A program featuring Tizzy the magical clown, Sherston's Type with Tizzy introduces children to the layout of the keyboard, plus the purpose of all the main keys.
The main educational objectives of this program are to familiarise children with the keyboard; to develop speed in locating keys and to increase familiarity with some of the main non-alphanumeric keys.
In this program Tizzy the magical clown leads the way through 19 activities and is always on hand to help. The 19 activities are broken down into five main categories: Jigkeys to develop familiarity with the keyboard; Fastkeys to give the children repeated practice in quickly locating individual keys; Guess the Key, which aims to develop strategies to locate keys and to learn and use key vocabulary; and Practise with Tizzy - to develop skills in typing quickly and accurately.
This is an ideal program to develop children's word processing skills and a great tool to develop keyboard skills, particularly for those who do not have access to a computer at home. Priced 39.95 for a single user.
Telephone 01666 843200
www.sherston.co.uk
Another Tizzy-based program is Tizzy's Busy Week from Sherston (priced Pounds 24.95 for a single user). This is a fun and interactive CD-ROM which supports the teaching of early learning goals for ICT.
The main educational objectives of this program are to develop children's mouse control skills and basic computer knowledge and to provide teachers with text-free materials that are designed to introduce children to computers.
Contact as before
Albert's Paintbox is a superb graphics program that encourages pupils to explore and experiment with painting without any paint being spilled or running out of paper. This could form a great introduction to an art project or support existing artwork in the class.
The program introduces pupils to pop-up menus, font selection, undo and redo, as well as showing children how to load, save, copy and paste and cut and paste.
As there are no words in Albert's Paintbox, just big clear buttons and a pop-up menu, it is sure to be a big hit with younger users.
There are endless ideas that will endear it to teachers as well. For example, it uses thin paint to demonstrate how overlapping colours can create different tones; the tools from the painting tool box can be used to introduce terms such as thin, bold, wavy, long, oval, curvy, smooth and rough and it explores the properties of shape and symmetry.
The program also contains its own selection of Clip Art, under the guise of the stamp tool box and it is possible for teachers to add their own stamps to this collection. Really, the possibilities for creative experimentation are endless: digital photographs can be used as a background for pupils'
work; maps as a stimulus for creative work, pictures of famous sculptures can be placed in different situations and there's even an opportunity to design your own sculpture.
This program is highly versatile in that it can be adapted for many different ability levels and teaching purposes. Available from Resource Education, priced 37.50 for a single user.
Telephone 0870 777 0247www.resourcekt.co.uk
Animated Stories from BEAM (priced 55) is a superb program to use with an interactive white board, if you are lucky enough to have one in your classroom, or it can be used with pairs or individual children working at the computer. The main focus of the program is numeracy, with particular emphasis on number, counting, calculating, shape, space and measures.
Each of the above topics contains a number of related stories, which the children navigate through the use of well-defined buttons that appear on the screen. Special features include an interactive activity that the children can play; the all-important reward page where the children can activate the program by rolling the mouse over the picture; and the Teacher Zone, which provides ideas for further maths work away from the computer.
While the characters and graphics will appeal to children of all ages, I feel this is most suitable for nursery and Foundation stage.
Telephone 020 7684 3323 www.beam.co.uk
Star rating
Type with Tizzy
***
Tizzy's Busy Week
****
Albert's Paintbox
*****
Animated Stories
*****
