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Evaluations
Teaching with this Title Clicker 4 supports literacy development as part of the overall English curriculum. In particular, it supports; As literacy skills are necessary for post primary students to access all curricular areas, Clicker 4 is very much a cross-curricular learning tool Clicker 4 is suitable for use with pupils with special educational needs, particularly struggling readers or writers. The pupils do not need extensive technical knowledge – they can easily access ‘Clicker 4’ on their screens and are instantly prompted to select one of four options. We found that the students became familiar with the software quickly and could complete the writing task easily. This title is particularly suited to the teaching of literacy at post primary level in an inclusive learning support environment. Clicker 4 can be used by all pupils in the class at the same time. The availability of a Special Needs Assistant or a second teacher to support the pupils is beneficial. I used Clicker 4 with ten students in a ‘special’ class setting in first year post-primary. I aimed to teach the students how to compose, create, construct and publish their own personal narrative using the package. A Special Needs Assistant was available in the classroom at all times. Firstly, The lesson began with the discussion of the story content. We chose the topic of the Asian Tsunami disaster as it was appropriate at the time. This topic was introduced by eliciting key words from the students, e.g. wave, buildings, terror, high ground, safety. These words were recorded on the blackboard. One adult directed the discussion while the other recorded the key words. Clicker 4 was introduced as an activity in the middle of the lesson. The students opened up the program on their laptops and selected the ‘Start Writing’ option. In this case, the students were creating their own grids. They inserted one key word from the blackboard in each cell. By clicking on the right mouse button a narrator read the word aloud. Students can decide whether or not to have an accompanying picture appear automatically in the cell. By clicking on the associated icon on the toolbar, this picture can be easily deleted if not required. In our experience, the students liked the images and were reluctant to delete them. They used the keywords and images from the cells and inserted their own link words to write their story. This software, used in this way, allows students who normally would find it quite difficult to construct a personal narrative to write a story in a short space of time. Students can hear their narrative read aloud. The software also reads misspelt words aloud assisting students in identifying their mistakes. This enables Clicker 4 to contribute to the learning scenario in a way that cannot be achieved by traditional pen and paper methods. The students enjoyed using Clicker 4 and it was very motivating for them. A potential strength of Clicker is its potential to motivate pupils to write. Writing can be a difficult task for some children, particularly those with special educational needs and this package allows the student to have control over the content of their stories while providing assistance with the construction of phrases and sentences. A sample exemplar using this software.
we planned the content of the lesson together. We decided to use Clicker 4 because our students had very depressed reading skills and consequently found writing stories extremely difficult.
Clicker 4 Exemplar
d2953.PDF
