SPECTRUM LESSONS

Mike Edmunds administers a gold star or rap on the knuckles to a mixed bag of Educational Software

Almost everyone in the field of education, and beyond, must have, by now, accepted the fact that the computer has served its period of apprenticeship within the school. It has, for the most part, found an acceptable and valuable role within the school curriculum.

Although this statement may be challenged by many, it is nonetheless obvious that the computer is destined to become an even more integral part of our children's education in the future and, though not all of us may like it, as teachers and parents we have an obligation to see that its full potential is realised.

Educationally the computer is, at the very least, the equivalent of an "electronic wordcard" and can be thought of as a valuable resource to sit alongside the Maths equipment and the reference books.

From the early days (it is really only 2 years since the DOI package?) when there was a mad scramble for any software that could remotely be labeled as 'educational' we have, thankfully, become more discerning, and parents and teachers alike now look carefully to decide whether or not a particular program really fulfills a need.

The criteria by which we can judge a particular program are many and varied, but essentially there is now a more enlightened attitude about what constitutes quality software. The standard of educational programs has in creased tremendously in what is really a very short time the user can now afford to be choosy. The content of programs must increasingly be adaptable and of tasting value, able to offer an ever widening range of experiences.

That is not of course, to ignore totally the ever present 'drill and practice' programs which still have their uses, but nowadays a program must be seen to be of 'real' value to earn its place in an educational context.

The batch of programs under review this issue appear to cover a wide area of interest but not all live up to the high standards which teachers and parents alike have a right to expect from 'educational software'.

Michael Orwin will be well known for many of his games compendiums. Here, he tries his hand at Educational Compendium 1.

This has been available for about a year now and, on the whole, can be recommended. There are 16K and 48K programs on the same tape, the 48K program being an enhanced version of one of the 16K programs.

The first side provides nothing that is not also available elsewhere, but all the games have a nice feel about them... Equivaders is where you fire "correct' signs at alien equations and Reveal is a very elaborate form of cloze procedure (essentially a difficult type of Hangman), where you can buy all occurrences of a letter or predict where a certain letter will appear. One point here is that, if you use a monitor, the placement cursor disappears... but on a television set the problem is not noticeable!

There are 20 different texts stored on the tape for this program and there is also an option to create your own. Fairly comprehensive, if not entirely original.

The second side has variations of turtle graphics, more commonly recognised as Logo language which allows quite complex drawing of patterns and geometric shapes on screen. Tortmaze and Tortrail are games to introduce you to the procedures that you will encounter in the tortoise graphic program proper. This is quite versatile and provides all the options of the real Logo, including the storage of your own procedures (here called macros).

The biggest problem with the whole program however lies with these macros. I wanted to see the procedure which drew a "street" so I "called it up" and waited... and waited... and went and had tea, and wailed. As you have guessed, it is very SLOW. Maybe there was a way of speeding it up but I couldn't find it. Apart from the macros the whole program works beautifully.

The programs in this compendium work, are well designed and quite good fun. If you also want the advantage of a cheap version of Logo (Sinclair's being around £30) then look no further. Nine programs for £6 is worthwhile. Available from Orwin Software, 26 Brownlow Road, London NW10 9QL.