Table of Contents

1. Welcome
2. Prep Work
3. Setting Up for Online Games
4. Search the Database
5. Links with Other Sites
6. Browser Support

Click here to print this information

Welcome

This enhancement to the www.ndi4all.org web site coincides with the journey of Jacques d'Amboise, who is currently hiking the 2,160 mile Appalachian Trail. Jacques, with his son George, set off on this journey this past May, starting in Maine and will finish in mid December in Georgia. So far, they are both doing well and are on schedule.

Jacques d'Amboise, (click here to read Jacques bio ) former principal ballet dancer of the New York City Ballet and founder of the National Dance Institute (NDI) is fulfilling a personal life-long dream in hiking the Appalachian Trail- a dream he has held for 50 years. Jacques, who turned 65 this year, has other big dreams too. He wants to be able to develop and train more teachers so that more communities across America can benefit by in-school arts programs like National Dance Institute (www.nationaldance.org). He decided to blend the two dreams together and the result is NDI Step by Step, a campaign to focus public attention on the critical importance of providing quality arts education for all children and fundraising, specifically to build NDI into a truly national program.

NDI Step by Step is made up of:

• Off Trail Events, 38 stops in all, where Jacques teaches the Trail Dance in local communities. Read about these events online (select the Events option from any page).
  
• Step by Step website, containing all information relating to this campaign and the new educational enhancement
  
• The Appalachian Trail Dance, a lively jig Jacques created for this trek, available on a how-to-video so you can learn the dance and teach others, and
  
• Join the Journey, grassroots fundraising with supporters pledging a penny, dime, dollar per mile for the entire trail or for the miles in their state.
  

In building this enhancement, we wanted to deliver a site that was easy for teachers and students to use, that was engaging for younger students, is informative and a focused WWW resource from which to learn about animals on the Appalachian Trail. The content on the site targets three different levels (grades K-1; 2-3; 4-5) and by linking in Jacques' weekly Tales from the Trails, offer them a "real-world" reason to read, write and do research as they follow his adventures. The site contains teacher resources with worksheets and lessons; printable activities, online learning games and access to a database of animals found along the Appalachian Trail for each of the three reading levels. In addition, we also provide information on Kids Making Change for the Arts, a totally volunteer program which lets school children participate in fundraising for NDI Step by Step and learning the Trail Dance so that they can spread the joy dancing in their communities.

We hope you like what you see here and will choose to incorporate this resource into your classroom. Please take a few minutes to fill out the registration form. You will not have to log in to use the site, nor are you under any obligation. We would just appreciate knowing who is using the site. Thanks!

Back to Top

Prep Work

Before you begin using this site, you should familiarize yourself with the features available. From the url: www.ndi4all.org, you arrive at the main page which offers the following options:
 

Feature	Description
Events	Lists all Off Trail Events where Jacques stopped or is planning to stop to teach the Trail Dance
Tales	Displays the current Tale from the Trail and links to previous tales. Tales which involve animals are clearly marked (look for a ) and link to information in the database.
Join the Journey	Ability to make a donation to NDI online or print out the form to mail in pledges
Appalachian Trail Dance and Song	Provides a video clip from the How to Learn the Appalachian Trail Dance and the download of the song, Youpe, Youpe
Education	Contains the database, glossary, online games, printable games, teacher worksheets, and other information to use this resource with children grades K-5
About Step by Step	Provides information on the purpose of the campaign, Jacques bio, our wonderful sponsors and other related info
Contact Us	Ability for you to send a message to NDI Step by Step
In The News	Access to selected news articles about Step by Step and Jacques hike through the Appalachian Trail

In order to access and use certain parts of the Education section, you will need to download two plug ins. Both are free and available from the GAMES option, from the Education menu page. We suggest that you download these programs before you start using the site so that you are not wasting teaching time waiting for the downloads to complete. See Setting Up for Online Games for more details.

Once you have completed the downloads, you may want to print out the learning activities in advance so that you can review them and make copies for the children. We will be adding additional printable activities for each of the three reading levels every 4 weeks through January 2000.

Back to Top

Setting Up for Online Games & Printable Activities

Downloading Programs for Online Games & Printables (off line activities)

There are two programs that are needed to view and print the games. Both are free and available from this site. If you do not have these players on the PC, the games will not work. You can check before downloading the files by selecting any of the online games and/or printables to see if they work.

For online games, you'll need to install Macromedia's Authorware Web Player. The following are the steps in loading the player on a computer.

• From the GAMES page, in the Education section, click on the option "Get Authorware Web Player". You are then linked to MACROMEDIA's site, directly to their Download Center.
  
• If your PC is Windows 95/98/NT you can choose the "Download Now" option. If your PC is Windows 3.1 or MAC, select the option "Need a Different Web Player" to choose the appropriate version.
  
• Make sure you jot down the name of the file and the folder where the program is being copied. After the file is transferred to the PC, quit your browser and double-click the setup program you just downloaded.
  
• To complete the installation, read and respond to the dialog boxes presented during the setup process.
  

Your computer should now be ready to play the online games.

For all other downloads, you'll need Adobe's Acrobat Reader version 4.0:

• From the GAMES page, in the Education section, click on the option "Get Acrobat Reader". You are then linked to ADOBE's site, directly to the page to Download the FREE Acrobat Reader.
  
• Follow the instructions on screen to select the Language, Platform (e.g. WIN 95) and location (closest Adobe server to get the file). You will also need to provide a name and email address. There are check off boxes if you want to be notified about Adobe software and if you want others to send you special offers.
  
• Click on "Download" to begin copying the file to the PC (make a note of the folder and filename where the program was transferred).
  
• After the download is complete, double-click on the newly downloaded file and follow the instructions.

Your computer should now be ready to view any of printable games and other downloads on this site.

NOTE: If the computers are on a network, check with your PC support person before downloading these files. There may be a shared folder, which both these programs can go to versus downloading individually to each machine. Otherwise, get ready to spend a little time downloading both programs to each machine. The process is fairly straightforward and the time involved comes down to modem speed.

Back to Top

Search the Database

• As in all searches, spelling does matter.
  
• Searches can be made on a single word or multiple words. Type one word or as many words as you would like to search all the animal pages containing those words.

Examples:

If you want to find a moose, type moose. This will find the moose page.

Do you want to find a bird? Type bird. This will find a lot of pages because there are a lot of birds! You can pick the bird you want from the list.

Search For: bird OR mammal - This will find all animal pages that contain the words bird or mammal. There will be a lot of pages! But that's okay because you can choose which animals you want to learn about from the list. You can also search for bird and mammal; the result will be animal pages that contain both these words.

Back to Top

Links with Other Sites

In the level 3 database, there are links to other web sites for more information. We have done our best to check that these links are still active. However, the WWW is a dynamic place and what was once available, could be moved or gone. If you come across a link that is no longer working, we would appreciate an email letting us know.

If you get a Server Busy or Try Again Later message, treat it like a busy signal and just try again later. Most likely, that site is simply experiencing heavy traffic.

If you get a DNS error or Error 404 message, it means the site you're looking for is not where the link says it is.

A DNS error means the site you are looking for can't be found. This message can appear if the site host is working on their computers and are temporarily down for repairs. Be sure to check back at another time to see if this is still the case.

Error 404 means the server that is supposed to be hosting the site can't be found or it can't find the link based on the address. The site was once there but has been removed, most likely for good.

Back to Top

Browser Support

We have tested this site under multiple platforms. However, it is best viewed with MS Internet Explorer 4.0 and higher and Netscape 4.0 and higher.

If you are experiencing problems in viewing portions of the site, we recommend that you upgrade your browser to the latest versions available.

Back to Top