Worldguru Academy consists of 4 core levels stacked like a pyramid because of the increasing pages a level contains as you move down from the top:
1). The top level is the Home Page. This is where you select the Continent that contains a region you wish to study. If you know your way around the world, any country is only 3 quick clicks away from this page. This is the easiest way to get to places on Worldguru Academy when you know your way around. Don't worry if you don't yet know your way around, because 1). Scrolling to the bottom of the Home page you will find a link to an Alphabetical List of all the world's sovereign countries. Clicking on a country in this list will take you to Worldguru Academy's Country Resource Page for the clicked country. And 2). As you work through Worldguru Academy's regions learning their countries in sequence you will soon feel quite at home as if the world is your backyard.
2). The 2nd Level contains the 6 continent pages. Each page portrays a continent divided into its regions. Click on a region and the region page will open. Technically Oceania is not a continent, however for the sake of expediency Worldguru Academy treats Oceania as if it is a continent.
3). The 3rd Level contains 41 region pages. This is the most important level if your main interest is learning all the world's countries. The largest regions only have 7 countries, and out of Worldguru Academy's 41 regions there are only 4 regions with the max number of 7 countries. For best results you should set a goal of learning only one region at a time, and learning the regions in sequencial order. Clicking on a country's flag found on its region page or clicking on a country's name found on the regional map will take you to that country's resource page.
4). The 4th Level contains 196 country resource pages. If you want to learn more about a country, this is the place to go. Each country resource page contains 6 external links to useful sites where more information can be obtained. External links open in their own tab, so you can simply close the page and return to where you were on Worldguru Academy.
Worldguru Academy is designed to scale whether you are on a smart phone, tablet, laptop, or a desktop computer. So, you can conveniently use Worldguru Academy practically anywhere you have a spare moment.
Worldguru Academy's Home Page...
All of the Core Levels below the top level have a link labeled "Home" that will take you back to this page.
From this Home page:
Scrolling to the bottom of the home page is a link: to an alphabetical list of all the sovereign countries.
Clicking on a country's name in the list will take you to that country's resource page.
This is were site navigation begins!
THE PRIMARY PURPOSE OF THE HOME PAGE IS SIMPLY TO PROVIDE A MEANS TO NAVIGATE TO ANY ONE OF THE SIX CONTINENT PAGES!
This is Worldguru Academy's typical Continent page of which there are a total of 6 that make up Worldguru Academy's Level 2. Technically, Oceania is not a continent however for the sake of expediency it is used as one to access all the countries it contains.
At the top of each continent page is a banner image that represents its continent. On the left side of each continent page is a location globe representing where the continent resides in the world. At the far right of the banner image is a smaller globe that represents the next continent along Worldguru Academy's route through the world. This smaller globe is clickable and will increase in size whenever you mouse over it. The next continent globe also has the Number 1 tab index spot for those who like using the keyboard. This lets you quickly navigate from one continent to the next by simply pressing and releasing the TAB key followed by pressing the ENTER key. If you happen to be heavy handed and hold the TAB key down too long, you will cycle through all the TAB indexes.
Worldguru Academy is designed to move forward, so if you want to go back from one continent to the one you just left you need to use your browser's BACK key or corresponding keyboard keys. Alternately, you can also use the HOME button to return to Worldguru Academy's top level where you can select the continent you want.
The HOME button is always the first button in the Horizontal Menu that lies immediately below each page's banner image. The Continent pages have only three buttons in their horizontal menus. The HOME button, the REGIONS button, and the Quiz Button.
1). The HOME button take you home to Worldguru Academy's top level where continent selections are made.
2). The REGIONS button causes a dropdown list of all the continent's regions to appear. Clicking on any region in the list takes you to that region's page in Worldguru Academy's 3rd Level.
Oceania's region list that appears when the region button is moused over is shown on the left side of this post's accompanying image. In actual use the list drops down just below it's button.
3). The QUIZ button causes a dropdown list of all the quizzes available for the page to appear just below the button. This list is shown on this post's accompanying image on the right side of the picture.
Quizzes are very important in the learning process, testing you, and giving you confidence as you do well with them.
Worldguru Academy's advantage over sites that only quiz you is Worldguru Academy's organized and purposeful process designed to get you to where you can easily ace the quizzes found on these other sites covering the same material without having to stumble your way to success.
Each continent quiz is considerably longer than the quizzes found on the region pages. The largest continent, Africa, has a total of 54 countries while the smallest continent, South America, has a total of 12 countries. The maximum region size is only 7 countries. If you are new to learning world countries and capitals, it is recommended that you master each of a continent's region quizzes before attempting any of the continent quizzes. However, if you are simply curious or already know a continent fairly well you are free to do as you please and try any quiz you want.
Due to their length the continent quizzes do not offer any multiple choice quizzes like the region quizzes do.
FINALLY, each continent page has an interactive SVG map of the continent that displays how the continent's regions intertwine with each other. These regions are numbered showing how Worldguru Academy's route progresses through the continent. Along with the number, each region is also labeled with its name. Clicking on a region's name will also take you to that region's page just like using the region dropdown list from the horizontal menu.
You can use this link: http://localhost/~david/worldGuru/Academy/v3/continents/?c=Oceania to try out the continent pages features.
ADDITIONALLY:
The main purpose of Worldguru Academy is to assist you in learning the world's countries and capitals. As such, some of you may notice some discrepancies between some world regions you may be familiar with and Worldguru Academy's regions, e.g. what is really the Heart of Africa? Worldguru Academy's regions are designed to help you learn Worldguru Academy's unique route through the world as you travel from country to country thus facilitating your learning the world's countries and capitals. So, some concessions have been made such as Malta which is considered to be one of Europe's micro countries is also an island nation and as such is included in Worldguru Academy's European Island Nations region. Likewise, Russia is a European country yet it has a huge Asian footprint and as such lends itself to be included in an Asian region rather than a European region. Don't let regional nuances distract you. Focus on the goal of learning all the world's countries and capitals first, then if you have a need or desire to be more exacting with regional definitions you can pursue that as you please. But, as this line from Wikipedia illustrates: "The comprehension of the concept of Central Europe is an ongoing source of controversy" regions are far from being as cut and dry as countries and capitals.
Oceania is Worldguru Academy's first continent and we start our journey by dropping into seemingly the middle of nowhere, so the entry into Oceania is represented by a parachute. The other continents have an entry arrow indicating where Worldguru Academy's route left the previous continent and enters the current continent. There is a corresponding exit arrow showing where Worldguru Academy's route leaves the current continent and enters the next continent. These entry arrows and exit arrows are meant to help provide a distinctive image in your mind thus assisting you in learning Worldguru Academy's route thru the world. Each exit arrow is also clickable. When clicked the next continent's page opens.
SVG maps offer a significant advantage over raster graphics for several reasons. However, one potential drawback to using SVG maps is that some can be fairly large, so anyone with a slow internet connection may be unhappy with the time it initially takes a page to load. Worldguru Academy uses page caching to help mitigate this problem and provide a more pleasant user experience after an initial page load as you navigate through Worldguru Academy's pages on your way to world mastery.
This concludes the missing manual for Worldguru Academy's continent pages. Next, we will take a closer look at the most important pages for those whose main interest is learning the world's countries, capitals, and flags: Worldguru Academy's Region Pages!
THE PRIMARY PURPOSE OF THE CONTINENT PAGES IS SIMPLY TO PROVIDE A MEANS TO NAVIGATE TO ANY ONE OF THE CONTINENT'S REGIONAL PAGES!
The 3rd Level containing Worldguru Academy's 41 Region Pages is the heart and soul for learning all the world's countries and capitals in a meaningful order.
The Region Pages are your most important pages for achieving the goal of learning all the world's countries and capitals, and is where you should spend the most time on your journey to World mastery.
Worldguru Academy's regions are specifically designed to aid your memory in the learning process by associating countries with a common quality.
For instance, in this post's accompanying image are all of the countries whose name ends in S - T - A - N. The "STAN" countries lend themselves very nicely to a regional grouping called "The Stans".
There are 7 countries that end in STAN, which is the largest sized region you will encounter at Worldguru Academy.
Worldguru Academy only has 4 regions out of the 41 that have the max total of 7 countries:
They are:
The secret to successfully completing your journey of learning all the world's countries and capitals is to just tackle only one manageably sized region at a time. Working through Worldguru Academy's regions in sequential order will prepare you to be able to travel through the world from country to country solely in your mind without reference to any list or map.
There are 8 key elements to the Region page that you need to be familiar with to be able to enjoy maximum utilization of all this page has to offer:
Clicking on a country's name on the regional map the 2nd method of three that will open its country's resource page.
Clicking this arrow takes you to the next region along Worldguru Academy's sequence of regions.
This "Next Region" arrow actually has two locations on the page for convenience.
A second "Next Region" arrow is located at the bottom of the study section allowing you to go from Region to Region after scrolling to the bottom of this study list without having to drag the mouse cursor all the way to the top right corner. This is particularly useful for the times you are reviewing multiple regions you have already learned.
The "Next Region" arrow has the number 1 Tab index location on this page, so you can easily use the TAB ENTER keys to move from one region to the next in sequence. (As described in the "Continent Page" post: press and release the TAB key, then press the ENTER key). This is a very useful feature when you want to quickly review all or any portion of Worldguru Academy's route through the world.
Clicking the Continent Locator will take you to the continent page that the region belongs to.
This HOME button is always located first in the horizontal menu.
Clicking the HOME button will take you to the Home page at Worldguru Academy's top level where you can easily select whichever continent you wish to go to.
This is a very important link especially when you are learning countries and capitals for the very first time and want to know their correct pronunciation.
Clicking the How J Say Button throws all of the Regions Country and Capital names into a queue that show up in a list on the How J Say page.
When you mouse over and hover on any of the names, How J Say verbally pronounces the name of the Country or Capital.
If How J Say does not have a name in their database, Worldguru Academy provides an alternate link like the one provided for Palau's capital: Ngerulmud in the Study Section, so you don't have to search for the pronunciation elsewhere.
Remember! The region pages are Worldguru Academy's most important pages for those whose main purpose is learning the world's countries and capitals.
1). First use the study section to peruse the country and capital names.
2). Then scrutinize the region's map taking in how the countries fit together in the order that the study section presents them.
If you want a closer look at any particular country, click the country's name on the map, or click the country's flag in the study section, or use the horizontal menu button labeled "Countries" to transport yourself to the country's resource page. The country page will be covered in the next post.
3). Then use the HowJsay website to hear the correct pronunciation if you have any doubt.
NOTE: All external links open in their own tab so that when you are through with them, simply closing their window returns you back to the Worldguru Academy page you accessed the external page from.
4). Finally, use the quizzes to reinforce your learning.
Simply studying without quizzing yourself is like riding in the passenger seat when going somewhere for the first time. Working through the quizzes puts you into the driver's seat where most drivers, if not all, have learned causes you to really learn a route.
You can use this link: https://www.worldguru.academy/v3/Regions/?region=r7 to explore the features discussed in this post and give yourself a challenge to see if you can learn all of the "Stan" countries and their capitals.
Even if you are not interested in learning the whole world, Worldguru Academy lets you easily go to and focus on that section of the world that interests you.
If you want an easy challenge that doesn't require the effort and time learning the whole world or a large continent like Africa with its 54 countries divided among 12 regions, Try learning the smallest continent South America which only has 12 countries divided among 4 regions. NOTE: Australia which is technically the smallest continent also happens to be a sole country in its entirety. Since Australia does not have multiple countries that reside upon it, it has been included with the Polynesia countries for the sake of expediency.
Or, if you are ready to start devouring the whole enchilada and have no particular area of the world that presents you with a more driving interest, parachute into Oceania's small island nation of Palau located in Worldguru Academy's first region and begin at the start of Worldguru Academy's unique route through the world designed help those who take the challenge be able to flawlessly travel through the world and ace quizzes like this:
NOTE: both quizzes are timed so you really have to be up to speed with your typing, AND you need a good route to follow in your mind where you don't have to waste time thinking about where to go next. Worldguru Academy can give you this ability with just a little bit of effort.
This concludes Worldguru Academy's Typical Region Page. Next we will take a closer look at the "Country Resource Page".
Worldguru Academy's 4th Level contains 196 Country Pages which are an extra resource for those who want or need more information on a particular country. Sure, all the external links on this page are freely available on the internet. But, Worldguru Academy makes them all easily and conveniently available from one location with the cynosure country in mind!
At the heart of each country page is a Worldguru Academy customized SVG country map. The cynosure country is always shown in bright yellow. The primary purpose of this map is to better show how a country is situated in its corner of the world in more detail than the regional maps depict. For instance each country's capital location is shown more prominently and clearly labeled with its name. Occasionally, a country map also has a hover map that appears whenever the mouse cursor is moved over a map. Hover maps are used whenever a significant aspect of the country cannot be displayed by the main map. Palau is one such country that uses a hover map. For those using a tablet or smart phone with a touch screen getting the hover map to appear is a little trickier. On my devices I have to gently place two fingers close together on the map and spread them to cause the hover map to appear. Each country map is also a clickable link described below. This causes no problem on devices with a mouse cursor or when there is no hover map, but occasionally on touch screen devices when trying to cause the hover map to appear the two finger spread is registered as a click opening the linked site. This is an external link that opens in its own window, so simply closing that window returns you to the country page.
The large red numbers on this post's accompanying image are all links to external websites providing more information about the country.
In the top right corner of the page the big red #1 is a location globe showing how the country is situated in the world. Mousing over this globe enlarges it for better viewing and the cursor changes to indicate that it is clickable. This globe is always a link to Wikipedia's page for the country where all kinds of extra information about a country can be found.
The big red #2 is a horizontal menu bank of 5 links to the right of the ubiquitous HOME button that always starts the horizontal menu. The five buttons to the right of the home button are to the external websites their label denotes. All but the Google Maps button are duplicated and will be discussed when their alternate location is discussed as wikipedia was.
Google Maps is the only horizontal menu button to an external website that is not duplicated elsewhere on the country map page. Google maps is an excellent resource where an amazing amount of info can be gleaned about a location. If anyone is not familiar with Google Maps, you should definitely try this link and do a little exploring. If you are familiar with Google maps, you should try this link to see how the country of interest opens in Google Maps as the cynosure location. It will open in its own tab like all external links, so all you have to do is close the tab to get back to Worldguru Academy. Google maps has a plethora of features, e.g. satellite view, street view, etc. that I won't take the time to discuss since it is an external site outside of Worldguru Academy, however there is one cool feature that I do want to share for those who use GPS. Right clicking anywhere on a map produces a dropdown menu of which one menu item is "What's here?". Selecting "What's here" produces a card at the bottom of the map with the latitude and longitude coordinates of the location the right click was made. Whenever I am traveling to someplace I have never been, I usually recon the location on google maps first and acquire the coordinate location to place in my GPS instead of using the location's street address. If you have ever had a street address take you to a wrong location, you will be able to appreciate this method.
The big red #3 is the country's flag. Mousing over the flag shows you what external website you will open if you click the flag. This links you to the CIA's World Factbook. Occasionally the World Factbook and Wikipedia will not concur on the information they provide about a country, but both are an excellent resource for those wanting additional information about a country.
The big red #4 marks an image that is representative of the country in some manner. Mousing over this image will also reveal the external website that will open when clicked. Clicking this item will open the photography website "Trek Earth" where you can learn more about the country of interest through pictures. If a picture is truly worth a thousand words, this is the place to visit.
The big red #5 is a youTube video about the country that is embedded in the page.
The big red #6 is Worldguru Academy's customized SVG map discussed above. Clicking this map will open Wikitravel. If you are planning to travel to any country, Wikitravel is a great site to begin your research about the things you should know before going there.
This concludes the main external links found on Worldguru Academy's country resource pages. There are external links located among the attributions found on the page in small print that will be discussed in a future post.
Since each country and capital are clearly labeled on the country page map, tabbing thru the countries is also an alternative study method that lets you get a good view of the country's shape and the capital's name and location in the country. To quiz yourself you will have to use Level 3 the region pages for short and easy quizzes, or Level 2 the continent pages for longer harder quizzes. Each quiz also has a "nextQUIZ" button that appears whenever you select a quiz. This "nextQUIZ" allows you to conveniently continue quizzing yourself in sequence through all or as many regions you want. Likewise, you can go through all or as many continent quizzes as you want.
You can try Worldguru Academy's country page features out here: https://www.worldguru.academy/v3/Countries/?country=Egypt
This concludes Worldguru Academy's Typical Country Page. Next we will take a closer look at the "Country Resource Page".
Each regional page horizontal menu has a "Quiz" button at its end. Once a quiz type is chosen a "nextQUIZ" button appears at the right of the "Quiz" button and now takes the place as the end button.
The "nextQUIZ" button is a great feature after you have learned a few regions in sequence and simply want to take each of their quizzes to bolster what you have learned. When you complete a quiz clicking the nextQUIZ button will take you to the next region's quiz of similar type. Once you know the whole world, the nextQUIZ button is also a convenient way to refresh your knowledge as you go through the whole world without having to continually navigate to the next region and once again select the quiz type you want. The nextQUIZ button exists for your convenience.
When the horizontal menu Quiz button is moused over, a dropdown menu appears from which you select the type of quiz you want to take.
"Multiple Choice" is the top item on the list and due to how easy multiple choice quizzes are compared to fill in the blank, "Multiple Choice" should be your first choice especially if you are learning the world's capitals for the first time. Success with the multiple choice quizzes will bolster your confidence and prepare you for the fill-in-the-blank quizzes. When you can successfully complete the fill-in-the-blank quizzes you can be assured that you are ready to rock quizzes like Sporcle's "Can you name the countries of the world?" quiz where you type in all of the world's country names in a given time. Knowing Worldguru Academy's custom route through the world also helps with this quiz since all you have to do and focus on your typing as you move through the route in your mind. https://www.sporcle.com/games/g/world
At the top of each quiz is a "Go Back" arrow that will take you back to the normal study page when clicked. To select a capital, simply click its radio button which is the white dot immediately to the left of the capital's name you want to select.
When you have completed your selections for each country in the region, click the "Get score" button to see how you did. Wrong answers will turn red while correct answers will turn gold. This feature makes it real easy to see what you got right and what you got wrong without the need to peruse the "Correct answers" box.
You can then click "Clear ans" and try again if you want. This button only resets the radio buttons while still letting you see what you got right and what you got wrong previously. You can either refresh your page or reselect "Multiple Choice" from the Quiz dropdown list if you want the right and wrong colors to go away for a clean slate.
The "Country Quiz" shows a country's Capital name with a text box for you to type the capital's country name. These quizzes are also good practice for preparing to take a quiz like the Sporcle quiz mentioned above.
When "Get score" is clicked correct answers get a light green background while wrong answers get a pale red background giving you immediate feedback on your answers. Wrong answers also display the correct answer below the text box in red letters so you can easily compare where you you went wrong. This is particularly helpful when there is either a typo or a subtle spelling difference like the difference between Columbia and Colombia as show in the accompanying image.
Clicking the "Clear answers" button empties all of the text boxes and cause any corrected answers shown in red lettering to disappear. Once again, like the Multiple Choice quiz, if you want a fresh slate without the light green and red background colors you can either select the same quiz again from the dropdown menu or refresh your page.
The Capital Quiz works just like the country quiz except you are given the country name and expected to type the capital name.
It should also be noted that these fill-in-the-blank quizzes are case sensitive. If you fail to capitalize the first letter in a name, your answer will be marked wrong. Also, capitals like N'Djamena need to have both the N and the D capitalized and separated by an apostrophe.
The Flag Quiz shows a country's flag and expects you to type the flag's country's name.
Except for the multiple choice quiz, the continent pages have all the same quizzes in longer form.
The importance of quizzes can't be over emphasized for reinforcing your learning. Simply studying without doing the quizzes is like being a passenger when going to a place for the first time as opposed to being the driver and really learning the route. The quizzes put you in the drivers seat and help you obtain true mastery.