One significant change: you no longer need to register in order to access the downloadable materials. In fact, for technical reasons (which are outlined below if you are interested), all login information from our previous version has been deleted. Those who wish to remain members will need to register again.

Users can now submit suggestions for useful reference links. If you have found a particularly good—and reliable—site for information about a particular world explorer, you can send it to us on our submission page.

We have also taken this opportunity to clean up a few errors that we found, and to update and complete some of the content that had been “under construction” for longer than we would have liked. Most specifically, there are a few items in the Webquest which should now be more useful to teachers and students.

For the technical-minded among you, this site has been built on the Drupal platform for many years. While we still greatly appreciate the power and usability of that product, the maintenance and update process was complex, and it led to problems with outdated modules and security problems. Managing spam was also becoming more of an issue, as many of you found in some inappropriate comments on student pages.

We have always been a fan and happy user of WordPress for several other projects. For a long time, however, it would have been difficult to build a site like All About Explorers on that platform. The most recent updates, as well as the availability of more flexible themes and some powerful plugins (such as PodsCMS) convinced us to make the leap.

We hope you will find the new version of All About Explorers even more useful and easier to navigate. If you do happen to find a few glitches, some content that is out of place, or missing resources, don’t hesitate to contact us and let us know. Likewise, if you have suggestions for improving the site or features you would like to see, we are always looking for feedback.

Feel free to contact us if you have questions or problems, or if something seems to have disappeared. We’ll do our best to correct the problem as soon as possible.

Now we need your help!

Although we have an enormous team of full-time professional designers and web developers…. Whoa, I got carried away there. I thought for a minute I was writing another one of our explorer bios. Let me try that again….

Since our team is small—two people, in fact, both of whom have “real jobs”—it is a certainty that there are things that we haven’t gotten right yet. In the redesign and transfer of content, we probably missed something or messed something up, and though we have caught a large number of glitches already, we could use your help tracking them all down.

Below are a few specific things that we’d like you check out, but please don’t feel limited by this list. Take the new ship out for a spin around the bay, test the sails, kick the rudder, poke around in the galley and the crew quarters, even. Let us know what you find and what suggestions you have for making it better.

• So far we have tested the site on only a few specific computer/browser configurations. We need people to try it out on many more systems so we can make it as accessible as possible to everyone. If you’re sending us a bug report, please tell us your operating system, browser, and version numbers so we can track down the problem. I promise we won’t use the information for anything nefarious! We’re All About Explorers, not All About Pirates! (Though that’s a cool idea for another website….)
• A major new feature is the ability to register at the site. Registered users have exclusive access to certain features and content, and we expect this to grow in the future. Registration is free, of course. If you’re concerned about how we will use your personal information, check out our privacy policy first.
• We have also added user forums as an experimental feature for registered users. We envision using these for communication with our users, tech support, and user-submitted ideas and suggestions. Try them out, post some test topics or comments, and see how it works. While we are in beta, please be aware we may need to delete user content from time to time in order to fix problems.
• Currently all of the content at our main site should be present here on the beta site with the exception of the webquest. That content is being moved and should be available within the next few weeks (and hopefully much sooner). If you discover something that we’ve missed, please let us know so we can get it transferred.

Your help is essential! We also welcome your suggestions for new content, reorganizing the site, and lesson plan ideas. Please submit your ideas in one of the forums, or share it with us through the web site contact form. We look forward to exploring with you!

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