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A Sense of ....... software are a perfect way to engage pupils when using real datalogging equipment.
NC References
KS2 ICT 1a, 1b, 2b, 2c, 4a, 5a, 5c
QCA References
KS2 ICT Unit 5F: Monitoring environmental conditions and changes
Available from TAG Learning or Commotion
A Sense of Murder
Lux Lumens, Millionaire Industrialist has been discovered murdered! Four of his employees have been staying at the same hotel, each with a reason to do him injury. But each guest has a cast iron alibi – or so it seems! The hotel data sensors have logged lots of information, who could be lying? Pupils access the logged data and analyse it against the alibis, gradually eliminating suspects. Thinking Skills and problem solving are also developed and the package contains many extra resources, linked to full and detailed lesson plans to allow the teacher to teach this problematic area of the curriculum in an enjoyable, innovative and successful way.
A Sense of Mystery
The Second in ‘The Sense of…' series, this title takes pupils on a journey of discovery as they attempt to solve the attempted theft of the Khoo-Itz-Bhigg diamond. The thief (chosen randomly from a cast of characters) must be trapped inside, and yet they all have plausible cover stories. The museum has logged lots of data, and this can be interrogated alongside suspects' stories. Who is the guilty party..? The software features random and different outcomes each time, as well as offering pupils to invent their own guilty or innocent suspect and place them into the game setting for others to interrogate
Review of Sense of Murder
 A Sense of Murder
A Sense of Murder is an innovative approach to the often problematic curriculum area of Datalogging and Sensing. Using this self contained package, pupils have to solve the murder of Lux Lumens, the millionaire industrialist, by matching the stories of the chief suspects to the data logged on the hotel computer system.
Site Licence: £49.99
Use: This software is ideal to be used on a large display with a data projector. |
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Detailed Lesson Plans
The software comes complete with lesson plans, resources and a user guide. Each lesson is based around the three part model of starter, main and plenary lessons, with clear objectives outlining the learning points. The learning activities are reinforced with suggested practical sessions using dataloggers, in order for the pupils to make a connection between the real-life data collection and what it means.
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Opportunities for Assessment
A major feature of each lesson is the pupil's discussions and explanations of their ideas which opens the doors to many assessment opportunities. |
Introductory Lesson
Pupils are given a background brief to the murder of Lux Lumens, the Industrial Tycoon. They also meet the four suspects, Hugh Middity, Val Ume, Anna Logg and Darren Heit.
The pupils look at the newspaper article explaining the murder case which they are to solve. They then move onto the 'Odd-one-out' activity which is used to get them thinking. The activity starts with three suspects from the murder. |
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Examples of dialogue from the Lesson Plan
Teacher: Who is the odd-one-out? (Choices: Anna, Darren and Hugh)
Pupils: "Anna, because she's the only girl." Hugh, because he's wearing glasses." "Darren, because he looks worried." " Anna, because she looks angry."
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Screen Two
Teacher: Which is the odd-one-out? (Choices: Television, radio and mobile phone)
 Pupil 1: Radio, because it doesn't have a screen.
Pupil 2: Mobile phone, because you can talk to it. Pupil 3: Radio, because it s not interactive. Teacher: What do you mean by interactive? Pupil 4: You can press the red button on the TV and get more information and you can press buttons on the phone and get more information, the radio just makes sounds. Pupil 5: You can change stations to get more information.
Pupil 6: But that's just lucky if you get what you want, on the TV you can get to play games and on the phone.
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The final part of the lesson aims to enable the pupils to realise the importance of precise language to describe graphs of data.
The image on the left shows an annotation of the light data graph.
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| Other Features of the Software Package |
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Simulations of real life scenarios
An animated kettle boils onscreen. The pupils watch the temperature rise on the Logit Explorer and follower the temperature data as it is plotted on the graph.
The animation can be paused at any time so that the pupils can be asked to discuss and predict the shape of the graph as the kettle reaches boiling point. |
The pupils' language and thinking is developed using an animation of a museum security camera to introduce the concept. The pupils consider different scenarios to identify the appropriate sensor and sampling rates.
The scenario is a museum containing a special jewel, which is watched over by security cameras. The cameras can only store a limited number of 120 frames. Therefore, the class need to decide how often to capture a picture, every hour, every five minutes, every minute or every second.
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Recording Sound Levels from the computer
By holding the sound sensor next to the computer's speakers, pupils record the sound levels for the different radio stations on the virtual radio. They then annotate the graph to identify when the radio station was playing Rock music (loud), Dance music (repetitive beat) or a comedy programme (from quiet to loud when the audience laughs). |
Living Graph - Annotating Graphs
The pupils' language and thinking is developed using a 'Living graph'. It attempts to link real data collected using the datalogger to match to the software data.
The pupils decide which data they look at, light, sound and/or temperature and arrange the the annotated labels on the graph. |
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