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 Overview
Tips
and important discoveries
Making irregular grids
Clicker grids for QCA 1D
Grids for download
Sallyann Green has explored some of
the advanced features of Clicker in making her own grids. We've added
technical detail, so that anyone with a basic knowledge of creating
and editing grids may follow the steps. If you are new to Clicker, you
may like to begin with a visit to the Cricksoft
site. At Clicker
Grids for Learning, you can explore and download grids produced
by teachers to support a range of curriculum objectives.
Overview
I found it easiest to create grids using
just one row of cells to begin with, rather than a more complex layout.
(In Clicker4, the templates for Word Grids all have at least two rows,
but you can select your own by clicking the Custom... button.
Change Down to 1.)
I found the grids progressively easier and
quicker to make. The first grid took about 2 hours and the last 5 linked
grids also 2 hours! Although I used some advanced features I didn't
get onto recording my own sounds, as that's something I'm not really
familiar with in any application.
Text, cells and grid backgrounds may all be coloured.
The versatility of colour makes it easy to personalise grids. The fact
that every cell speaks what it says is very useful for the youngest
children. I like the way a full stop prompts the whole sentence to be
spoken, although this does not appear to happen when a graphic is used
in the same cell.
Year 1 children said that the colours and size of
print helped them with their reading. They showed greater confidence
than usual in creating sentences. In using the 'car colours' grid, my
Reception children (all still under 5) showed very good mouse skills.
Reading the cells from left to right reinforced their early reading
abilities. (It also showed me that some need yet more work on colour
recognition!)
NB
Images are from the RM Topic Bank: C:\Program Files\RM Classroom\Resources\ClipArt\cars\
I sent all my grids to Clicker Writer. I tried using
Textease, but as our children are also unfamiliar with it, I felt it
would be one more skill for us to learn.
Clicker grids are the most child friendly word bank
I've seen and used. The on-screen tutorial is helpful and the manual
easy to use. Our school will be using them for QCA 1D and I can see
uses for them in many cross-curricular topic activities.
Tips and important discoveries
Sets of grids are automatically linked if you number
them 1, 2, 3 etc. This only works if there are no spaces in the file
name: save the grids with names like colours1, colours2, colours3, etc.
Pupils may then move to the next grid by clicking the forward arrow:
You should ideally load Clicker first, then open
grids from within Clicker. If you click a grid to launch Clicker, Clicker
Writer loses its button bar and the top of your grid may be missing.
However, you can click the back arrow 
to restore the button bar.
I lost a couple of grids when near to completion.
Fortunately, Clicker4 has automatic saving of grids. Point to Options
- User Preferences and
click the Other tab.
To delete unwanted grids, click the Clicker
Explorer button:
Go up a level if necessary to locate the grid. Shift-left
click on the name of the grid and a menu appears. Take care!
Making
irregular grids
Clicker4 has a number of templates, with different
layouts for various purposes. If you can't find one you want, it is
possible to start from scratch with a blank grid.
On the My Templates
tab, select the Blank template.
It fills the screen - this can be changed.
point to Grid
- Grid Properties...
Click the Send
to tab.
Click Send
to Clicker Writer.
On the Appearance
tab, choose a different background colour if you wish.
Save Grid as Template
- you may want to use this blank grid again.
To insert a cell, point to Grid
- Insert - Insert Cell. Drag the cell to position. Hold down
the Alt key to resize by
dragging the bottom right corner. If you need to move the cell again,
hold Alt down then drag.
New cells are inserted at the same size as the
last one you worked on. To align cells, select by holding down Ctrl
while you click them or drag over them. Point to Grid
- click Adjust cells.
Clicker
grids for QCA 1D
Editor's note: In
the Year 1 QCA unit, 'Labelling and classifying', children use a word
processor with a word bank. In setting the scene, the teacher asks
the class to imagine they have lost an object and describe it so that
others can find it. She discusses ways of describing the object. In
the short focused tasks, children select and describe an object, choosing
from collections of words (colour, shape, size and so on). They sort
the objects, and compile sentences to describe what they have done.
In the integrated task, the teacher prepares a word bank containing
the attributes of a set of pictures. A picture can be chosen on screen.
The child clicks on the attributes in the word bank to label the picture.
Away from the computer, printed labels may be used to label copies
of the images.
First, I made the food grid and used this with
a Year 1 class:
In retrospect, the grid should have included the
names of the fruits and vegetables. As that would make it too crowded,
linked grids may be called for. Pictures would be better on the right
hand side, to encourage children to form the sentence first then add
the picture to the end. Size is an issue. Although I was able to reduce
the size on the grid, the peas look almost as big as potatoes when
they're placed on the page!
The shapes grid was rather more
successful. The children seemed to really understand the concept of
keywords as attributes. They enjoyed challenging one another to guess
which shape they were thinking of.
I used graphics from the RM Topic Bank. I was
able to alter the size of the shapes within the grid, but on the page,
they appear as the same size, which we all found a bit frustrating.
It's possible in Clicker Writer to click on the shape and then drag
the 'handles', but this requires fine control and would be very difficult
for the children.
Editor's note: As
it stands, the grid will only work on an RM WindowBox standalone PC.
It looks for graphics in C:\Program Files\RM Classroom\Resources\ClipArt\Maths\
To overcome the restrictions, Kent NGfL is developing a set of grids
with graphics of varying sizes.
As with any collection of clip art, the colours
of the shapes were limited to what was available in the Topic Bank.
However, you can create shapes in Colour Magic, save them in a Clicker
user folder and insert them into a grid.
Small Creatures is a set of five linked grids
which aim to develop children's understanding of classification and
identification. The pictures are from the Clicker Picture Library.
First, a child chooses an animal from the set of pictures. Then, two
sentences can be written: "What am I? I have ..."
Each of the cells with attributes
is linked to another grid. More sentences can now be created, revealing
which creature the child is thinking of.
To toggle between the grid and the full writing page, press F2,
or click this button: 
Note that on the grid for 6 legs,
only one correct describing sentence can be written:
Click the back arrow
to return to the opening grid.
Grids
for download
Save these grids into a Clicker user
folder. (For details of how to add a user, consult your Clicker manual.)
Note that 'car colours' and 'shapes' will only work on a WindowBox
PC, as explained above. You are welcome to adapt these grids to include
your own graphics.
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