Silver Hooks and Golden Sands an ‘Introduction to Poetry and Prose in English, 1360-1900’ by Mike Harrisson. (Headstrong Interactive)

Tel: 01484 660770
email: mike.h@headstrong.demon.co.uk

This CD ROM may not be as professionally produced as many on the market, but is a good clear presentation of excellent material. At its core is a collection of poems and extracts from novels and diaries from the past 600 years. It is organised rather like a web site: the user selects a prose extract or a poem to read, or listens to an audio recording. When a text is displayed on the screen, words marked in colour can be clicked to give definitions, further information about poetic devices or background, or even pictures. An audio control allows you to listen to the poem, to pause or rewind it. There is also an introduction to each writer. The texts may also be approached through themes, historical period or author, and this allows many different pathways through the material. Some of these are in the form of tutorials, well-constructed pages of activities which lead you clearly through aspects of poetry or language. These employ ‘drag and drop’ tasks which are self correcting. There are also a number of worksheets presented in a simple text format which can be printed out and used for activities based on the disc.

Technically, the program is unnecessarily complicated to set up: to include an Install or ‘auto-run’ facility would not have been difficult. Having to select files called SHGS_32.a5r tends to confirm people’s worst fears about computers. There are also one or two glitches in the program. A sound control panel from the help pages lingered confusingly on subsequent pages. I also found myself looking for a simple ‘back’ button (as on a web browser) to retrace my steps. Otherwise, however, I would recommend this disc wholeheartedly for upper Key Stage 2 or Key Stage 3 English. It is full of well-constructed educational content, and could provide a sound basis for many good English lessons - not something I could say about many CD ROMs!

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