________ Reply Separator
_________________________________
>Subject: ANNOUNCE: Excite's offers lessons and contest for searching
>Author:  tresnick at excite.com at INTERNET
>Date:    1/13/97 8:05 PM
>
>
>Greetings all,
>     
>I invite you to check out the Headbone Derby, an interactive learning 
>experience for grade/middle school students and  classroom teams. The site, 
>located on the World Wide Web at http://derby.excite.com/ allows students 
>to follow and assist Headbone characters Iz and Auggie in their 3 month 
>project to save the world from evil villains and help protect the 
>environment. The Headbone Derby is a collaborative effort by CD-ROM 
>publisher Headbone Interactive and the Excite Navigation Network.
..
..
..
etc.


Ted Resnick -- Online Marketing Manager -- http://www.excite.com/