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Overview
Anna Webber used Clicker 3 with her class of
25 Year 1 and 2 children at Benenden C.E.P. School. "First, we explored
the example grids in a whole class lesson around the computer. I explained
how to find different grids and how we could use them. The children
then took turns throughout the week."
Using the example grids
The example grids vary and can be used by a
wide variety of primary year groups. Anna showed the children how to
click on the 'Clicker Explorer' button 
to browse grids in folders. "The children tended to favour the
Oxford Reading Tree grids linked to the characters they love from their
reading books. They found grids I had not yet explored."
The children quickly learned to print their own
work, and confidence was boosted when a piece of writing was printed
out. It allowed for differentiation because some were able to produce
an A4 page, incorporating their own writing. Anna commented, "Clicker
seems to steer away from tedious word processing work where a child
has little to show for 15 minutes typing on the computer. Two children
needing extra learning support particularly benefited from the word
banks. One boy from a travelling community who struggles to write independently
worked particularly well on the sentence building grids. He printed
out an extra copy of his work to take home and show his family."
In consultation with a learning support assistant
for a Year 6 child, Anna considered how teachers could best utilise
grids to support learning. She saw potential in using sentence building
grids with children higher in the school who have learning difficulties.
Creating new grids
After using the examples, Anna designed grids
to meet the particular needs of her class. "After creating my first
simple grid I had far more confidence to design and make others. As
a non-ICT specialist, wary of introducing the unknown to my class, I
wasn't sure how successful I would be. The first grids took me a while
to create but it was time well spent, in that I became familiar with
the grid properties and graphics available. It was worthwhile to set
some time aside to become familiar with the resource so that I could
make the best use of it as a tool within my classroom."
By designing her own grids, Anna was able to bring
ICT into a number of curriculum subjects. "The most successful linked
with my Science topic from the Year 2 QCA unit, 'Variation'. One of
the main learning objectives was for children to identify similarities
and differences in the variety of animals in our environment, in order
to categorise them into groups.
In Clicker's own graphics folder, Anna found pictures
of animals and inserted these into cells on the grid. "I then gave a
variety of words and possible categories that the children could use.
They could choose to write a list of animals that slither, walk, swim,
fly or that have no legs, 2 legs, 4 legs or more. Some children invented
extra groups, such as animals that are big / small. The work reinforced
learning and also proved to be an assessment tool showing their understanding
of variation."
This Clicker 4 version of the
grid is very similar to the one made by Anna. To download, click on
the link below and save the grid into a user folder within the Clicker4
folder.
Download the Variation grid
Writing with grids
Pages like these were produced by 6
year olds within 15 minutes. The page on the right shows how one child
wrote freely while using the grid to supply the pictures.
Anna made another grid to support work in Geography.
"The children have to identify different houses and name them appropriately.
I included pictures of various house types: terrace, flat, bungalow,
cottage, semi-detached and detached. I put names and pictures in separate
cells so that children would have to make the correct match. This was
also an excellent assessment tool."
In another grid, Anna used graphics of clocks to
represent times. By looking in sub-folders such as household objects,
food and buildings, she found graphics for each activity in the day.
Rather than create grids from scratch by experimenting
with cell layouts, Anna successfully adapted existing grids by editing
the words and inserting pictures. "The grids may be as complex or as
simple as you like depending on the purpose."
Anna feels that Clicker has potential for use in
the Literacy Hour. A grid was made with a selection of words which had
to be sorted into groups of one, two or three syllable words. This was
used in conjunction with whole class reading and word work. The children
worked individually during the 20 minutes group time. Anna showed the
children how to use the tools to enlarge titles, apply underline, bold,
italic, and leave spacing for presentation. One boy who tends to produce
scruffy work took great time and care over production, and even changed
the font and size.
Anna has yet to explore the sound recording feature.
In most of her grids, she has tried to make good use of the graphics
features and has found this useful. "After using the example grids and
creating my own, I feel a sense of success. I would go so far as to
say that Clicker has changed the profile of ICT in my classroom."
To find out more...
Clicker
Grids for Learning: free resources
for download from Cricksoft
Clicker
Grids for Classifying and Labelling: a Kent NGfL project teacher
describes how she designed her own grids for an ICT unit of work in
Year 1.
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