Software Use In Schools Each month we will visit a new school to see how they use software in their classrooms. This month Robertson National School, Ballintra tell us how they use software. All classes have access to the computer room on a daily basis, which enables the teachers to use ICT to support classroom work in all subjects. ICT work in our school is seen as a tool to support learning in all areas of the curriculum. The computers are also used by the children before and after school and during wet breaktimes. All staff have full Internet access and students are allowed Internet access under teacher supervision. We place great emphasis on Internet Safety. We have just applied for Digital Schools status in 2008. The following titles are some of the programmes we have found particularly helpful in delivering the curriculum and in supporting the children’s learning. 2Create Click to enlarge 2Create is a simple programme that can be easily used by children of all ages. It allows children to plan and produce their own multimedia projects e.g. presentations, slide shows, websites and mind maps. The children can easily combine text, pictures, and sounds and add actions to create projects and present information in an interactive way. There are three different levels: learning, basis and standard which make the programme accessible to children of all ages. Our children and teachers find this programme very easy to use and minimal instruction was needed from the start. There are, however, over 50 easy to follow video tutorials included in the CD-ROM should they be needed and there are also clear instructions given in the teacher’s booklet. Projects created in 2Create can be exported as Shockwave Files, which allows the children’s work to be easily published to a school website. This programme is a recent addition to our school and we are hoping to publish examples of the children’s work on our website soon. The children enjoy working with this program, particularly with the animations, the sounds and the visual hyperlinks. Teachers can also use 2Create to make their own multimedia resources – ideal for use with an interactive whiteboard or with a projector either as a way of presenting information at the start of topic or as a means of assessing knowledge at the end. This is a particularly useful piece of software in the primary classroom as it is not subject specific, will provide opportunities for both learning and assessing and most importantly, will enthuse and enable children of all ages and abilities. 2Create A Story Click to enlarge 2Create A Story is basically a story writing program aimed at younger children. It is used mainly by our Infants and First Class. It enables children to develop their literacy skills alongside their ICT skills by creating multi-media stories. The children create stories by first drawing a picture using the interactive whiteboard or the mouse. They are then able to add simple animations, such as fading in, moving in from the side and rocking. There is a simple drop down menu with pictures showing the children what the animation will do. There are also several different set sounds and it is also possible to record your own sounds e.g. reading the text or creating a sound effect for the story. Recording sounds is very easy and the children enjoy listening to their own voices. Underneath the picture the children can add text for the story. The story can have as many or as few pages as needed. When the story is created, the children press the play button and watch their stories come alive. The overall program is very visual with different views to select and use depending on the age of the child. Our children really enjoy using this programme and love to see their stories playing on both the class computer and on the Interactive White Board. The teacher has also been able to use it for demonstrating writing and as a lively way of writing class ‘News’. Click to enlarge Dazzle is our favourite drawing and paint package and is used by all of our children to produce images and develop drawing skills. They can also create pictures in the style of well-known artists and create tiles and images and translate them or make patterns by rotating shapes. A wide range of ICT skills are covered. These include: select, drag, drop, re-size, rotate, layer, zoom, undo, redo and clear screen, as well as select and use spray tool, flood-fill tool, painting stamps, copy and re-size pictures and use visual effects such as reflection or symmetry. The toolbar has a good range of tools (pencil, brush, chalk, airbrush, spray can, as well as fuzzy, wash and smear brushes). There are also lots of available stamps but the children enjoy making their own. Read Software Central evaluation of Dazzle Crystal Rainforest Click to enlarge The Crystal Rainforest is an adventure programme aimed at older children in the primary school. It is set in the rain forest which is gradually being cut down and destroyed by the Cut and Run Gang. The Cut and Run Gang have poisoned the King because he ordered a stop to the destruction. The only way to save the King is to use the special crystals that are found deep in the rain forest. The pupils must navigate their way through the jungle to try and find the life-saving crystals, learning and applying Logo and maths skills as they go. The program can be played in three different modes. The first, Adventure Mode (which is the one the children will play independently), integrates the challenges that appear in the activity mode with the adventure story line. In Activity Mode there are 12 focused activities. Teacher Mode gives teachers quick and easy access to the activities at each of the available levels, with additional tools. This mode makes it useful for a teacher who might want to use the programme for whole class teaching, perhaps as part of work on environmental issues or to develop mathematics skills. Some initial knowledge of Logo is needed but our children were able to grasp this quickly and have enjoyed this game immensely, particularly when working in pairs and small groups. My World 3 Click to enlarge My World 3 is a programme that enables pupils to create pictures, solve puzzles and move images around on their screen. The programme consists of a series of screens which contain pictures, text and sound. Pictures and text can be picked up, moved, dropped and deleted. It is also possible to add and edit the text, making it very easy to label pictures. My World can be used to reinforce and to extend learning in a range of subjects. Task Magic Click to enlarge TaskMagic is a piece of software which enables the teacher to create games and interactive lesson content. The games and activities can be created for use in whole class teaching or as group/independent activities. There are 8 main types of activity including matching text activities and matching pictures. Although it takes a little time, it is very easy to input text, pictures and sounds and once these have been entered into the programme, a series of games are produced. Once saved, these games can be used over and over again. Click to enlarge Teaching Tables is a set of interactive and highly enjoyable games designed to help children learn their multiplication tables whilst having fun. The games can be used either as a whole class activities or used by groups and individuals. Games include ‘Bingo’ which is a huge hit in our school. By printing off ready to use bingo cards, it can be played as a class game but we often just use the Bingo caller to challenge individual children. The timer can be adjusted so that the game is suitable for those just beginning to learn their times tables but can also be used to revise tables with older children. This game is particularly suitable for use with a projector or on an Interactive White Board.
The Robertson National School (www.robertson.ie) is a primary school in Ballintra, Co. Donegal. Our school was refurbished in 2006 and our new extension has given us space for a fully equipped computer room with ten networked computers, all of which have internet access. Our three mainstream classrooms are equipped with at least one PC each and these are also connected to the school network. In two of our classrooms we have Interactive Whiteboards and in the third there is a data projector.
Dazzle
The children love using this programme as it is easy to create pictures of an impressive quality. All of our children can use this independently. The graphics produced by the software are clear and of a high standard. Dazzle develops mouse skills and early drawing skills and the pictures produced can easily be used to complement other projects. 
The program itself is very simple to learn and use and is used independently in our school by all children, including our Junior Infants. There are 30 My World screens in the original programme but it is possible to purchase others relating to different subjects. Among the favourites in our school are Teddy (a screen where the children need to move clothes to dress teddy), Spot (finding Spot among lots of similar dogs) and City (build a virtual town – this is very popular with our boys).
This is a programme very unlike other programmes the children will have used as it is not ‘game’ based, nor does it tell the children if they are ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. It relies instead on the children using their imaginations to create and change the screens and on teachers to plan ways of integrating it into lessons. It has been used to good effect in our school for work on vocabulary in Gaeilge and in geography when looking at weather and maps. It is also a popular choice at breaktimes.
The games are visually stimulating and engaging – football and pool are particularly popular and, depending on the activity chosen, up to 20 different games can be generated. It is also possible to print worksheets related to the activities (very useful for homework). The children can also download a free 'home use only' version of TaskMagicPlay so that they can access TaskMagic files on a school website.
TaskMagic was originally designed to support the teaching and learning of Modern Foreign Languages and our initial reason for purchasing it was to support the teaching of Irish. We have found, however, that since its content is generated by the teacher, it can be used for almost every subject and can be customised to the needs of our own classes.
Teaching Tables
Other games include: Table Mountain (where you try to get to the top of the mountain by answering questions on your chosen times table), Time Tables (timed questions), Multiplying Monkeys (a very visual way of explaining and exploring the concept of multiplication) and Paint (an interactive 100 square which can be used for looking at multiples). Each activity is presented in a lively visual style, feedback is given to children in the form of text, animations, graphics and sounds and there are also lots of multiplication related worksheets which can be printed off for classroom use.
By Dawn Sommerville ( Robertson NS Principal)
![[]](http://www.softwarecentral.ie/media/swc_logo2.gif){kind=logo}
Use of this site is subject to our copyright notice, privacy & security policy