Stars & Stories

Reviewer: John Rust (Teacher)
St. Malachy's Boys' School
Dundalk, Ireland
EMail: jrust.ias@tinet.ie

Software: Stars & Stories
Wildridge Software Inc.
http://www.wildridge.com/
Minimum System Requirements:
Windows: 3.1 or higher. Windows 95 recommended. 486 Processor, 16Mb RAM, 5Mb free hard drive space to run from the CD, 8 bit 256 colour display, with a minimum screen resolution of 800 x 600, 2x CD-ROM drive, 16 bit sound card.
Macintosh: Power PC, 66 Mhz 601 processor and hardware requirements as listed above.
Options: Modem, printer.
The program was reviewed on a 350 Mhz multimedia PC with 128 Mb of RAM, 32x speed CD-ROM.
Date reviewed: 10th February 1999
List price: $89.95 for a single CD. Prices are available for Lab-packs and Site Licences.
Is this a 'Way Cool' program? Absolutely! This program deserves a place in every school's software library. A well deserved 10 out of 10. Way Cool!

Stars & Stories is a narrated multimedia program dealing with astronomy. It also explores the links between astronomy and mathematical topics such as Angles, Trigonometry, Scientific notation and much, much more.

The program presents each topic in an interesting and relatively easy to follow multimedia presentation. The user interface is smooth and delightfully simple to use. Graphics and animations are sharp on an uncluttered screen. Each presentation also has an accompanying 'Challenge Test' and the scores of each student using the program are recorded; the teacher can inspect these at a later time.

My class of bright, 12-13 year olds found it very interesting and informative. While they understood quite a lot of the topics they did suggest that it might be more suited to an older age group. This has more to do with the structure of our Maths Curriculum where some of the topics covered in the program have not yet being introduced to the pupils, rather than any problem with the program itself.

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