Introduction

Moles is a program to develop mouse control and assist with simple counting. In all of the activities, moles pop up from their holes and have to be dealt with (in one way or another) before they disappear. Five ways of using the mouse are covered and are represented by symbols:

If you are using either of the two drag-and-drop options, note that the moles have to be placed in deckchairs starting at the far left and moving towards the right. You can set up the program to work with:

Pressing CONTROL + F1 at the menu screen will open the About box where a serial number can be entered or modified.

Pressing CONTROL + F2 at the menu screen will open up the Configurations editor where the setups are defined.

Your Configurations

Up to six Configurations are shown on the menu page. These setups are indicated by the nature symbols (flower, bee, bird, worm, toadstool and snail) placed on six backgrounds of different colours. In addition to the nature symbols there are icons to summarise what each activity requires. For example, a single arrow and an egg-timer indicates the Timer Game using a single-click mouse action.

There are many ways in which Moles can be used to enliven counting activities and to develop both speed and accuracy in the use of the mouse.

Teacher keyboard shortcuts

Press ESCAPE to go up a level to the title screen and again to close the program.

The Configurations Editor

The Editor (CONTROL + F2) allows you to create just the setups you need for different children at different stages of development. You can create up to six setups combining the various features of Moles. Click on a symbol to see the current setup.

From the list on the right, select the action on which you wish to focus. You will see that you can also switch sound on and off and adjust the animation speed.

A key feature of mouse control is double-clicking. This can be a difficult task to master for children who don't have full control over fine motor skills. The Double-click slider becomes active if you choose to practise double-clicking. Move the slider to the right to give children as much time as they need and to the left to use the default double-click speed of your computer.

Decide whether to play the Count Game or the Timer Game.

Count Game

Choose how many molehills to start with. The number is increased as the game progresses. You can also opt to have the molehill covered with grass after being hit: this removes one uncertainty about where the next mole will appear. The mole counter can either be shown as a separate number at the top right of the screen or above the moles as they line up at the top of the screen. The interval between mole appearances can be adjusted using the slider.

Timer Game

In this activity, the speed of the worm (which determines the amount of time allowed to complete the game) can be adjusted.

Languages

This program is in our Talk·2·Talk range which gives the user exposure to two languages in parallel. This option only appears if one or more additional languages have been installed; teachers have the option of using any two. Contact Resource Education or your usual supplier for details.

If you have purchased additional languages, put the Languages CD in the drive and press CONTROL + F3 from the main menu screen and follow the on-screen instructions.

When the installation is finished, open the Configuration editor (CONTROL + F2) to see the additional features shown at the bottom of the panel.

Title screen language

This sets the language that the program starts in. You can choose from any installed language.

First language

In each of the six Configurations, you can choose which language will be presented to the user as the First language. Any text on the screen and all recorded speech is then in this language.

Second language

There is an optional Second language which will repeat any spoken phrases in another tongue, rather like a simultaneous translation.

Any spoken words will be heard initially in the First language, followed by the same expression in the Second language.

Choose None for single-language use.

The Talk·2·Talk system we have devised can support up to 40 different languages, giving teachers the opportunity to develop skills in both modern foreign languages (MFL) and English as an additional language (EAL/E2L) by immersive means.

There are several areas in which this approach will be useful:

For details of the language sets that are available, see our dedicated website: www.talk-2-talk.com