Paddington and the Disappearing Ink

Crash

Rosetta McLeod

CRASH COURSE By Rosetta McLeod SOMETHING FOR THE GROWN-UPS TOO If you are between the ages of 3 and 65. Crash Course this month has something for you! Usually in this column, the software under review is aimed at children and young people, but the two Collins Soft programs Entrepreneur and Numbers At Work are specifically directed at adults embarking on the business world. These are two in the Brainpower series of programs which offer the user the scope to learn and apply new skills. The adult market is an area which has not yet been fully explored by educational software producers, but the two programs reviewed here must surely set the standard for others to emulate. There must be a large number of learning situations applicable to adults, and the structured interactive approach of the Collins Soft packages, each of which contains a detailed textbook as well as the computer program, provides a thorough and comprehensive course. At last a publisher has succeeded in bringing out packages in which the computer and the textbook have complementary roles to play, and which are straight-forward and easy to follow. It will, of course, take the user quite some time to work through a package, but the major advantage is that each user can set the pace, and can choose the areas to concentrate on. The programs are constructed in such a way that it is easy to see explanations again and again if need be, or to 'turn the page' to the next section. The facility for applying the knowledge learned to personal mathematical or business problems is particularly relevant, and the user can build up confidence through increased knowledge. I hope that other publishers will take note of, and learn from, these sophisticated packages! PADDINGTON AND THE DISAPPEARING INK Producer: Collins Educational Retail Price: £5.95 Age Range: Junior school pupils This pack contains a story book and 5 programs on the cassette. Paddington Bear is, of course, well-loved by young children, and they are also bound to enjoy some of the computer games. The first game, Letter, shows the player how to set out a simple letter. After being prompted to type in his or her name, a letter to the user from Paddington appears on the screen to give demonstrate the layout. The question 'Do you know what a paragraph is?' is then asked and if the response is 'No', the program highlights each paragraph with a block of colour. The child is then directed step by step towards writing a letter, inserting the home address first followed by the date. After choosing a salutation - Dear or Dearest ... It is time to type in the message, using ENTER to create new paragraphs. Yours sincerely, Love. See you or Best Wishes can be used to sign off, or the author can conclude with a personal greeting. The best thing about this program is that the child's letter can be printed out ready to be sent if a printer is attached to the computer. The second program, Type writer, begins with another letter from Paddington informing the player that this program can be used for instant thank you and having-a-good-time letters. Having typed in a home address and the date, the child is asked who the letter is to, and what the occasion is - Christmas, birthday or other if a thankyou letter is to be written. The child must then say what the gift was, and whether it was lovely, very nice, just what I wanted, beautiful, such a surprise , or super.' The instant letter than appears on the screen ready to he printed out if desired. The children I tried this out with, had tremendous fun with the program and were delighted with their print-outs. They also appreciated the humour of the final part of the program, where an amusing letter from Paddington to his aunt Lucy, full of mistakes, appears on the screen. I'm afraid that the remaining three games in the pack do not measure up to the quality of Letter and Typewriter. Posthaste involves moving Paddington around a street plan in order to get him to a postbox before the postvan empties it. We found that the game was almost impossible. Unless you beat the van to the first postbox you don't seem to be able to catch it up. Wordcheck was voted rather boring by the children. This time, the idea is to make as many words as possible out of the name Paddington. Three letter words score One point, while a word such as padding scores Five. Unfortunately, the game is extremely slow, and the accompanying sound is enough to drive you mad! The final program Peru is essentially a geography lesson about the countries of South America. A map of that area appears showing where Peru and Lima are, and then the player is presented with three options. If the Grand Tour is chosen, the computer fills in all the South American countries on the map, giving information on the capital of each, the language spoken, and the population. The One at a Time option allows the child to select from a country from a list of fourteen, while Quick Quiz poses questions on the information given in the Grand Tour. I found that children young enough to be interested in Paddington Bear, were too young for all this geographical information. All in all though, the package is well worth buying for the first two programs alone. COMMENTS Control Keys: the instructions regarding the control keys are simple and very easy to follow Keyboard play: very good except for Posthaste which is far too slow Use of graphics: extremely attractive Colour: clear and bright