If you have computers with a CD-ROM player, both of these encyclopedias are appealing. Students find the CD-ROM form more useful than the book form. There are bigger, brighter pictures and there are sounds and animations that help them understand the words. Both have readings by some authors, performances by singers and dancers and contain some newsreel footage. The interactive nature of the computer makes research more exciting and satisfying.

Students at Victoria READ report liking the speed the CD-ROM was capable of and being "impressed with the way I could watch a moving bald eagle fish in a lake ... or hear a lion roar from his African home." "The CD-ROM is great. It has a lot of useful information on
Nova Scotia and Edmonton so I wrote a report on both places."

Of these two encyclopedias, Encarta is bigger than Canadian Plus. It covers more details from other countries, such as flags and anthems. It has over 7000 "media" items including maps, animations, photos, and interactive graphs which allow you to change the shape or content of the graph. Every year, Encarta comes out in a bigger and better version.

Canadian Plus (published in 1996) has just over 3000 media entries. It covers more Canadian topics and covers them more thoroughly than the American Encarta. It is always a relief to find articles that will mention Atlin Lake, Elijah Harper, portage, Abbotsford, Bill Reid, Dene, Bloc Quebecois, etc. In particular, it gives the correct names for the First Nations tribes (Heiltsuk, Tlingit, etc.) and provides information about the different tribes.

Both programs will print graphics and articles in different font sizes and you can save to your word processor so you can edit the article. In both, the reading level is higher than we would like for fundamental students. Canadian Encyclopedia Plus is at about a grade 10 level using a standard readability scale and Encarta is about grade 7. This review comes out at grade 8.5 on the same scale. Both encyclopedias take some figuring out. It is not obvious what the on­screen buttons do, but students are often more at home in the computer world than instructors. Some students in Waglisa are using Canadian Plus in their home study course. They were given an orientation and since then have pretty much figured it out on their own.

Often one or more students become whizzes at computer programs simply through trial and error; they are usually willing and even eager to become helpers to other students who aren't as confident with a program. I have had one student help others with their research and everyone benefits enormously.