Ole's Grand Adventure and Its Relevance to the Internet

By Kelley Oorloff, Ole's Grand Adventure Team

Ole’s Grand Adventure and Its Relevance to the Internet

            The project, Ole’s Grand Adventure at the University of Santa Barbara was inspired by the children’s book Letters from Felix: A Little Rabbit on a World Tour by Annette Langen. Sophia, a little girl traveling with her mother and older sister loses her stuffed animal rabbit named Felix while at the end of their vacation. During their arrival to the airport and on their way back home, Felix gets separated from his owner. As the sad and worried little girl arrives home and begins her first day of school, she receives a letter from Felix. The cuddly rabbit is now on his own adventure, traveling the world as he sends Sophia letters from each stop informing her about each country he travels to, until he arrives back home on Christmas.

            Inspired by Langen’s character Felix, Ole is a stuffed animal cat that gets separated from his owner while at the Santa Barbara airport. Ole’s owner, a student at the University of Santa Barbara loses Ole, and instead of using a book and written letters, Ole blogs about his adventures online. The cat travels to New York, London, Dublin, New Delhi, Lima, Tokyo and Rome in search of a way back home to UCSB. As a unisex stuffed animal, Ole can relate to anyone and is not limited to a specific audience.

            Using mapbox.com, which is the starting platform for Ole’s Grand Adventure, the audience is shown a world map and a written blurb about Ole. All seven countries that Ole travels to are marked on the map, as well as UCSB, where children can print out a passport. Ole blogs about each country using wordpress.com. As a collective team, each student chose a place to research and blog about on their own. Each blog contains information about Ole, as well as political, cultural and fun facts about each country. Using pictures, videos and written blurbs, Ole’s Grand Adventure uses technology to not only inform their audience, but as well as interact with them. Each team member not only found information solely for their blog but as well as created their own blog with different themes. The Ole’s Grand Adventure team believed this would be a great way for children to see and access different types of blogs and get good experience doing so. As children surf the web and make their way through each blog, they are also given the opportunity to print out a souvenir from each country to paste into their passport.

            Ole’s Grand Adventure allows their audience to better understand the concept of the book Letters from Felix: A Little Rabbit on a World Tour. While each generation consistently uses the World Wide Web more than it’s prior, the team felt the Internet would be the perfect platform to inform children, while telling Ole’s adventurous story. Using two different websites as well as different blog themes, the team felt that children could not only learn about Ole’s story, but as well as learn how to navigate through each site.

            Ole’s Grand Adventure gives underprivileged children the opportunity to ‘visit’ seven different countries while comfortably sitting at home or at school and in a positive learning environment. The website not only informs children of political and cultural information, but is also a fun platform for children to learn from. Including passports and souvenirs throughout each blog, gives users the incentive to look throughout the site while also learning about each country. The passports also gives children the correct information, while including a place to enter their information, as well as souvenir spots where children must paste the tokens as if going through immigration and receiving a stamp for each country they travel to.

            While Letters From Felix: A Little Rabbit on a World Tour is a hand held book with letters they can individually take out and read and that also gives children information, it is still limited to only the information provided in the book, unless teachers provide multiple books on each country. Using Ole’s Grand Adventure not only gives children Ole’s story, but as well as gives teachers and children the tools to further their knowledge on each country and the information provided in a safe and suitable way.

            As Marisa Beard argues the Internet offers many benefits for children and teachers in the modern day classroom and incorporates the Internet during everyday lessons and not only benefits the children but as well as gives teachers the opportunity to include more knowledge on the subject instead of taking away from the school district’s curriculum. Teachers can provide in depth information that books and articles don’t always provide while using safe websites created for children. Interactive websites, which contain virtual places, gives many underprivileged children the opportunity to visit and interact as if they were physically present. While many people believe the Internet is a dangerous place for children, it is also now seen as a positive and educational tool that allows children to not only to learn but also to create their own web pages and blogs where they can share information updated daily with their families and friends.

            Beard believes that incorporating the Internet in a classroom setting offers a vast amount of information. Including real life experiences with lectures, not only makes the classroom setting interesting, but also allows children to learn more with all that the Internet offers. Having children from different parts of the world learn about other students in complete opposite areas in the world is difficult in a classroom setting, but with the help of the internet these children can learn about the world with just a click of a button. With tours, museums, stores and much more information offered, children can learn about places and people with their classroom or on their own. Children can also learn how to write emails, to each other, to their teachers and to their family. Getting hands on experience with using the Internet, children can also print out their daily activities and use it as resources.

             Teachers can also use the Internet when they don’t have an answer to a question, as Beard states, “If a child asks a question that a teacher is unable to answer, the teacher can go to a predetermined "safe" site and search for the information”. This article offers insight into why the Internet is advantageous for children and does not hinder their development, but expands their knowledge.  Not only do children benefit from the use of the Internet but as well as teachers in a classroom setting. The author argues that the Internet benefits children by giving them access to many tools and resources.  While there are potential problems, they acknowledge, parents and teachers can protect their children in their exploration and learning. In general, the article concludes, the Internet allows many people to learn about many things as well as to socialize and be entertained. 

            Instead of restricting kids to books and newspapers, society should give them the opportunity to learn about the world right at their fingertips. This generation of children have grown up with iPads, computers and touch screen phones and teachers should use this to their advantage and allow children to explore and become knowledgeable with a vast amount of information, which is easy with the help of the Internet. The Internet allows students to involve themselves with real life experiences, that teachers cannot provide in a normal classroom setting.

            The Internet is a very controversial topic when it comes to children. Seen at opposite ends of the spectrum, an extremely helpful tool as well as a danger to them. This article relates and supports our project, by stating that, “One way to show children the world is through the Internet. Children can visit a variety of Internet sites that offer information about, as well as online tours of, farms, art museums, grocery stores, veterinary clinics, hospitals, and schools. Children can experience these places individually, in small groups, or as a whole class” (Beard). Our website, was inspired by the storybook, Letters to Felix. As a young girl’s stuffed bunny named Felix gets lost while she’s at the airport with her family, he then begins to travel the world writing letters to her at each of his stops.

            Using Felix as a muse, the team created Ole, the gaucho inspired kitty. Instead of only writing letters to the readers, Ole uses the Internet and at each country he visits, he plots his points on a world map and then links information through numerous blogs about the culture, politics and people. At each country the children visits while on our website, they learn about the country’s flag, political information, the culture, fun facts and places of interest. As a young child that does not have the opportunity to visit these places, this website provides them the opportunity that allows them to ‘travel’ around the world and learn worldly information and see pictures from around the world in a safe environment.             As well as gaining knowledge, the children have the opportunity to print out a passport and stamps at each place of interest, which not only informs them about traveling and learning, but as well as makes it a fun learning environment. What the article and the website relate to, is the ability to transport children around the world and give them information while at the comfort and safety of their own classroom or home. In addition to experiencing an online storybook, children now have the opportunity to learn valuable information about other countries. While the original storybook, informed children, the Internet expands the knowledge of a child by using pictures, sound clips and videos, instead of solely using hand drawn pictures. Internet safety is a main concern not only in the article, but as well as with the research group. As a problem seen by many adults, the Internet can be a scary place for adolescents. But if used in a safe environment and with the correct knowledge, the Internet can be seen as an advantageous tool, instead of a danger.

            Using Beard’s knowledge, the team Ole’s Grand Adventure was precautious when creating the website. Starting with the idea of using the platform of tumblr.com there was not enough safety for children. As a website used by an older audience, the team felt that children would venture to inappropriate blogs and pictures. Using the idea of hashtags to better inform children, clicking on them to learn more about the information tagged, there proved a problem. Many users of Tumblr tag pictures with random hashtags that have no relevance to their pictures. Using Wordpress allowed the team to restrict children to specific links, created solely by the team. While Tumblr was a great platform and did not restrict the team from editing and customizing HTML codes, Wordpress did and required a payment to customize it to the team’s wanting. While the ending results and websites of each team member did not match their intent, the safety of the children was a larger factor when deciding on the website to be used as a platform.

            As a test subject, one of the team members had her five year old little sister test out the website created. Having experience with the Internet and the iPad, Ole’s Grand Adventure thought this would be a very valuable test subject and could give reliable feedback. Using the world map and starting platform, she was very interested and could easily access the countries and read everything with ease. With each blog she visited, problems started to arise. With different themes for each blog, she began to get confused. Since there was not a cohesive theme between the seven blogs, the child thought every picture on each site was clickable, when it was not. Each website also had their summarized story about Ole in different areas, which also confused the test subject. Positioned on the left side of the blog, the last post and as well as it’s own page, the child didn’t know where to look. Having either a clickable flag or picture of Felix to take the user back to the main site of the world map, the test subject had some difficulty returning to the main site to access the other countries and continue Ole’s adventure.

            After presenting the project to the class, some other problems occurred. Many students felt having the passport souvenirs, which users would paste into the passport, was poorly placed on each blog. Having the souvenirs located in different areas in each blog, they stated, was confusing. The team Ole’s Grand Adventure purposely placed the souvenirs differently, as an incentive to adventure through each blog fully to retrieve the token. While having each blog completely different from each other, the team learned that having a more unified theme throughout each blog would be more rewarding for not only the theme but as well as for the users. While the team wanted to use different themes to give young children more experience with the Internet and show the different options given by Wordpress, it did not work as well as the team thought it would. Instead of giving more experience, it only confused test subjects and students. Getting feedback for this project, the team learned that using a more cohesive theme throughout each blog would have been a better choice and wouldn’t have confused viewers and users.

            This project shows that while books are a great source of knowledge, the Internet is a very valuable tool. While many people worry about the dangers the Internet provides, there are also many ways to stray away from them while giving children the opportunity to better inform themselves and experience. Letters to Felix was a great foundation for Ole’s Grand Adventure and while Langen provides an interesting hands on experience for children with letters they can physically hold and read, the website broadens her book. Using the same format of traveling the world and learning about each country, the Internet gives children the opportunity to not only read information, but as well as indulge in their other senses.

            As a great tool for teachers to use in a classroom setting, children have the opportunity to travel the world from the comfort of their seat. Many children, like Beard stated previously, do not have the lucky opportunity to travel the world physically and witness information that is provided on the website, Ole’s Grand Adventure. Using different forms of multimedia, children can use all their senses while watching videos, listening to music and printing out the website’s passport and souvenirs.

            This project was a great way to learn about books, the Internet and multimedia. As the internet and blogging are becoming a huge trend in each coming generation, converting a storybook to a blog format allows children to read while giving them a fun environment that they can learn from and use for future reference. Combining information about different countries, different blogs and different multimedia was a great way to understand Letters From Felix while expanding children’s knowledge of the Internet.

References

Brodney, Michelle. "Ole's Grand Adventure." MapBox. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.             <https://a.tiles.mapbox.com/v3/mbrodney.g9ao88k9/page.html?secure=1>.

Langen, Annette, and Constanza Droop. Letters from Felix: A Little Rabbit on a World             Tour. New York: Abbeville, 1994. Print.

"WordPress.com." WordPress.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.

            <http://wordpress.com/>.