resources update issue 79

Continuing our series of tasters of our digital resource evaluations, we bring you a selection of ict, history, d&t, geography, cross curricular, english and art & design titles for primary and secondary:

• KAZ Typing Tutor: Gotham New Media Ltd
• ICT Links: Heinemann Secondary
• The Learning Curve Website:
  The National Archives
• Site and Situation Bundle: eGeography.co.uk

• The Digital Field Trip to The Rainforest AT:
  Digital Frog International, Inc.
• Twist: TAG Learning Ltd
• Phoneme Track: SEMERC
• Food Safety (Level 1) : Spark and Zoom

Are chemistry teachers more knowledgeable than maths teachers? Where do geography teachers stand? Which subject area boasts most eggheads! Find out if teachers of your subject are the brainiest in Britain by taking this quiz, 12 questions on a variety of subjects.

Plus - there are two prize draws of £250 to be won! one to be drawn from all the entrants with full marks (or nearest) and one from all the others - so you don't have to be brainy to win, but it helps!

Please remember to complete your contact details at the end of the quiz in order to be entered into the draw.

Proceed to quiz - Prize fund of £500!

KAZ or Keyboard A to Z is a typing tutor that has been developed for stand alone, intranet, network and internet use. Its aim is to make learning to touch-type fun and easy. KAZ is one of the most appealing and user friendly software keyboarding packages that I have used. The operator is given clear, unambiguous preliminary instructions on how to use the package, and the importance of good posture and correct hand position is effectively addressed at the outset. Regular reminders of these important factors are given throughout the course. New keys are introduced in a logical order and progression is well paced. The learner is quickly able to type short sentences, which is a motivating and rewarding experience.

ICT Links is a valuable resource which supports both the teachers and pupils in the cross-curricular delivery of ICT at Key Stage 4. It delivers ICT in English, maths, science, geography and history providing teachers with ICT projects which integrate into the current GCSE syllabuses. The innovative e-tutor works in conjunction with the printed teachers’ guides, lesson plans and resources and enables pupils to work through the projects at their own pace (with prompts to suggest skills that they may want to develop). Pupils and teachers may also use the Skills Finder to search the extensive range of skills for Microsoft Office programs. The resources are designed to be placed on a network, so that the pupils can access the sample files, when instructed by the teacher or e-tutor.

Twist is an enjoyable vector drawing program contained
on CD-ROM. It provides tools to add and resize shapes, curves, gradients and text and can create illustrations to support numeracy, science, DT and art at Key Stages
2 & 3.

Pupils can quickly use Twist’s tools as part of the Graphical Modelling module and create drawings without any support, reproducing shapes linked to their design task. Objects can be resized, moved, edited or rotated, according to need. A particular feature which pupils enjoy is the sheer variety and complexity of fills which can be applied to an endless variety of shapes, namely colour fills, gradient fills, texture fills and picture fills.

Pupils were very positive and enthusiastic in their response to this software.

The Learning Curve is the free educational website for the National Archives (perhaps better known as its old identity of the Public Records Office). Designed for both students and teachers, it includes material to cover a wide range of topics for Key Stages 2 to 5 of the National Curriculum for history. Although the majority of the material found in the Learning Curve is concerned with British history, it is not exclusively so.

The site consists of short lessons, in-depth document studies, activities, games, timelines, interactive tasks, background notes and much more. It really encourages pupils to make use of primary sources, to get used to ‘handling’ them for researching essays, presentations, reports, coursework or even personal studies and therefore to build up their ability to critically evaluate material.

Phoneme Track is an interesting and appealing interactive program designed to help reading and spelling, suitable for Mac or PC.

The child uses phoneme-grapheme knowledge to develop skills in segmenting and blending, by taking a phoneme away, substituting or changing it to form other words; with the pupil’s answer being displayed after the third attempt. Fun characters, animations and a choice of voices to reproduce the phonemes make the activities appealing.

This product is suitable for mainstream classroom and also individual use because a record of the score is saved. Minimal teacher input is required and the program is very curriculum relevant considering the raised profile of phonics. All the word lists and phonemes used are included with the CD-ROM; to complement this, the supporting teacher’s workbook provides excellent ready-made worksheets.

Site and Situation is a collection of media and activities which concentrates on settlement, site and situation. Specifically, the ‘bundle’ consists of materials including PowerPoint presentations, video clips, worksheets, lesson plans and QCA Scheme of Work extracts.
The theme of settlements and their requirements is fundamental to most key stages of geography and this package will be useful from Key Stage 3 upwards. There is ‘something for everybody’ here and the material has been designed to have broad appeal whilst reinforcing the major concepts of this topic very thoroughly. There are clear summaries, useful video footage, specific OS map extracts and interactive quizzes for students as well as good support for busy teachers. This is a sound and useful classroom resource and a comprehensive, teacher friendly package.

Esky: Food Safety (Level 1) is an online resource that examines all fundamental aspects of food safety, with a particular emphasis on the principles behind HACCP. Divided into five modules, with module 1 looking at: Food Handling, 2: Food Poisoning, 3: Food Control, 4: Cleaning and Waste Management, and 5: Complaints and Regulations, the resource would be useful in both food technology and science lessons. The content is entirely made up of animations and graphics, with an interactive feature in each module for users to assess themselves. The package comes to life when presented on an interactive whiteboard, and works best when the content of each module is shown to the whole class and followed up with individual work on the assessment activities.

• Decide what you want to achieve with ICT and then assess whether your school has the resources available.
• If you work in partnership with other schools, you may want to consider their resources, too.
• Discuss your ideas for ICT with teaching staff and get their views of products they’ve used.