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BlackCat Compose is a versatile
and stimulating musical composition program.
It can be used both by those with little
or no musical knowledge or technique, or
by more advanced musicians. It is available
for individual users or over a network,
and operates around a unique technique of
using pictures and names to represent musical
phrases that can be arranged by the children
into a cohesive finished piece.
Stimulating and addictive, this software
appropriately addresses the 'creating and
developing musical ideas and composing skills'
strand of the National Curriculum for music,
and children will want to return to it time
and again.
It is easily operated by dragging symbols
with a mouse, and the excellent level of
differentiation allows it to be used with
many groups and abilities. Young or less
able children can operate the system in
a simplified graphical form, but this is
easily advanced for the more able to include
stave notation and multi-track music sequencer
in the upper levels of the program. There
are 128 different instruments on offer,
and combined with various effects including
echo, transpose, fade, tempo and loop these
offer versatility and extension. At any
level, this software can be used to create
and save professional quality compositions
for use in Web pages or other musical applications.
Its ease of use and appealing simple interface
make it highly successful with both children
and non-specialist professionals. Those
seeking ways to incorporate ICT into music
teaching should look no further. It really
is fantastic!
Written by Rick Weights
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4Learning's Clipbank: Seeing
Science Earth and Beyond TV-Rom is just
one in a series of six. TV clips, photo
images and reference material are included
to support the teaching of the KS2 Science
QCA Units of Work linked to the Earth and
Beyond. As well as being an invaluable tool
in whole class teaching, the material is
equally useful for supporting individual
pupil work. The software can be used on
a standalone PC/Apple Mac or a network.
The main text based reference screens have
an audio function to support less able readers.
The glossary hyperlinked to key words is
an excellent resource for improving children's
scientific vocabulary. The teachers' resources
area of the TV-Rom contains background information
articles as well as printable worksheets
for children to use away from the computer.
Ever struggled to recreate the relative
sizes of planets and the sun in your playground
on a rainy day? A video clip on 4Learning's
Clipbank: Seeing Science Earth and Beyond
TV-Rom does just that, and is one of many
excellent clips that helps bring to life
an area of Science that has always been
difficult to do that with in the classroom.
Other titles in this series featured on
Schoolzone:
Animals
Electricity
Forces
Habitats
Materials
Written by Paul Turner
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Read full evaluation of BlackCat Compose