Different children prefer different kinds of videos. So, Road Trip contains a variety of clips. The current version of the program contains five categories of videos:
The child begins browsing the video catalog by selecting one of the categories from the icon menu. When a category is selected, all destinations where a video of that type is available are highlighted on the map, and a menu of the video-clip titles is presented. For instance, the menu of movie clips in Pennsylvania currently includes a clip from the movie, "Witness", and one from "Rocky". The program's sports titles include "Mets defeat Red Sox," and "Pete Rose Sets Record."
The video catalog is sensitive to where the student is in the program. If the main map area is currently showing the top-level US map when the student browses the video catalog, then all the program videos in the chosen category will be listed. If the student is currently zoomed in on a particular state of local map, then only the videos within that locale will be listed.
The child can see a synopsis of a particular clip by either selecting it from the list or by clicking on its location in the map. When a clip is selected, its location flashes on the map, and the child is shown a teaser paragraph that advertises the clip. For example, if the student chooses "Pete Rose Sets Record," then Cincinnati will flash on the map, and the student will see a blurb that reads:
"See Pete Rose thrill the crowd in Cincinnati. Ohio, by surpassing Ty Cobb as baseball's all-time base hit leader with hit number 4012."
If the student does not read well, he can hit a button to have the blurb read to him. When a child finds a blurb that sounds appealing he can keep track of it by hitting a "mark as destination" button. The program will make a special mark on the maps to identify each destination that the student has so marked.
The student can browse the catalog as much or as little as he wishes. Some kids like to browse extensively, marking many potential destinations before doing any traveling. Others like to browse until they find one appealing video, travel there, and then browse again. Some children never browse, preferring to just set out traveling, stumbling across interesting destinations as they go. The program does not attempt to enforce one style over any others. It simply tries to get the student as excited about as many different destinations as possible.
Where am I in the content of the book?
