Primary Teacher UK

Music software

Having completed a degree in music, what feels like a lifetime ago now, I was thrilled will the opportunity to review a new piece of music software call PROTÉGÉ. When first installing a new piece of software, one of the first things that you want to do, is see just what the program is capable of and this was no exception. Having clicked on ‘OPEN’, there were six pre-prepared pieces for me to listen to. These demo pieces were fantastic and really showed the capabilities of the program. However, I was a bit disappointed, as these demos had been created in the more advanced sister program called NOTION. Undeterred, I decided to have a go at creating my very own masterpiece, using PROTÉGÉ.

There are a minimum number of icons, which is great, as you don’t get the overwhelming feeling of panic when you aren’t sure which one to choose. The whole program is driven from a simple set of drop-down menus on the right hand side, although you do need a certain amount of musical knowledge to understand what some of the terms mean. Setting up the initial score is relatively simple, once you understand how to navigate through the menu system. I chose to input the notes using the computer keyboard, although you could enter them via a midi keyboard. One thing which was mildly irritating, is that you seem to have to enter your own bar lines, even though you have entered a time signature, which interrupted the flow somewhat.

The program allows you to enter either single staves, or multiple ones to score for a whole orchestra. Each stave can be named with either the instrument name or child’s name should you wish to. Although I chose to enter actual notes, you could enter rhythmic patterns for the children to follow. This is probably the next step to take when moving on from simple graphic scoring. You can also enter lyrics, rests, accidentals, slurs, tempo marking and all expression marks, even down to ‘up’ and ‘down’ bow markings for strings!

Once you have entered the notation, the playback facility allows you to listen to your composition. Printing it out though was much easier than following it on the screen, as it seemed quite jerky and difficult to follow.

After about 15 minutes, I had created something which was quite tuneful and certainly looked very impressive when printed out! I was even able to save it as a .WAV file to put into a Powerpoint presentation!

This piece of software is definitely aimed at the upper end of the primary age phase and needs adult input. I can see huge benefits for developing musical skills for the Gifted and Talented and also for the music specialist when trying to print out ‘real’ music for children to read. It works really well as a music notation package – one of the easiest and user-friendly I have seen – but you may need to look elsewhere if it is a sequencer you are looking for.

For information about the program, go to http://www.notionmusic.com/products/protege/

Concept Draw Mind Mapping Software

The Mind-Mapping software, Concept Draw, has been reviewed on the site before, but a new update has been launched and as our school was looking at evaluating different software to help with our curriculum planning, I agreed to trial it.

When you download and open the software, you are taken aback with just how complicated it appears. However, a ‘bubble sheet’ of options pops up to select from, which is quite user- friendly. The options include a Getting Started Tutorial; Start to MindMap; Create MindMap from template; Begin Brainstorming; Outline new idea; Open last edited mind map and Explore Existing MindMap. Being a ‘manual-reader’ person, I selected the Tutorial, to see if it would guide me through the icons on the screen (of which there are a plethora!)

ConceptDRAW Mindmap

I have used mind-mapping software for many years for my own personal use, so when Andrew asked me have a look at the ConceptDRAW Mindmap Professional software; I was intrigued to see what this software had to offer over the programme I use.

My initial impression when opening the program was WOW! The screen was filled with icons and file options in abundance. Apparently there are 3000 icons! The initial dialogue box gave me 7 options: new blank document; new document with brainstorming; create a mindmap with the assistant; create a mindmap based on a template; open existing mindmap; open last-edited mindmap and getting started tutorial – luckily there was the option to tick a check box ‘don’t show this dialogue box again’. Guess which option I chose?

There is no doubt that this is a powerful programme having extensive features and functionality – an fully functioning help system, a huge range of libraries and templates and there are many options regarding formats - the maps can be saved as JPEGs, PDFs, PowerPoints, HTML etc. etc. I am sure the versatility of this programme will appeal to many. You can even export the map, the text notes and the outline to your iPOD. Apparently this is the first program devoted to mind mapping that supports both Macintosh and Windows platforms. All documents and libraries can be freely exchanged between versions.

The brainstorming function allows users to capture ideas in both Outline and MINDMAP views and uses a timer to limit the brainstorming session. There is also a text notes facility to supply additional information where necessary. You can edit them in the floating window. When exported to HTML, notes come up as hints in the browser. Although I cannot pretend I explored them all, apparently ConceptDraw MINDMAP features powerful flowcharting tools: vector drawing tools, automatic shape connectors and more for creating pro-quality flowcharts and diagrams.

As far as using the programme with children goes, I can imagine using it to introduce mind-mapping to children so that they can develop their own paper-based examples and it would be useful too in making up blank concept maps for children to fill in. However, my feeling is that this program is far too complex for my children to use. My Year 6 children are very good at ICT but the skills needed for this programme are advanced and many of the features are too complicated for their use. They and their teachers would need a far simpler tool.

I tried to remain as objective as possible when reviewing this software and am very aware that my judgement may be clouded due to many years’ experience using another mind-mapping programme but, in my view, this software is far more complex than I or my children would ever need but recognise that this is a powerful piece of software that could be a useful tool for older children and their teachers.

The TES FAQs

Whilst on the TES forums, I came across this site - The TES FAQ.

The author of this site has collected a bunch of the most frequently asked questions on the forums, and created a website with answers to these questions. This is a really handy site and covers questions about, among other things: applying for jobs, changing age phase, induction, maternity rights, Ofsted and pay queries. The A-Z index lists all the questions covered by the site.

Well worth a look if you are a student teacher or an NQT and have questions about future work.

Writing Reports with Report Builder

Over the last week or so I've been trying out a number of different Report Writing programs to try and find the best software for our school. I'd like to share the details on the software that I found to be the most useful, despite it been rejected by my school in favour of just typing the reports up in Microsoft Word!

Report Builder was a piece of software that I came across from a link that I was given. The software is written by a company called 'ApplePanic', which as far as I can tell is a fairly new company. What makes this company different is that they really seem to listen to the customer – us the teacher! One suggestion that I made was taken on board, and within 5 or 6 hours a new version was available to download with it implemented. How's that for customer service!

Using the software is similar to other report writing software, Report Assist by Simple Logic being the most common, in how it works with quite a few bonus features! First of all details about each child are put in, the name, nickname, gender, DOB, attendance etc. You can then use the statement banks to write the subject entries for each child. Two or more children need similar comments? Highlight the children's names and enter the comments and it get entered for each child. Any pronouns are automatically altered to cater for the gender.

One of the great features I like is the smart cut and paste. Cut a comment from one child's report and paste it into another and the name changes plus the pronouns. This makes cutting and pasting comments easy without that awful nagging doubt that you forgot to change Richard into a 'he'!

The collection of comments in the comment bank is sufficiently large to use straight away, but as usual can be added to using the simple subject editor. Schools often do this as a whole during a staff meeting. Each foundation comment banks is divided into QCA units (what a great idea) and then subdivided into excellent, good, average and below average. For literacy and numeracy you can pick the comments based on the child's level, all the way down to P statements.

At the moment there are a limited number of report styles, but ApplePanic are actively encouraging schools to send in their report layout so that they can widen the number of styles available. Currently ReportBuilder prints out a cover sheet followed by the report and finally the attendance data and reply slip. If you wish you can also have a sheet with test results. My suggestion to put the attendance data on the front sheet was received and implemented in a new download with 5 – 6 hours as mentioned above.

The updates is another area where I think Report Builder can prosper above some of the other software available at the moment – once you have bought the software you have free updates for the life of the product. You don't have to purchase a new version of the software each year to fix bugs, it's free updates. A simple matter of clicking the Update? button, or even better allow it to run automatically. 

Other features I liked included the backup options, which is also used to move the data between computers and the easy way to export your options so as to allow all the teachers in the class to have the same set-up whichever computer they use. It is also possible to set a limit on the number of characters for each subject comment so you can limit those NQTs who write reams for each child!

The future is bright for Report Builder as well.  A conversation with one of the creators on led to some 'future' features being disclosed, the most significant being the 'Report Server'.   This free add-on is due to go into beta during the summer.  It will allow you to keep reports and pupil info in a central location - like on one of the school computers. You will be able to access this using the schools network or across the Internet. 

Of course using the add-on will be entirely optional, so you could use ReportBuilder as-is, or just put the location of the server in your settings to enable "client" mode. The Backup and Restore icons will then change from memory cards to some other graphic yet to be decided.

Other updates are also planned to ReportBuilder; enhancing the help and adding features people request via the forum, fixing any problems people may find, etc.

There are many other features built into the program and I think the only way that you can really make a choice on a program like this is to try it. There is a free download at the ApplePanic website allowing you to try out the software. If you're planning to buy software to write your reports this year then I suggest you seriously check out Report Builder and compare the features and customer support with others.

Now if only I could convince our head to let us use a program like this. Oh well I'll try again next year!

Link: Report Builder : http://www.applepanic.com/reportbuilder.html

Learning Essentials from Microsoft

Today I've received a copy of Microsoft 'Classroom assistance for Learners and teachers.'   This two CD pack contains 'Learning Essentials' and the 'Best of Innovative Teachers'.

According to the website Learning Essentials "helps students get started, stay organised, and successfully complete high-quality assignments. Learning Essentials can help educators easily create effective instructional resources, complete administrative tasks, and implement new teaching strategies and with the Content Development Kit, you can create even more templates and tools to use with Learning Essentials."

Included on the CD, (or in the free download) there is a big collection of templates (although most of them are more for secondary teachers) including handwriting sheets, graph paper, certificates,  multiplication tables and student awards.  One of the more interesting and useful templates is for making tests for the children.  This allows you to quickly set up a quiz / test using common types of question such as true / false, multiple choice, short answer, missing word etc.  All you need to do then is type in the question.

The second CD, the 'best of Innovative teachers' is a smaller version of the Innovative teachers microsite at Microsoft.  All the activities and resources are for British schools rather than American.  There are very few primary resources included on the CD.  Maths has a number patterns PowerPoint, Literacy has a nursery rhymes and fun with words activity and there are a few general KS2 / 3 resources.  All of these, plus many others can be downloaded from the website will a little searching though.  This CD is obviously more use for the secondary teachers.

As a free resource it can't be knocked and I'll certainly be using some of the templates to help me, especially the graph paper ones which I can edit, it's just a pity there isn't more primary friendly resources on the CD.  Have a look and download what you need.

Labours of Heracles Review

At last I've had time to get together a review of the Labours of Heracles by Gareth Pritchard!

Last weekend I downloaded a copy of Primary Extra’s new pack – The Labours of Heracles.  I’ve used the story of Heracles (or Hercules if you’re Roman) a number of times in the past, often using the cartoon version from Greek Myths for Young Children by Marcia Williams.

Teachers' TV Videos

I came across the Teachers TV video library the other day - there is an impressive collection of all kinds of different types of videos that are all free to watch online. Use the search tool to find videos in either the Primary, Secondary or General Zones. Some videos are just 1 minute long, other videos last around 15 minutes.

The 'Teachers' Trade Secrets' videos are accessible by just pressing 'Go' on the search menu without selecting a specific search criteria. These videos are great 1 minute tips from teachers on areas such as:

• Managing assemblies
• Using a class mascot
• Times table raps
• Learning vocabulary

The Primary section of the videos library (accessible by searching just for videos under the 'Primary Zone') contain a huge range of videos on teaching primary subjects and information and advice on areas such as behaviour management and settling in as an NQT. Here are just a few of them:

• Early Years - The outdoor environment
• KS1 Numeracy - Teaching Place Value
• KS2 Literacy - Boys' writing 1
• Primary ICT - Whiteboard top tips

All in all there are just under 600 videos to choose from on this site, 160 of them are in the Primary Zone. They are well worth a view and great if you want to just sit back and watch.

A Guide To Using Interactive Whiteboards

I have just read an excellent review of "How to Use an Interactive Whiteboard Really Effectively in Your Primary Classroom" by Jenny Gage, on TES Online.  This is a book for users of SMARTboard or Prometheon ACTIVboards. 

Tes Online states:

As well as giving examples of good practice, the book also sets out some of the pitfalls which can easily be avoided, once you know they are there. And this is the strength of this book - it allows you to learn from others, not re-invent the wheel.

Full of practical tips, this book doesn’t try to over-awe you with all the features, but rather to take you from familiarising yourself with the basics to a point where the IWB is integrated into your teaching in a seamless and stress-free way.

I popped over to David Fulton Publishers and discovered Jenny has also written a version for Secondary school teachers as well.  Both are £18 and come with a CD of resources.

Deb

PE Primary Review

Last month I was talking about the PE Primary resource website.  After discussion with the Huw, the site founder, they have very kindly allowed us access to the site to review the resources.