Quickdex Easy! S.P.A.M SimpleCard Note Back

Interactive media present some outstanding opportunities for teachers of students, or parents of children, who understand how to use computers, can do some keyboarding or are willing to hunt and peck. And these two are free or inexpensive. Educators have ignored some of this material because some of it is associated with computer gaming and because early versions of this kind of material had a fairly high learning curve. Both programs mentioned here can be learned in a very short time by students or teachers with basic computer skills. They can be used in one computer classroom situations or in labs as well. It would be most useful with fourth grade (maybe fifth) and older students. Both programs include complete instructions. You and your students supply the ideas! If you're willing to let your students create a game, especially with S.P.A.M. (Single Player Adventure for the Macintosh) by Sean Logan, you'll be amazed at the amount of reading and writing they do with enthusiasm. While S.P.A.M. is intended to be a game creation and player program, it can be used to create interactive tours, reviews and other learning experiences. It could be an excellent teachers tool as well as a student program. One of the reasons I like S.P.A.M. and your students may not be as fond of it is that it is a text only program. One reason interactive games aren't as useful for educational purposes as they might be is the use of illustrations which often distract from reading. S.P.A.M. is all text, simple to use and free. (The programmer calls this "ecoware" and does ask that you make a $5 donation to an organization which works to protect the environement.) Any word processor can be used to create the games. Here's some comments from the "Read Me" accompanying the game: "This game is unlike any text adventure you've seen before. Rather than being a single game, S.P.A.M. allows you to play different game moduals for infinite fun! Each game modual is a complete adventure created by someone. All you do put the game module in the same folder as S.P.A.M. Then when you launch S.P.A.M., volau--it uses the information in the modual to make a game! Once you've played that one until you've won or are bored, rather than going out and getting a whole new game, just get another modual." I've collected a number of moduals and have included them in the package with S.P.A.M. Download it by clicking on these words. This is a bin-hexed, self-extracting file which isn't password protected. However you may need to use Stuffit Expander to extract it. Go to our "Tools" page for a link. Unfortunately, I've not yet found a similar program for Windows machines, although I've only started looking in the last few months. If you know of one, please email the information! Another, less flexible approach to creating interactive material is SimpleCard by Niclas Frykolm (shareware, $5). It is a very basic copy of HyperCard. It doesn't even have paint tools, but does allow paint or pict files to be pasted into the program. Even text has to be created with a separate program and pasted into the program. It is very easy to learn to use and may be a good introduction to creating illustrated interactive material with the same group. Download it by clicking on these words. Note that both of these programs rely on "databases" or are "databases" of sorts as is HyperCard. Keep that in mind for future projects which will appear here. Note: This project is included here as a sample of some of the kinds of material we include in our subscription publication Teachers Mac. The files mentioned aren't encoded and can be downloaded and used by anyone with a Macintosh. click here to EMAIL US! at charlie938@aol.com Or write us at SchoolHouse Mac, 5236 Coats Grove Rd, Hastings, MI 49058 Ask for our free catalog! Back to Teachers Mac Last updated on Oct 16, 1997 Copyright 1997 by SchoolHouse Mac