Destination: Ocean
Reviewed by Cynthia A. Sorrels
Published by Edmark

Age Group: Age 4 to 8, Age 8 and Up Type: Art & Creativity Price: $19.99

Description:

Imagination Express - Destination: Ocean is one installment of a series of edutainment programs available from Davidson and Associates. This particular title is designed for children 6 to 12 years of age and allows for the creation of "e-books" - movie videos complete with sound effects, music and animation.

Installation

Installation was simple and fast. No surprises or problems here, although the program used hard drive space when it was told to use a removable hard disk.
This is the Main Menu.

There are several options at the Main Menu. Once you enter a user name, select a destination. (All of the Imagination Express series titles will work with the same menu engine.)

View the Sample E-Book

The sample e-book included is helpful because of the chance to click around on stickers and options without worry of messing up a work in progress. Each e-book can be set to run automatically. It was helpful to have an example to examine before trying to put together an e-book.

Creating an E-Book

To begin your creation, click NEW on the Main Menu. The Background Picker comes up, allowing choices of background scenes for the first page of the book. Once the background is selected, the full-sized background with the Tool and Button Bar is displayed. Now, drag and drop stickers onto the background. Want to animate a background sticker or record a sound to go with a sticker? Just double-click on the sticker. Stickers can be moved, enlarged, reduced, flipped - they are very flexible.

Add Text by clicking on the A. Type the text directly into the text box, then size the box and move it around on the background. There are Text Borders in an ocean theme to choose from, as well.

Now, Make a Movie! Click the movie camera to see the Movie Tools. Click a sticker and drag it, then release the mouse button. Now, watch your movie. You can record your own sound, too!

Once the first page is complete, click the Page Manager, which shows a thumbnail of every page in your book. Here, the pages can be deleted, reordered, copied or new pages added.

Finished? Don't forget to save the story! Then return to the Main Menu and view the new e-book in its final form. Return to editing the book by clicking on the "Edit" button on the Main Menu.

Adult Options

Pressing Ctrl-Alt-A will access Adult Options. Now put together customized settings for each member of the family. Imagination Express also works with KidDesk, a separate program published by Edmark.

Stumped for an Idea?

Well, don't fret! Destination: Ocean includes an option on the Main Menu titled "Bright Ideas." This area shows pictures and a youngster on a small tv-like screen makes suggestions for stories. There are LOTS of ideas here.

Care to add some ocean facts to your story? Just click on the Ocean Fact Book! It should have been named the Ocean Encyclopedia. There are beautiful color pictures, clearly written topics and a surprising depth (ooooohhhh....) of information here.

Parent's Note

There is quite a bit of useful information presented to enable adults to help children with writing issues. Unfortunately, none topics here do not relate to the program's workings.

Audio and Graphics

There are a great many choices for sound effects and music in this program. I managed to use some of them but never really understood what I'd done to get it to work. This program also has the option for the user to make sound recordings and thoughtfully points out to parents that .wav files do take up a lot of space on the hard drive.

The ocean backgrounds are visually stunning and should be viewed in 800x600 video mode. Many of the stickers look very "real" as well.

Have You Noticed...

that the titles that need the most comprehensive instructions and help hot-keys never have them? That always seems a bit arrogant of the developers. Context-sensitive help files would be a major upgrade to this program. Through trial and error, I learned that if a sticker has a sound attached and you copy that page, the sound is still attached. That isn't mentioned anywhere in the documentation that I read.

Other Notes

Destination: Ocean does not work with Windows 95 Autoplay. There is no sound at the beginning of the program (I thought my speakers might be broken.) And the underwater scenes don't LOOK underwater; there are no bubbles or water movement. The automatic play option for the E-books is quite nice, though.

Comparisons

Destination: Ocean compares favorably with Broderbund's Amazing Writing Machine. The difference is that Destination: Ocean focuses on creativity, while The Amazing Writing Machine is more structured and appropriate for formal school writings and personal journals and letters.

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