As an English teacher, it is not often that you come across a piece of educational software that really exploits the medium. Too many are either engaging bits of edutainment or books on screen. The English Romantic Poets produced by Headstrong Interactive is a welcome exception. At £85, it provides a wealth of material - invaluable in any classroom.
Mike Harrison, its author, is a former English teacher, and it shows. The whole package has been designed with the classroom in mind. Not only does it provide interesting information on the biographies of the poets, the influences of the day and examples of their poetry, it also reproduces many high-quality graphics and illustrations.
We find examples of Blake's art, cartoons and caricatures, and photographs of locations. There is even a map of Europe on which you can trace the adventures of Byron and the walking tours of Keats.
All these are intelligently linked through hypertext. Click on, for example, the influences on Blake, and you are referred to sections on Shakespeare and Milton. Click on one of these texts and you find yourself reading the reviews of the contemporary critic Hazlitt. Never have I found browsing so informative. But what makes this CD-Rom particularly invaluable is that it acts more like a piece of software and is designed to be networked. This sets it apart from the majority of CD-Roms. Built into the package are sections where teachers can write tasks for groups of pupils. A whole class could be usefully employed looking at aspects of the Romantic period. They could then store their information, return next lesson and continue.
Headstrong Interactive's other offering, War Poets Of The Twentieth Century, priced at £75, is also excellent with the same quality of material and the same intelligence governing the pathways through the package. It also provides original manuscripts and has the additional benefit of readings by some of the poets, including Charles Causley.
When you see what can be done with IT, it seems a pity that so many makers simply produce Cole's Notes with games. Challenge Interactive Media's Romeo And Juliet describes itself as 'the first truly interactive Shakespeare study aid'. Yet it produces pre-digested, unchallenging notes on the characters, plot and theme, and tests the user by asking endless multiple choice questions of a purely factual nature: What happened next? Who said what to whom? The only interactive element seems to be shooting the correct answer out of the sky. While amusing at first, the novelty soon palls. It is not that such CD-Roms have no value; simply that they could be so much better.
Headstrong Interactive 01484 550770
