The goal of this project is to provide active learning environment for learning about animals.  Web sites which include a lot of sensory information (pictures, sounds, videos) about animals will be created to help children learn about animals easily.    The web sites could be used as an effective tool for teachers and parents..
 

The project web site mainly consists of main page, map page and each animal's page.  Main page includes the links of the other parts of this project including purpose and evaluation.  In the map page, users can choose the animal page to which they want to go.   Each animal's page is composed of a photo, short information about the animal and the links for more pictures and sound and teacher's resources.   There are animal's pictures, sounds, some real video or movie and more detailed information text in the links.

To attract kid's concern, the web site consists of lots of images.   Some animation images such as moving train and hippo were used in the main page and map page.  The image of zoo tour map came from original web site of St. Louis Zoo.   Then, the image was edited to be more simple with photoshop 5.0.   Also, animal photos, sounds and videos were used as many as possible.  The animal photos and bear movie of each animal's web site were taken at St. Louis Zoo and the links for more pictures and sound and teacher's resources are provided by other animal sites.

Originally, the web site is designed for kids.   But, the range of their ages will be varied, because it depends on how educators or guides use this web site.   For lower grade level, they can show the photos and videos of animals and give short description in this web site.   However, for higher grade level, they can give more detail explanation and show how to go other links by using the links for teacher's resourses.

The character which distinguishs this web site from other animal web sites is the "correct links" of each site.   Each animal's site includes links which lead the users directly to the web sites about the exactly same animal.   While usual animal web sites provide the links to the main pages of related web sites, this web site's links are connected to the sub web page of other animal web sites for the user's convenience.   Therefore, the teachers and parents are expected to surf other relevant web sites more often and easily.

Six parents and their children participated in the evaluation.  One of children is 3 years old, three of those are 4 years old, one of those is a 2nd grader and the other one is a 7th grader.
 

First, short explanation about the web site was given to each parents, especially to the mothers.   Then, each mother show her kid the web site.   After these procedsure, the mothers evaluated the web site.
 

The subjects are asked to answer the following questions.
- What did you like most in this web site's design, more pictures and sound, the links for teacher's resourses or others?
- What did you like least  in this web site's design, more pictures and sound, the links for teacher's resourses or others?
- What was the most helpful factor for your child or your students to learn about animals in this web site's      animal photo, sound, video or movie, information text or others?
- What part would have made this web site better among images, structure, contents or others?
 

To the question about the most favorite thing in this web site, all the mothers responded that 'the links for more pictures and sound' is the best part in the web site.    All of them agreed that their children are interested in animal's photos and sound.    In the other hand, the mothers identified several  different parts as the least thing in the web site.  The mothers of 3 or 4 years old children does not like 'the links for teacher's resourses', because this age children are not interested textful contents and difficult information.   The mother of 2nd grader, in other hand, pointed only the links to difficult information site, because her child can understand simple information.  The mother of 7th grader indicated that her son wanted more clear and bigger video screen.

As responses to the question about helpful factor,  most mothers agreed on that the most helpful factor was animal's video.  They think that their children can have the same experiences as a actual trip to the zoo.   In addition, the mothers mentioned the advantages of virtual field trip to the zoo.  The first, parents can show all the animals when they want to show or the children  want to see regardless of the weather and season.  The second, they do not have to worry about some specific animal's schedule.  Many animals in the actual zoo take rest or sleep often.  Thus, children could miss the opportunity to watch their favorite animal's moving in spite of the actual trip to the zoo.  However, virtual trip always provide the children with the video.  The third, mothers mentioned the accessibility to the information about animals.  They said that they tend to read the information more carefully and explain to the children in the virtual zoo than in the real zoo.

About the last question, three mothers answered that building up more sensory information such as animal movies, pictures and sound could have made this web site better.  On the other hand, others  mentioned that they want more animal species to be added in the web site.   Specially, the mother of 7th grader suggested that it would be better to categorize animals by stages such as mammals, birds and herbivorous, carnivore animals.   She also suggested to creat a web page for endangered animals which cannot be seen in the real zoo easily.

In sum, all mothers responded that this web site is very helpful for their children to learn about animals, because there are lots of useful educational resources about animals and those resources can motivate and stimulate their children's concern.
 
 

Conclusion

According to the results of evaluation, preschool age children are more interested in the sensory information(pictures, sounds, videos) about animals which can give them more vivid experiences.   The sensory information also attracts kids' concern and motivates them to learn more.   School age children are also interested in these information, but they want more detailed information about animals.   As children become older, they concern about  quality of information.  Thus, the web site, the virtual field trip to the zoo, can provide active and effective learning tool to the parents and children both.
 
 

  Broad View

There are a lot of virtual field trip sites and cyber educational sites on the Internet.  This kind of sites usually provide various types of information.   The advantage of the sites is on obtaining the sensory information such as movie, photo, sound and text information at the same time through multimedia.  Thus, it can be used as an effective learning tool in the classrooms or at home.  Another advantage of virtual trip site is on the interactivity.  Teachers or parents can show their students or children cyber places and multisensory information which they want to go and see via the Internet and share their feeling, opinion and questions about those with them.  As technology develops more and more, the Internet learning tool can provide higher quality of the information and more realistic expriences to the learners.