resources update issue 51

• More Musical Monsters
• Easiteach Geography Tools and Content
• Literacy World Interactive: Non-Fiction Version
• Interactive Literacy

• Maths-Whizz Teachers’ Resource
• New Star Science Interactive Activity
• Virtual CD
• Superspell 2

This CD-ROM is an extensive and versatile music-making software tool, ideal for KS2 pupils, that builds on the successful original Musical Monsters CD. Pupils, with the help of colourful monsters, can explore a range of sounds from simple one instrument patterns through to multi-instrumental advanced compositions.

We had great fun composing as a whole class whilst using the interactive whiteboard but it can also be used individually or on a network. There are complete sets of lesson plans and curriculum targets linked to the QCA Schemes of Work and program of study which is useful when mapping curriculum coverage and content.

This software is well worth getting to know, though you do not have to be a musical expert to be able to use this complete compositional package.

This is a whole-class maths teaching tool designed to provide a visually stimulating teaching resource for use on an IWB or with a data projector. It also has follow on interactive activities to be played by individuals, pairs or small groups and paper-based exercises that can be printed off. It is designed to cover the full numeracy curriculum and is divided into different topic areas such as number, data handling, shape and space and measures. The curriculum content for an academic year is broken down into 3 CD-ROMs, each of which contains between four and seven differentiated topics.

Maths-Whizz is very simple to navigate and it is easy to find activities to use for different topics. It was also very straightforward to find and print the paper-based activities.

Easiteach Geography Tools and Content is a useful tool in whole class geography teaching at KS1 and KS2. The Content CD-ROM has a selection of simulations, diagrams, video clips and photographs covering most of the topics in the QCA scheme. The CD-ROM is divided into QCA units of study with further options to find items by category or type. Each unit of work comes with lesson plans and a wide variety of topics are covered for each year group. The software has the added benefit of the teacher being able to add or adapt the pages to suit the ability of the children.

The software could be used both as a teaching tool and as a summary/revision at the end of a topic and has been designed with the interactive whiteboard in mind.

This CD-ROM provides interactive activities and investigations to help support the teaching of science in Year 5 and covers the requirements of the science National Curriculum. The CD-ROM is intended to introduce lessons to stimulate discussion or introduce a unit or area for investigation. A whole-class statements and voting activity assesses children’s knowledge before and after completing a unit. The CD-ROM is easy to navigate and offers interesting demonstrations and stimulating experiments. There is a supporting text book and teachers’ notes that provide detailed guidance together with photocopiable sheets. The content is accurate, age appropriate and current. The CD-ROM and books cover the key vocabulary needed for teaching each science unit. It could be used as a revision resource to consolidate work already carried out in KS2 science.

Heinemann

Literacy World Interactive is designed for use with the shared reading and writing strands of Literacy World, Heinemann’s scheme for the Literacy Strategy. CD-ROMs are available for fiction and non-fiction for each of the four year groups of Key Stage 2.

This is a flexible product that is primarily designed to be used with an IWB (or projector) to enrich whole class teaching. There are exemplars and writing frames and a variety of reveal and hide text features. Interactive word and sentence work can be dragged and dropped, or used for activities including matching, sequencing, cloze, brainstorming and timelines. The facility to add and design frames is particularly useful for customising a session’s work for a specific class.

Virtual CD is an application to simplify the use of CD-ROMs and DVDs on a school computer or network. The concept is that a teacher can copy one or more CD-ROMs or DVDs directly on to the computer’s hard drive. Virtual CD will create up to 23 so called emulated CD drives, so instead of inserting physical CDs into the physical drives Virtual CD allows you to work with up to 23 emulated CD drives simultaneously.

The main practical advantages of this include the fact that the original CDs can be kept safe and students do not need to open CD drives and handle CD-ROMs. In addition, using the computer’s hard drive means that the application will run quicker and quieter than using a physical drive.

Ginn’s Interactive Literacy: Multimedia Texts for Whole Class Teaching CD-ROM for Year 4 contains a wealth of content designed to make literacy lessons more interactive and motivational. The content is flexible, providing a selection of sources to meet the given learning objectives. Content includes texts, images, audio, video and animation. The fiction and non-fiction texts are high quality, stimulating and interesting to the age group. They also link very closely to other areas of the National Curriculum, for instance science and geography. As well as the beautifully presented texts given in the lesson units, some texts are also available in Word for pupils to work on independently. The software is intended to enable teachers to integrate ICT effectively into literacy lessons, and its objectives are achieved admirably.

I have tried SuperSpell 2 with my Year 3/4 class and can report that it really works. It is a manageable product for the whole class and delivers records of achievement in printable and electronic formats. It is easy to set up and comes with a facility to set up class names and word lists. My class have enjoyed using it, especially the games and are proud of what they have achieved.

The product contains over 6000 words that can be tailored to children’s individual needs and class specific word lists can be created. It covers the literacy strategy word list, homophones, prefixes and suffixes. There are four games/activities for each set of words that have been chosen. Audio support is give for reading written instructions and naming letters.

Make sure any new software will run on your current hardware - some software
may require particular hardware and vice versa
• Carry out an audit of your existing hardware and find out current plans for purchasing.
• Consult the school ICT policy
• Identify any further hardware or software requirements in the light of the above and ensure that these correlate
• Don’t forget, if it is an on-line product, to check you have enough band width