Babbage for Windows is an interactive software program designed to help pupils acquire information technology skills. The two-level program, “standard” for beginners and “plus” for the more experienced, is aimed at key stages 2 to 4. It can be used for cross-curricular work including the creation of spreadsheets for maths and databases for geography. The program comes with a pupils’ book, photocopiable worksheets and teachers’ guide.
Babbage for Windows runs on any networked or stand-alone PC with Windows 3.1 or 95. It costs Pounds 650 for a site licence and is available from Summerfield Publishing Limited, PO Box 16, Evesham, Worcestershire, WR11 4WN. Tel 01386 831642. E-mail 106031.2607@compuserve.com.
Twenty-four hour news, sport, entertainment, education and shopping is available on the Internet, brought to you by News International and BT and their “Intelligent Agent”, AJ. LineOne, hailed by the partnership as a “walled garden” of information and entertainment, offers on-line editions of News International titles including The Sun, The Times, The News of the World, The Sunday Times, regularly updated Sky News and Sky Sports.
Fans of the unexplained can call on Mystic Meg and Uri Geller who will materialise at www.LineOne.net to read horoscopes and guide subscribers through the world of the unexplained. They can choose lottery numbers with the random number generator and take advice on how to spend the winnings from LineOne “guide to personal finance”.
LineOne will run on Macintosh and 486 PCs. It is available on one month free trial which include 10 hours free access to LineOne and the Internet.
Price details (from Pounds 9.90 a month) and animated CD-Rom introduction to LineOne is available from 0800 111210.
Visitors to seven of the UK’s major museums can have an insight into each museum’s treasures and take part in seminars, lectures and demonstrations using a video-conferencing project called MuseNet.
Launched earlier this year by BT at the Science Museum as part of the Year of Engineering Success, the network allows visitors to any of the participating museums to access the others. For example, anyone vising London’s Science Museum tomorrow can see and hear Dr Sally Montgomery discuss feathers, beaks, claws, feet, jaws and clever plants in the Ulster Museum’s Inventions of the Natural World exhibition. Staff can speak to colleagues in other parts of the world, and museums can link up with schools and universities with video-conferencing equipment.
Details of planned events are available from BT Visual Business Area, Ambassador House, 77 St Michael’s Street, London W2 1QS.
