p i e
rAme - 26 DIRECTORY
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The ABILITIES CENTER, INC.
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Nikki Roseulieberman (810) 855-0030 Jill D. Spokojny
Financial Planning
Mak :M %S \ ''‘Na nt‘...
MARK LICHTERMAN STAFF WRITER
SYSTEMATIC INVESTING
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Phone: (810) 452 5690 • Fax: (810) 452 5688
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Instruction
EXPERT PIANO INSTRUCTION
Classical or Popular
Intermediate to Advanced
THE APPLETREE
(Adult Beginners Okay)
DAVID SYME 810-681-2417
16
Fun In Funland
I
f you were to stumble
upon a Web site called
"Jewish Funland," created
by an educator named Dr.
Nurit Reshef, chances are good
you would imagine Tel Aviv or
New York was home of such a
"land."
In fact, you should have
looked a bit further to the west
and north, actually a lot further
west and a lot further north, to
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
The curriculum coordinator
at Talmud Torah School, Dr.
Reshef has created a well-de-
signed and fun site at http://
wwwbus.ualberta.ca/yreshef/f
unland/funland.html, where
parents and their elementary-
aged children can learn about
Israel, Jewish holidays and the
Hebrew language.
The opening page is in con-
stant motion (much like any ele-
mentary-aged childyve ever
met) and introduces itself as "a -
place where kids learn through
playing." In addition to graphics
of a magician pulling a rabbit
out of a hat, or of a large, pink-
eared mouse busily writing
something, the visitor immedi-
ately is given the opportunity to
choose background music to ac-
company his or her visit. Choic-
es range from "Hiney Ma Tov"
to "YMCA" (yes, it's the Village
People's fine version), with Pa-
chobel's Canon in D some-
where in the middle.
Our musical accompaniment
set (I won't tell you what I
choose, but I can assure you it
does not bring exercise facilities
to mind) the main menu pre-
sents 11 different pathways into
the site.
The first choice is "Israel's
Map (Puzzle)." Click on the lit-
tle rotating ball and off you go to
a map of Israel cut into eight
moveable rectangles inside a
frame with one open space.
This is just like one of those little
games where you have to end-
lessly slide the numbers around
to ultimately put them in nu-
merical order. Here, obviously,
the point is to put Israel back to-
gether in its appropriate arrange-
ment
A few words of advice re-
garding this and most of the oth-
er games on the site. First, to
play you will need a "Java-com-
patible browser." The most re-
cent versions of Netscape
Navigator and Internet Explorer
are Java-compatible.
If you are not sure whether
your browser is so equipped do
the unthinkable (for me, at
least) and read the documenta-
tion, or simply call the technical
support line.
Second, be patient. Even at
28.8k, it took a while for the
puzzle to load.
My second stop in Jewish
Funland was "Hebrew Hang-
man." Upon my arrival I met a
little, animated triangle-of-a-
character named "Duke." Duke
is a "happy-go-lucky-dudette,"
and to keep her that way the
player must guess Hebrew
words written in Latin letters. If
you don't guess the word (Jew-
ish concepts and artifacts like a
mezuzah, lulav, seder, shofar) in
five tries, well, I won't tell you
where our friend Duke ends up.
Duke makes another appear-
ance in "Hebrew Hangduke:
Biblical Personalities." This is
obviously another hangman-
type game, only this time the
manner in which it is played is a
bit more sophisticated. Here,
there is actually an alphabet to
click on. The page also contains
a running total of the number of
games played, won, lost and the
number of guesses remaining in
each. Players are allowed 10
guesses a game.
Back at the main menu, I
next clicked on "Holidays' Chal-
lenge." This is basically a large
puzzle with two different de-
signs for each of the holidays.
The controls allow you to
choose how many pieces the
puzzle will have, from four all
the way up to 256 pieces for the -
puzzle fiends among us. Each
scrambled design is accompa-
nied by the intact version of the
same picture.
This was quite fun, and I
might add, addicting. I had a
hard time pulling myself away
from it It would be a great way
to begin conversations about
the various holidays with your
children.
I enjoyed this site, and I
would like to hear feedback
from any of you who go there
and try it out yourselves. As al-
ways, all comments, questions,
criticisms and suggestions for fu-
ture columns are encouraged
and welcome. ❑
Mark Lichtennan lives in Huntington Woods with his wife Susan and their two children: Yossi, 6 and Allie, 3. You can
reach him online at marksus@mci2000.com .