Clever Clogs - History Mystery

Crash

Rosetta McLeod

CRASH COURSE By Rosetta McLeod The rapidly expanding market in educational software is reflected by the sheer variety of programs now being issued. While not all of them strike me as as being of great educational value, it is nevertheless heartening to note that some publishers are now prepared to experiment with new ideas in this area. One of the most exciting concepts is the See Hear range of programs from Softie, Systems, which provide audio material for the user to listen to through headphones while watching the screen. Each See Hear package come complete with a connection lead for a standard 1/4 inch stereo headphone socket, and other,types of lead, suitable for personal stereos for instance, are also available from Softlee. Using a stereo cassette deck, the tape is loaded into the computer in the usual manner, and the user will hear the instructions for the program through the headphones while the tape is actually loading. This is achieved by recording the spoken word onto one of the two tracks on the stereo tape, and putting the program onto the other track. Although the concept of audio-visual presentation in education is not new, Softlee are probably the first company to bring the whole idea within the reach bf the ordinary home-computer-user. From a teacher's viewpoint, the See Hear programs seem to me to have an extremely useful role to play in our quickly-changing educational system. Over recent years, teachers of both primary and secondary school children have become increasingly aware of the importance of teaching listening and talking skills as well as those of reading and writing. Indeed, future exams may actually test levels of competence in all four of these skills. At present, there is a dearth of materials specifically designed for teaching and assessing listening skills, and it would be valuable if the See Hear concept could be extended to cover a variety of subject areas. Tony Lee of Softlee Systems is very interested in developing software with a strong educational content, and hopes to add languages other than French to his range of programs. Another novel program is Worldwise - Nuclear Weapons from the Richardson institute for Conflict and Peace Research at Lancaster university. This program is not available in the shops, and can only be obtained from Lancaster University. Although it is therefore unlikely that the program will achieve any real commercial success, it is nevertheless good to know that, at last, minority interests are being catered for in the field of educational software. It seems, however, that it is only the small publishers who are beginning to wake up to the needs of the large number of people involved in education. They are realising that educational software should not be directed solely at children involved in the traditional areas of learning, but at people of all ages who have a wide range of different educational interests, let's hope the larger publishers will soon follow suit. HISTORY IN MYSTERY Producer: Argus Press Software (Clever Cloggs Series) Memory Required: 48K Retail Price: £7.95 Age Range: 5 to 11 and over The aim of the five games in this package is to teach children about the Bible in an entertaining way by giving them the task of finding various Biblical treasures, such as Moses' basket, the Ten Commandments and Herod's Crown. A clue (a Bible reference) is given for each treasure. The first game, Easypeasia, involves only seven of the treasures and is intended to familiarise the player with the controls. After this, the games become progressively more difficult, building up to the final challenge, Plunderthunder, where the player has to race the evil Dr Plunderwerst to the treasures avoiding a variety of dangers on the way. The player is referred to the Today's English Version of the Bible, although a short summary of the Bible stories which occur in the game is supplied with the cassette. A teacher of Religious Education, who looked at the program for me, had some reservations about its use. He felt that the maps were a useful way of reinforcing the geography of the areas involved, though the inclusion of a world map would have been helpful for the child to see the position of the biblical lands in relation to his won country. He also thought that the game encouraged children to interpret the Bible literally, instead of increasing the awareness that it contains not only history but also myth, legend and parable. Nor does it consider the fact that the real function of Bible study is to help people learn more about themselves and the modern world they live in. The Good News Bible would probably have been a more suit able source of reference that the Today's English version. COMMENTS Control keys: move by using the arrow keys; L to see list of treasures, C for clues, D to find out if you have landed on a treasure Keyboard play: responsive Use of colour: good Graphics: mainly maps, but quite good