Home PublicationsL&LIssuesVolume 26 (1998-1999) September (No. 1)

Soleil Software, 3853 Grove Court, Palo Alto, CA 94303; 650.494.0114 or 800.501.0110; fax 650.493.6416; www.soleil.com

Subject:	Social studies, science, foreign language, ESL
Grade Level:	6–12 (Ages 11–18)
Cost:	$99.95
Hardware:	Macintosh or Windows PC with at least a double-speed CD-ROM drive; printer required
Reviewer:	Judi Mathis Johnson, Powhatan, Virginia

Teaching a multicultural curriculum often begins with the establishment of cultural awareness. Each software program created by Soleil transports students to another land where they learn about science and other subjects as they are surrounded by the sounds and sights of another culture. World Walker Australia is one such program.

Instructional Design

Students travel Australia on a walkabout to learn about the continent’s inhabitants. Spelunking provides clues about the land’s history. Students also learn about the food chain, play a concentration game, and expand their language skills in English, French, and Spanish.

When they’re on their walkabout, students identify animals they see and hear the animals’ names read aloud; they also can visit the program’s reference library to learn more. The goal is to collect batteries for the flashlights needed to explore the caves. Following a map, students explore the caves, gather bones, and reconstruct a skeleton.

Students also can play Food Chain Solitaire to explore the relationships between the animals and their resources as revealed through 12 different food chain configurations. A concentration game asks students to pair words from 10 different categories among the different languages. Students can learn their numbers, basic nouns, sporting equipment, and everyday words. The Language Explorer provides additional practice in language development. Students are given icons of nouns, verbs, and prepositions and a set of words. They must put the words in the correct order and add modifiers before the final sentence is read to them.

All choices and decisions are icon-based, which allows students with different language backgrounds to work together. During the walkabout, the animals tend to blend into the scenery just as they do in real life. Students can polish their observation skills by trying to find all of the animals.

Content

By learning about native Australian animals, their habits, and their roles in the ecological system, the students become scientists and explorers. The language activities can help them become citizens of the world as they practice communication in French, Spanish, and English. Students who are taking foreign language classes can even use the program in just the language they are studying.

Rather than just integrating the various subject areas, this program “braids them.” In other words, sometimes the students are biologists, sometimes they’re archaeologists, and sometimes they are simply competitive to see who explores the cave first.

Teacher Support

The interactive manual included on the CD-ROM is excellent. This is such a visually organized program that having an interactive supporting set of instructions is logical. The education version has a teacher resource guide that includes blackline masters, background information, more than 200 example sentences in the three languages, and more references for teaching about Australia.

Strengths

The aesthetics of the culture were not put aside for the educational parts. The program looks realistic and inviting and sounds delightful.

Recommendation

Expand your current lesson by including World Walker Australia. Ask students to compare their own cultures to that presented in World Walker. As they describe the similarities and differences, they can develop a better understanding of their own culture and an awareness that we all have much to learn about other cultures.

Note

Thanks to Eileen Barnett for her longtime efforts in identifying multicultural software titles. She provided the annotated list of software, as well as the review of Cultural Debates. Thanks also to Sarah Young, EdD, Longwood College, for her help in defining, describing, and evaluating materials for diverse populations and multicultural curriculum.

Copyright © 1998, ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education). All rights reserved.