How do I navigate the Pictograph Cave Educational Field Trip?

From the Pictograph Caves Educational Field Trip Home Page (http://pictographcave.org/educate/rock_art.html), you are able to access the various areas of the field trip which are described below.

Student Field Trip : Provides access to the student-oriented interface of the Pictograph Cave Educational Field Trip. Interface is a fancy word for what you see on your computer screen - the visual rendition (windows, menus, words, pictures, etc.) of the information that is stored inside the computer as digital data.

The interface in the Field Trip is designed to engage students in independent discovery of various historic, scientific and geographic content through the use of photographic collages, illustration, text, animation, and audio.

Student Work: Takes you to pages where students have submitted poems, stories and other related work. (You may send materials in to be posted here.)

Guest Book: We encourage you to enter your, your class, and/or your school name here.

Chat: Look for the introduction of on-line discussion groups with archaelogical conservators, American Indians, geologists, students from around the world, and more in the months to come. If you would like to design a curriculum to include an on-line chat, please contact the Educational Field Trip Webmaster. All chats will completely secure and by appointment only.

Related Sites: Helps you and students find other web sites with related information.

System Requirements: Details specific requirements that must be met to receive full benefit from the Pictograph Cave Educational Field Trip.

Site Map: Provides a map of how the Pictograph Cave Educational Field Trip is organized. The map contains some links that will take you directly to the specific page.

How to Use this Web Site: Links to the tutorial that you are in right now.

Educators'/Parents' Site: Provides educators a master text by subject area, which enables them to develop lesson plans around the content that students might discover as they travel the field trip. Also provides lesson plans and materials for research as they become available.

E-Mail: We welcome comments and/or questions.

Credits: Describes the project team and grant that made the Pictograph Cave Educational Field Trip a reality.

Let's practice using the site map to navigate around the web site

You reached the Pictograph Cave Educational Field Trip in one of several ways. To familiarize yourself with all of the areas of the site, however, you will want to access the Site Map. If you are not at the Field Trips's Home Page, (http://www.pictographcave.org/educate/rock_art.html), go there now.

If you can't see the Site Map icon , scroll down until you can. Maneuver your mouse until the pointer rests on the Site Map icon. Click your mouse key to go to the map.

The Site Map is exactly that -- a map of how the Pictograph Cave Educational Field Trip is organized. Notice the areas that you can access from the Field Trip Home Page. Observe how the Pictograph Cave Educational Field Trip can be accessed from these pages as well as Lesson Plans and miscellaneous information, such as Bibliography and Photographs. You may choose to print this page out for future reference. To print it, follow the instructions earlier in this tutorial for printing out pages. Remember that you are able at any time to print out any of the pages of the web site. We will explore the Student Field Trip next.

Beginning the Student Field Trip

The Student Field Trip is the focal point of this web site. All of the other activities, information and lesson plans stem from it. It provides access to the student-oriented interface of the Pictograph Cave Educational Field Trip. Interface is a fancy word for what you see on your computer screen - the visual rendition (windows, menus, words, pictures, etc.) of the information that is stored inside the computer as digital data.

The interface in the Field Trip is designed to engage students in independent discovery of various historic, scientific and geographic content through the use of photographic collages, illustration, text, animation, and audio.

To access the field trip from anywhere in the Pictograph Cave web site, find and click on the Student Field Trip icon . It sometimes appears in black type, sometimes in red type, depending on where you are. This takes you to the introductory page of the field trip.

If you have correctly installed the Shockwave plug-in, you will notice a cartoon-like character (the narrator for the field trip) on the left side of the window. If the movie that the plug-in allows you to see is still loading into your computer's memory, you will see the word Loading next to the narrator. Eventually, the movie will finish loading into memory, and the buttons will appear. They are just like the buttons you might find on a VCR or tape player. These buttons allow you to hear the voice of archeological conservator Claire Dean, the narrator. If you click on the forward button, the narrator will begin speaking. You will notice that the narrator also moves as she speaks. Follow what she is saying by reading the red text.

NOTE: Depending on web activity, your modem speed, and your service provider's capabilities, it may take several minutes to load this audio. You may wish to perform this task before class time, and then it will re-play from your computer's memory the next time you activate the "Forward" button.

If you have not previously installed the Shockwave plug-in, and wish to do so now, refer to the instructions earlier in this tutorial.

If necessary, use the scroll bar to scroll down the page as you read. Scroll back up the page to the narrator. If you would like to stop the narrator's voice, click on the stop button . You are also able to rewind by clicking on the rewind button and allow the narration to resume by clicking on the forward button.

How does the student field trip work?

After you have listened to the narration, scroll back up to the top of the page. Click on the Student Field Trip icon on the left hand side of the page, under the narrator. This takes you to the first station, or stop, on the Pictograph Cave Educational Field Trip. There are seven stations in the field trip.

The Student Field Trip is divided into seven parts, or stations, which explore the various aspects of Pictograph Cave State Park, physically, as you would if you actually visited the park, and through the power of the Internet, historically, socially and scientifically. The general layout of each of the seven stations is the same and contains the following elements:

STATION ICONS: You will notice on the left hand side that there are several prehistoric looking drawings with the words Pictograph Cave. These drawings are actually icons -- one for each of the seven stations of the field trip. To move from station to station, simply click on one of these drawings. These icons are intentionally not labeled by text, in the hopes that the student's curiosity for the mysterious guide him or her.

IMAGE MAP: Next to the station icons is an image map. You will notice several different images that make up a larger collage that is representaive of the content provided at that station. And, each of the images in the collage is related to one of the several questions posed at the bottom of the first page of each station. By clicking on the various images in the collage, you are taken to a new page for each question. Here you find the question with its corresponding answer. When available, you also find the option to obtain more information on specific topics through the More Info button. There are between three and five questions posed at each station. You may view a master list of all questions by subject area by following the links in the Educators' and Parents' Site.

NAVIGATION BAR: The section to the right of the image map allows you to move to another area of the Pictograph Cave Educational Field Trip. These areas are: Student Field Trip, Student Work, Related Sites, Site Map, Educators'/Parents' Site and Field Trip Home Page.

You will notice that the narrator, a station number and description, and questions appear below the image map and to the left at every station. On the first page of each station, the narrator does not speak, nor are you able to access the answers to the station's questions by clicking on the list of questions. The answers must be found by clicking on the images in the collage, or image map, at the top of the page.

Let's practice using a page of the student field trip

Notice that if you scroll down the page of station #1, you are able to read the questions. There are five questions at this station. That means there are five images in the image map that link to pages that answer these questions.

To access an answer, maneuver your pointer over the ancient turtle drawing in the image map. Click on the drawing. Now, you are on the page that answers the question: What makes this park special? If you have correctly installed the Shockwave plug-in, you will notice the narrator on the left side of the window. If the movie that the plug-in allows you to see is still loading into your computer's memory, you will see the word Loading next to the narrator. Eventually, the movie will finish loading into memory, and the buttons will appear. They are just like the buttons you might find on a VCR or tape player. These buttons allow you to hear the voice of archeological conservator Claire Dean, the narrator. The movie always rewinds to the start position when you leave the page or finish playing the narration.

If you have not previously installed the Shockwave plug-in, and wish to do so now, refer to the instructions earlier in this tutorial.

If you visit several pages with questions on them, you will notice that a new browser window opens and remains on your computer screen as you move on. This allows you to refer back to related questions. However, you may experience some computer instability if you have a limited amount of RAM available to the browser. If this happens, closing some of the previous windows as you leave them.

Also, notice that under the narrator there is an icon More Information: Social Studies.

SOCIAL STUDIES

As you scroll down the More Information: Social Studies page, you will notice that the questions from each of the seven stations, with additional pertinent social studies information are listed and more documented research is presented.

Scroll back up to the top of this section where you will notice that social studies materials for each of the stations of the educational field trip can be accessed from here by using the numbered hypertext links. Also, notice that on the left hand side of the page, you can access additional Documents, Photographs and a Bibliography for each station.

To return to the student field trip, simply close this window of your browser. You can also return to the Student Field Trip by moving the More Info page to one side to view the Student Field Trip page that you were at. A third way is to use the hypertext link at the beginning of each station's text on the More Info page to return to any of the stations of the Student Field Trip.

For the purpose of following the tutorial, return to station #1 and try one more question. Click on the stage coach and horses image. As the new page appears, notice that the station #1 icon always appears before the question. This is the same icon which appears in the Station Icons for station #1. This time the question is Who lived here long after the ancient people left?

Notice as you read along with the narrator that eventually the text turns to black. This indicates that this portion of text is not narrated. Otherwise, this page works just like the previous question.

Now, let's move to another station within the student field trip. To access station #2, click on the station icon drawing that looks like this . This station works just like station #1.

Let's practice using the Educators'/Parents' pages

There are several ways to access the Educators'/Parents' Site, depending on where you are in the site. Find the icon named Educators' and Parents' Site or Educators' Site at any of the stations. . Click on the icon.

Now, you are at the Educators/Parents Site. Read the text that describes what is available to teachers and parents through this group of pages. You will notice that there is an icon on the page called the Guide to the Student Field Trip.

Using your mouse, position your pointer on the Guide to Student Field Trip icon

Guide to the

and click your mouse. This takes you to the Student Field Trip - Guide To Educators. Here you will find icons indicating the subject areas available for your review. They are Content, Lesson Plans, Bibliography and Resources. For now, place the arrow over the Content icon and click.

On the Content page, you are presently able to access two subject areas: Social Studies and Science. As more information becomes available, other subject areas may be added.

Position the pointer over the words Social Studies and click. This takes you to the a master page that contains all the Social Studies-related content that students might obtain by using the Student Field Trip picture collages.

The next action marks your first backward movement in the site. Locate the tool bar at the top of your browser window. Position the pointer over the Back button and click. This takes you back to the previous page. To go back to the Social Studies page, click the Forward button. Then, use the Back button to access the Content page again.

Notice how the words Social Studies now appear in purple on the Content page. The purple indicates that you have previously accessed this particular page.

Notice that Social Studies materials for each of the stations of the educational field trip can be accessed from here as well by using the numbered hypertext links near the top of the page.

Also, notice that on the left hand side of the page, you can access additional information by using the More Info button. If you follow this link, you will come to the same area of the web site as the students arrive at by using the More Info button found in the Student Field Trip. And from the More Info pages, you can access the same related Photographs, Documents and a Bibliography.

If you have used the More Info button, return to the Content by Study Area page by using the Back button of your browser.

A button named Lesson Plans is also presented on the left side of the Content by Study Area page. If you follow this link, you will find that there are currently no lesson plans available. If you wish, you may send related Lesson Plans to the Pictograph Cave Educational Field Trip Team for review and possible inclusion in the site.

Finishing Up

That's all there is to running the Pictograph Cave Educational Field Trip. There is however, lots more information to be discovered, including related sites, resources, and lots more content. You should review the other sections at your leisure until you become comfortable presenting the information available to your students.

If you would like to become more familiar with the web site, practice using the features outlined in this tutorial until you become confident. After you feel comfortable moving around the site, you'll see just how easy it is to operate a web site. To close the site completely, scroll down under the word File in your browser's Tool Bar to the word Close or Quit.

How do I add this web site to my Favorites or Bookmarks list for easy future reference?

If you would like to have easy access to this web site, click on the button in your browser's Tool Bar entitled Favorites or Bookmarks while you have the Pictograph Cave Educational Field Trip Home Page open. Your browser will automatically add it to a pull-down list of frequently visited sites. Now, when you open your web browser, simply locate the Pictograph Cave Educational Field Trip in the pull-down list and click on the name. It will take you to the site's Field Trip Home Page.

If you have comments about how other educators can use this web site in their classroom, please e-mail the Pictograph Cave Educational Field Trip Team.