evaluated resources

This page contains links to software titles which have been evaluated for suitability for use on an IWB. This is a new service and so only has a limited number of titles published so far.

Full evaluations search - these carry links to IWB evaluations where published.

IWB evaluations:

Digital Worlds GIS - Primary Version
Digital Worlds is a powerful, versatile teaching and learning tool for primary local studies. It is an extensive and detailed geographical resource which is specifically detailed to the local area around your school. It contains a wealth of information and data, all highly accessible and of very good quality.

Digital Worlds GIS - Secondary Version
Digital Worlds GIS is an engaging new educational package that combines simple yet powerful geographic tools with up-to-date local area data. It includes supporting teaching materials which can be applied in Geography, Citizenship, ICT, Mathematics and History, as well as many other subject areas. Each purchasing institution is provided with personalised digital data, predominantly focusing on an area of 10km x 10km, centred on your school. Data includes high quality aerial photographs, historic maps, height data and the current Ordnance Survey maps at 1:25000 and 1:50000 scale. The new Census 2001 of your county and a Satellite image of your region are also provided as part of the package. Digital Worlds GIS for Secondary has been specifically developed to help you deliver the national curriculum. The Secondary package builds on the strengths of the Primary version by offering additional functionality, depth and data. Pupils have the opportunity to inquire, probe and explore the data and study topic to a far greater depth than ever before. Used toa teach across the curriculum and up through the key stages, this flexible teaching package uses your local area to spring board into topic's of national and international importance - all focused on delivering your curriculum. Throughout the development process, Secondary teachers have had a major input and a variety of high-quality lesson plans, activities and "bright ideas" are provided to ensure that Digital Worlds GIS is immediately applicable to your teaching.

Abersaff - B-dag Ltd
Abersaff is a charming piece of software by B-DAG which introduces young children to safety issues in the home and the outside world. The software can be played either in Welsh or in English. There are seven activity areas on the disk, namely Safety in the Home, Playing Safely, Road Safety, Safety in the Garden, Healthy Eating, People Who Help Us and Emotions.

Easiteach EAL (KS3) - RM
There is a need to support EAL pupils who have a good grasp of social language, but can be held back in attaining their full potential due to problems understanding and expressing themselves in the specialist language used in the classroom. Easiteach EAL comprises a wide range of contextually rich content, designed specifically to support the teaching of academic language to pupils for whom English is an additional language. Developed to support both mainstream and EAL teachers, the interactive materials use an innovative, engaging approach to release pupils' potential, so that they can benefit fully from their education.

Easiteach EAL (KS2) - RM
There is a need to support EAL pupils who have a good grasp of social language, but can be held back in attaining their full potential due to problems understanding and expressing themselves in the specialist language used in the classroom. Easiteach EAL comprises a wide range of contextually rich content, designed specifically to support the teaching of academic language to pupils for whom English is an additional language. Developed to support both mainstream and EAL teachers, the interactive materials use an innovative, engaging approach to release pupils' potential, so that they can benefit fully from their education.

The Learning Game - MindGenius
The new version of the MindGenius™ software revolutionises the thinking and learning process and can be used to aid: Evaluation Skills, Exam Preparation, Creative Thinking skills, Essay Preparation,Brainstorming .Available for education through The Learning Game, MindGenius™ combines the freedom of creative thinking with the power of ICT to deliver the best results.

Genetically Modified Website - The Food and Drink Federation
The Foodfuture program provides balanced, science-based information on issues surrounding genetic modification (GM) and food. Foodfuture is run by the Food and Drink Federation on behalf of the UK food and drink manufacturing industry. The website address both benefits and concerns surrounding GM, food and farming and free education resources are available for schools.

Petit Pont - Eclipse Books
Petit Pont builds the bridge between languages and cultures and brings French and France alive. It is perfect for specialist and non-specialist teachers - and for parents who want to support their children's language learning.

Easiteach Geography - RM
Easiteach Geography provides an additional set of tools that are designed to specifically support the teaching of geography for both Primary and Secondary age pupils and which will help embed the use of ICT into the subject. The Easiteach Geography Content Pack provides a wealth of teaching activities and resources to help save teachers' time in lesson preparation. The resources are best used on interactive whiteboards or other large screen displays.

Sonica Spanish- RM
Sonica Spanish is a fully supported language service designed to help teachers who are not MFL specialists to deliver Spanish language teaching within their current curriculum lessons. Engaging and motivating pupils is the key consideration in the development of each activity, seeking to push the boundaries of kinesthetic learning. Sonica Spanish enables teachers to use a wide range of proven learning activities, and goes beyond these to bring karaoke into the classroom, exploit dance mat activities, and involve the whole class in interactive adventure games - the overall aim being to help children develop a love of languages as early as possible.

GridClub- Grid Learning
The Games & Activities website site has over 500 games and activities closely tied to KS2 National Curriculum, covering 90% of core and foundation subjects plus PSHE, Citizenship and MFL (French, Spanish and ESOL). The content has been approved by BECTA. There are lesson plans and worksheets to help integrate GridClub into the classroom and additional reference materials in the 'info' section. There are monthly updates of new content including a 'magazine style' site called Yo-Zone. Schools can log on for a free trial using the following username: gridclub and password: lion. Please note this refers to the Games & Activities area but not the Clubs area.

Language Bundle- direct-ed /TQ Education & Training Ltd
This is an annual licence of 100 course places for Basic Language courseware in: French German Spanish.

BrainPOP- BrainPOP
BrainPOP is a subscription-based website. There is no installation required, only internet access. The homepage allows the user to access a large number of animated clips developed in order to be in line with American national standards from kindergarten to eighth grade. Each clip is run on its own page where there are links to an interactive quiz, an experiment, a comic strip, a time line and a printable activity page. The subjects covered are maths, science, history, geography, English, technology and health.

Memory Map Selections - Memory Map
Memory-Map Selections - select up to 2500 sqkm of OS Explorer 1:25,000 map for anywhere in GB. It can include up to 3 areas, any shape and choose whether to have aerial photos included.

.x:plore Leisure and Tourism GCSE CD-ROM - Nottinghamshire Education Business Alliance
x:plore Leisure & Tourism GCSE CD-ROM is a case study for students undertaking the GCSE Leisure and Tourism and GNVQ Leisure and Tourism courses; however the content has a wide variety of other uses. It provides an in-depth look at Butlins holiday facilities by presenting the content in the form of a virtual tour around a Butlins camp. The virtual tour is broken up into the various features and facilities that can be found within a typical Butlins environment.

KS2 Calculations-SUMS ONLINE
Key Stage 2 Calculations is presented as a set of 4 CDs. All activities are designed for use on Electronic Whiteboards as well as PCs, and can be used by teachers as an introduction and then by individual pupils. A printable performance report is provided for each activity. Topics covered are: River Racing. Multiplying by 2,3,4,5 and 10. Division Factory. Dividing by 2,3,4,5 and 10 Double Drips. Doubling numbers from 5 to 500 Planet Halves. Halving numbers from 10 to 1000 Multiplying Frogs. Multiplying by 4,5, and 20 and combining tables. Partition Factory. Grid method for multiplication Nines and Elevens. methods for multiplying by 9 and 11. Place Value Darts. Multiplying using tables and Place Value. Bracket basics. How to solve sums that use Brackets. Same Game. How numbers can be multiplied in any order. Division bandit. Dividing with decimals and fractional answers. Fair Shares. Dividing money by 23,4,5, and 10. The final four activities are the pencil and paper procedures for both short and long division and multiplication.

Tizzy's First Tools - Softease and Sherston Publishing Group
An integrated set of seven, fun-to-use ICT tools, Tizzy's First Tools can be quickly adapted to meet all your classroom needs. Includes writing, painting, presenting and making charts.

Textease Timeline - Softease
A new dimension to sequencing events. Textease Timeline can be used to organise information and sequence events in a number of subjects at both primary and secondary level. They have an obvious place in history lessons to improve chronological understanding but can be used in other subjects too.

Textease IdeasMap - Softease
Textease IdeasMap is a visual learning tool to collect and organise ideas. It provides a structured means of understanding and remembering information in a fun an imaginative way. Designed for pupils from KS1 upwards, Textease IdeasMap is an aid to note taking, a time-saving way to capture ideas and a sure-fire way to improved educational acheivement. Incorporating the familiar Textease user-friendly functionality, this brilliant ICT tool can be used within any curriculum subject. It is easy to produce detailed ideas maps, concept diagrams and flow charts that subconsciously consolidate learning and help idea retention. Maps can be enhanced by adding notes to topics with text, pictures, photographs and even videos. They can also be exported to Textease and Textease Presenter.

Textease Draw - Softease
Textease Draw CT is specifically designed to meet the demands of the primary curriculum. It is intuitive, flexible and incorporates all the functionality of Textease making it the ideal companion to cover graphical modelling and a range of topics in art, design, technology and mathematics. Includes 2D plan view and 3D isometric clip art enabling creation of model environments.

Textease Studio Plus - Softease
Textease Studio CT is a complete suite of core applications for use across the whole curriculum. Studio Plus includes Textease, Textease Spreadsheet, Textease Database, Textease Presenter, Textease Turtle, Textease Branch and Textease Paint. All of the applications have the same menu bar and buttons to provide continuity.

NetSupport School Version 8 - NetSupport Ltd
As schools and colleges continue to invest in providing the latest IT infrastructure, effective solutions to support these resources are becoming more critical.
By using NetSupport School, educational institutions are able to facilitate the effectiveness of their IT resources whilst improving the quality of training and tuition provided.

Easiteach Games - RM
Easiteach Studio and the Games Content Pack can be used on any whole-class teaching technology, such as interactive whiteboards (from any supplier), on large screen monitors or plasma displays and also with remote graphics Tablets and Tablet PCs. It can also be used on desktop PCs. This enables schools and LEAs to standardise on their choice of whole-class-teaching software in order to minimise the number of learning curves faced by teachers and also to enable the sharing of pre-prepared resources.

MathSphere Interactive Calculations Year 2 - MathSphere
Over 60 activities fully covering the language and calculation skills of the Numeracy Strategy. Establshes sound mental arithmetic skills and is a useful short term assessment tool.

Numbershark 3 - White Space
Numbershark is a program to help anyone improve their basic numeracy. It addresses many of the difficulties which lead students to dislike maths, including poor short term memory, attention span and sequencing skills.
The program features 30 totally different games covering addition, subtraction, multiplication and division in ways which add meaning and understanding to these operations. The games are played with your chosen units of work (topics) from a list of over 400; each topic generates a new set of sums every time you play the game. NumbersharkTM combines motivation and enjoyment within a structured learning process.

Lessons in a Box KS 2 Maths Club - Lessons in a Box
Lessons in a Box KS2 Maths Club is a stand alone teaching module covering topics for years 3,4,5 and 6 and can be purchased as seperate units.The course is a combination of DVDs and CDs using filmed lessons that are presented by teachers. There are interactive tests and games to support each lesson. The course is ideal for use as an interactive white board resource as it is simple and easy to use and requires little planning. By combining excellent visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learning the package keeps children engaged by delivering imaginitave ways of tackling difficult maths concepts. The teacher or classroom assistant can pause to reflect or review material according to the needs of the group, interactive tests confirm understanding and games provide a fun way of consolidating each lesson.

Right2Learn - Right2Learn Education
Online assessment for learning, measuring attainment of key objectives from Numeracy and Literacy Strategies, and QCA Scheme of Work in Science. Bright, visually stimulating questions delivered in timed sections taking up to 20 minutes each. Results automatically reported to teachers to facilitate group and individual target setting. Review feature with added teacher notes enables development of learning, including home use to inform and involve parents. Great fun for children, saving teachers time. 

Integrated Tasks Y6/7: Science CD-ROM - Nelson Thornes
Integrated Tasks offers primary schools alternative approaches to developing and applying ICT skills through science, maths and English. Covering specific ICT and core subject objectives, the scheme provides a range of flexible electronic and printed resources that give context and purpose to teaching ICT across the curriculum.

Easiteach Early Steps in Literacy - RM
Provides reception and KS1 teaching resources encouraging the development of phonics skills, including support for key phonics schemes also providing a range of additional cross curricular materials on popular topics and themes. The pack contains 10 Illustrated nursery rhymes and related activities, In excess of 150 whole class teaching files on phonics development, including support for the phonics progression suggested by the Progression in Phonics scheme, including it's 2004 revision, Jolly Phonics and Code Breakers schemes. The files can be used as provided or fine-tuned and adapted to meet specific teaching and/or learning focus. - 8 Interactive activities from the popular Big Bus range of materials. - A series of games including 'Phonic Football', 'Feed the Dragon', 'Word search Creator and 'Word Wall' to support phonics activity in a whole class or group teaching environment. - 20 whole class teaching files on popular Reception and KS1 themes, such as 'You and Me' and 'Odd one out'. - A selection of clipart for teachers to use in their own materials which has been commissioned specifically to support pupils in this age group.

Maths Interactive Whiteboard Charts - DayDream Education
50 Maths Interactive Whiteboard Charts bringing Daydream Education's successful wall charts to life. This user-friendly software allows the teacher and pupils to interact with text and animations, utilising the whiteboard to its full interactive potential. Each chart is accompanied by a comprehensive and fully interactive quiz section with 750 questions in total. The software has been designed as a teaching aid for interactive whiteboards, but works equally well as a revision tool for children on individual PCs. Features Include: Display sections of the chart. Interact with individual items. View and control animations. Interactive fun features Printable Worksheets. Quiz section for each chart.(750 questions in total) PC and MAC Compatible.

MyMaths.co.uk
MyMaths is an outstanding subscription website product that is full of useful resources and should be considered by any secondary maths department. This easy-to-navigate site contains features ranging from lessons that are continually updated to a management system that allows the teacher to create classes of students, set online worksheets for homework and use the portal to collect results.
For the interactive whiteboard there are hundreds of maths lessons available, arranged by attainment target and National Curriculum Level (from 4 upwards) or GCSE tier. All of the lessons have the same format with an index page followed by the stages needed to complete the lesson.

Join the Activaters - Food and Drink Federation

Join the Activaters is an interactive education programme for primary school children aged 7-9 (Key Stage 2). Balancing a healthy diet and being more physically active are increasingly important for young children. Join the Activaters uniquely combines these two elements into one programme.

Join the Activaters has developed from the existing foodfitness healthy lifestyle initiative for adults. We have created this microsite especially to support the programme. These programmes have been produced by the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) on behalf of the UK food and drink manufacturing industry.

During the development of the programme, FDF worked with teachers to assess the effectiveness of the CD-ROM. Comments from teachers.

The aims are positive and non-judgmental and the messages are clear and understandable. The initiative encourages moderate physical activity and enjoyable healthy eating and is based on the philosophy that a healthy lifestyle is fun, easily achievable and inexpensive.

Join the Activaters takes a positive approach. It presents the key nutritional messages in a way that avoids any direct reference to body image, weight or shape. It stresses that there are no 'good' or 'bad' foods, just good or bad diets and that eating a variety of foods is essential, particularly more fruit and vegetables.

The importance of variety is also stressed in the activity messages. Active play and a less sedentary lifestyle is encouraged rather than stressing competitive sport as the only way to become more active.

Paws in Jobland - CASCAiD
An innovative software package for younger children. Offers a unique learning experience with general information on over 100 jobs. Includes 40 free lesson plans/worksheets.

EduPuzzles KS2 Years 4,5 & 6 Geography Crossword and Word Search Puzzles - PC and Interactive Whiteboard
HWA-EduPuzzles KS2 Years 4,5 & 6 Geography has 12 sets of Unit Puzzles written by experienced teachers specifically to the National Curriculum. Edupuzzles have been designed especially to provide a simple to use environment that helps pupils learn and reinforce their knowledge of both the concepts and vocabulary used in the KS2 Geography curriculum. The Word Search puzzles are particularly useful as revision support, as the pupil is not required to know the meaning of a word to successful undertake the puzzle. Simply find a word from a word list on the puzzle and an animated description of the word is then provided. Each set of puzzles has a Pupil Crossword Puzzle, a Class Interactive Whiteboard Crossword Puzzle, a Wordsearch Puzzle, that can be used as both an individual and class activity, and a printed crossword puzzle for further review work. Unlike simple crossword puzzles, EduPuzzles focuses on the pedagogical use of multimedia to explain the meaning and correct contextual use of words found in the KS2 Geography curriculum.

EduPuzzles KS2 Year 5 Science Crossword and Word Search Puzzles - PC and Interactive Whiteboard
HWA-EduPuzzles Year 5 Science has eight sets of Unit Puzzles and four sets of Reviewing Puzzles written by experienced teachers specifically to the QCA schemes of work. Edupuzzles have been designed especially to provide a simple to use environment that helps pupils learn and reinforce their knowledge of both the concepts and vocabulary used in the Year 5 Science curriculum. The Word Search puzzles are particularly useful as revision support, as the pupil is not required to know the meaning of a word to successful undertake the puzzle. Simply find a word from a word list on the puzzle and an animated description of the word is then provided. Each set of puzzles has a Pupil Crossword Puzzle, a Class Interactive Whiteboard Crossword Puzzle, a Word Search Puzzle, that can be used as both an individual and class activity, and a printed crossword puzzle for further review work. Unlike simple crossword puzzles EduPuzzles focus on the pedagogical use of multimedia to focus on the meaning and correct contextual use of words used in the Year 5 Science Curriculum.

EduPuzzles KS2 Year 6 Maths - Autumn term Crossword and Word Search Puzzles
HWA-EduPuzzles Year 6 Maths - Autumn term has 14 sets of Unit Puzzles written by experienced teachers specifically to the National Curriculum. Edupuzzles have been designed especially to provide a simple to use environment that helps pupils learn and reinforce their knowledge of both the concepts and vocabulary used in the Year 6 Maths curriculum. The Word Search puzzles are particularly useful as revision support, as the pupil is not required to know the meaning of a word to successful undertake the puzzle. Simply find a word from a word list on the puzzle and an animated description of the word is then provided. Each set of puzzles has a Pupil Crossword Puzzle, a Class Interactive Whiteboard Crossword Puzzle, a Wordsearch Puzzle, that can be used as both an individual and class activity, and a printed crossword puzzle for further review work. Unlike simple crossword puzzles, EduPuzzles focuses on the pedagogical use of multimedia to explain the meaning and correct contextual use of words found in the Year 6 Maths Autumn curriculum.

Food Safety (Level 1) - Esky @ Spark & Zoom Productions Ltd

Food Safety (Level 1) is a valuable resource that primarily aims to introduce, expand and reinforce food safety skills. Taking a step further the package includes explanations of HACCP, food handling, refrigeration, and laws which govern food hygiene. The product is suitable for interactive whiteboard use and helps students engage more with theoretical concepts that can appear 'dry' when delivered purely from a textbook. It is user friendly for both teachers and students, this package proves a useful addition to the teaching of Food Technology, Science and PHSE.

Seeing Science: Human Body - Channel 4 Learning
Seeing Science: The Human Body is a CD-ROM, which features extracts from Channel 4's Science Programmes. The CD-ROM contains over 30 minutes of curriculum relevant video footage. It deals with four areas: Skeleton, Parts of the body, Growth and nutrition and Keeping Healthy. The high quality video clips are complemented by appropriate graphics; it is bright, attractive and has certainly been designed with children in mind.

Literacy Activity Builder - BlackCat Educational Software
Literacy Activity Builder is a brand new resource that provides a set of template-based tools that make it easy to integrate ICT into the Literacy Hour - quickly, simply and effectively. Based on activity-type frameworks, teachers are guided 'wizard-style' through the creation of literacy activities for the interactive whiteboard. With the click of a button, the program turns your content into professional looking interactive whiteboard activities, ideal for full-class teaching.

www.atomiclearning.co.uk - Atomic Learning
www.atomicLearning.co.uk - provides web-based software training and support for dozens of applications learners and educators use everyday. Developed for educators by educators, Atomic Learning helps schools get the maximum value from their ICT investments. Our training is delivered via short, one to three minute, show and tell movies that provide personal, on-demand answers to those ‘How do I do that?’ questions people have when using popular software applications. With our comprehensive approach, educators and learners have the training at their fingertips to turn software applications into learning tools. Atomic Learning is used as an integral part of a student curriculum, a professional development program or as an anytime, anywhere ICT training resource.

www.atomiclearning.co.uk/dida - Atomic Learning
www.atomicLearning.co.uk - provides web-based software training and support for dozens of applications learners and educators use everyday, specifically DiDA (Diploma in Digital Applications). Developed for educators by educators, Atomic Learning helps schools get the maximum value from their ICT investments. Our training is delivered via short, one to three minute, show and tell movies that provide personal, on-demand answers to those ‘How do I do that?’ questions people have when using popular software applications. With our comprehensive approach, educators and learners have the training at their fingertips to turn software applications into learning tools. Atomic Learning is used as an integral part of a student curriculum, a professional development program or as an anytime, anywhere ICT training resource.

Localities in the UK - Channel 4 Learning
Channel 4`s education arm, is dedicated to empowering learners of all ages through useful, innovative and stimulating multimedia resources. More than 400 hours of programming broadcast on Channel 4 each year are enhanced by a range of resources in print, on video, online, on DVD and on CD-ROM.

Seeing Science: Light and Sound - Channel 4 Learning
CD-ROM is part of a series of nine CDs containing a series of high quality video clips. This CD-ROM is great for introducing and revising the topics of light and sound in KS2 science. The CD can be used for class teaching and introduction to topics but the most powerful tool is the ability to easily copy pictures into a PowerPoint presentations. It would be an effective tool to use during Year 6 ICT topic on presentations. This facility enables the children to reinforce their learning by presenting their work to a wider audience. We used the PowerPoint presentations during an assembly.

The software was most useful when used with the interactive whiteboard and within a computer suite. It can also by used on stand alones – either PCs or Apple Macs.

Worlds of Faith - Channel 4 Learning
The Words of Faith CD ROM is aimed at 9 to 14 year olds and is intended to support teaching and learning in Religious Education. The CD material is divided into two main component sections, which are World Religions and Questions of Faith.

Seeing Science: Materials - Channel 4 Learning
The 'Seeing Science' programme was easily transferred onto the whiteboard for the initial, whole-class introduction and discussion of how to use this programme and how we were going to use the programme to investigate topics during our science lessons. In school assembly, we had received a visit from the local county reclamation depot. Our guest introduced the importance of sorting 'rubbish' into groups, recognising materials which the children were familiar with and how some materials can be used or changed by various processes. In the classroom, many of 'The Gang' were already familiar to the children, so our starting point was from their knowledge and personal experience. I had a selection of metal objects as a sorting exercises following the section called 'Metal Magic', the children were totally engrossed in the video clip, which evolved around the story. The open-ended questions focused their activities, using the key words associated with common mistakes:- magnets 'stick' replacing with the correct word in context - magnets 'attract' some metals. The children were encouraged to move around the classroom to sort and explore as an independent activity. The interactive whiteboard was in constant use as the children were eager to explore the island during 'free choice' activity.

Early Words - Clicsoft
Early Words/Geiriau Gynnar is an attractive bilingual product aimed at word recognition both in Welsh and English. It is also available as an English only version too. Each 'side' of the package can be used on its own. The ease of installation and navigation makes it a good tool for introductory work on the interactive whiteboard leading to independence when working on individual PCs.

Explore Active Science - Heinemann Library
Explore Active Science is a good classroom resource for whole-class teaching using the interactive whiteboard. It is colourful and enables the teacher to discuss and read the text whilst showing interesting pictures to develop whole-class discussion; especially with young children. The children are able to decide on what area of their science topic they want to discuss and, as it is on the whiteboard, are able to have shared and paired talk.

It is also useful for the SEN children to use the interecative whiteboard. As a group tool it is fun to click on the pictures and discuss the text with a classroom assistant. I would definitely recommend this website as a teaching resource.

Letter Layers - Cursive Writing Version - Letter Layers Limited
Letter Layers is an interactive program designed to help children with learning a cursive style of handwriting. It presents the user with individual letters with entry strokes and the various 'layers' needed to form the letter correctly. The user then manipulates the 'layers' to correctly form the letter.

More coming soon!