Educational Media Reviews Online

The Arthurian Tradition: the myths and realities of the Arthurian Legends, is a CD-ROM introduction to the legends, characters, and art of the Arthurian myth. The CD opens with an animation clip of Excalibur being driven through a tree, with Arthur and others in the scene. The main menu is organized around a medieval background, with fonts resembling the Old English/medieval script. The menu is arranged under two broad headings: 1) Influential Arthurian literature (primarily English language), and 2) British and Continental source literature AD 546-1596. When the user selects one of these, a list of literature sources is given, as well as hyperlinks that describe the various resources and their writers. The right side of the main menu has a number of icons: Analysis, Art Gallery, Legends, Characters, Primary Texts, Filmography, and Arthurian Sites. The Analysis icon allows the user to click on the literature sources and view QuickTime film and sound clips of the writers, history, background, etc. The Art Gallery leads to a small art collection of Arthurian themes, categorized into centuries, from the 13th through the 20th century. The Legends section is subdivided into core legends, grail themes, mythical artifacts, and mythical creatures. Characters moves the user to a screen that features a medieval representation of the Round Table, with each of the knights listed on the table, and hyperlinks to descriptions of their role in the Arthurian legend. On the left side of the screen are listed related figures of the Arthurian myth, including female characters and magical beings. Primary Texts lists one page of such soources, and the Filmography presents an alphabetical listing of movies and films related to the Arthurian legend. Finally, a click on the Arthurian Sites icon moves the user to a medieval map of the British Isles, with a listing of present-day and mythical sites, along with descriptions.

As an introduction to the Arthurian legends for K-12 students and those seeking a fairly straightforward and unadorned introduction to the myth of King Arthur, this is an excellent CD-ROM. I enjoyed the medieval flavor given to the background and fonts, and the presentation of material was historically accurate and tastefully given. I was extremely disappointed, however, by the planning of hyperlinks and technology in this product. For instance, the Primary Texts list is merely a rerun of the source literature links given on the main menu, and the Filmography provides no hyperlinks to QuickTime movies of the films themselves (this may be due to copyright problems), but still, an alphabetical listing of films with no hyperlinks is fairly unexciting. The Arthurian Sites section should have hyperlinks on the map of the British Isles, but there are none. The map is there for show; the user clicks on the listing of sites on the left side of the screen for very short descriptions of each, with no guidance as to where in the British Isles these sites are located. As an Arthurian scholar, I can relate that this CD provides only a cursory listing of sources and descriptions of the entire Arthurian corpus, which is why I would direct anyone interested in purchasing this CD to reread the first sentence of this paragraph. As an introduction to the Arthurian legends, I would recommend this CD; as an authoritative and comprehensive guide to the Arthurian legends, I would not recommend this CD. As for the technology rating for this product, I feel that much more thought and direction could have been implemented to make this a much more exciting and interactive CD. As it is, the user is only allowed to go about 2 levels deep into the product through hyperlinks, before he/she is directed to return to a menu listing. Having reviewed numerous other CD products, this one falls short on interactivity and involvement of the user in independent learning and testing of knowledge.