b.
Selecting ICT Resources
There
are two main options for this topic:
- no
ICT
- database
or statistical package
This
could be done without ICT, but she wanted to use a large amount
of data and anticipated that pupils take a long time calculating
and drawing graphs. They would also make mistakes, which would
make the conclusions meaningless. The disadvantage was that they
would not practise the mental and manual skills involved in calculating
averages and drawing graphs.
However,
they had already done a lot of work on this and she thought that
she could ask them to demonstrate their understanding of these
techniques by explaining in their report how the computer had
calculated the average and produced a graph. This work would also
introduce them to the idea of correlation in a context where they
were very familiar with the meaning of the data involved and where
they could appreciate the purpose of considering correlation.
Questions
for Consideration
- Which
of the following features of ICT are likely to contribute to
learning in this topic:
- speed
and automatic functions
- capacity
and range
- provisional
nature of information stored, processed and presented
- interactive
way in which information is stored, processed and presented?
- Could
you achieve the same effect using other aids to learning?
However,
in order for ICT to help pupils with higher order thinking, they
need to be familiar with the techniques required. She established
that the pupils had already used MS Works for simple database
work. In their year 7 IT lessons, they had designed forms to collect
data concerning class members' hobbies, pets, and favourite foods.
Their teacher had typed up all the data from the pupils' forms
onto a single sheet and reproduced it. The pupils then set up
fields for these variables, and each entered the data into their
database by copying from the duplicated sheet. They had searched
the database for lists of pupils with particular interests, and
they had copied the data into a spreadsheet format to draw graphs
in order to compare the popularity of different foods, etc.
Questions
for Consideration
- Which
part of the programme of study for IT is this work related to?
- Consider
the scheme of work IT for your own school or department, and
compare the teaching of this part of the programme of study
for IT in your school with the way it is taught in this case
study.
The
teacher had read in the UWS booklet "Better thinking, Better Mathematics"
about using the program GRASS for this work in the days of BBC
computers, and had seen an article in a Maths Education journal
about using Pinpoint to do work like this. A friend who works
with computers told her that Excel could do what she wanted, but
that the IT department use MS Works for database and spreadsheet
work in KS3, and so she thought it would be best to use this.
It
would not cost the Department money to buy it and the pupils were
already familiar with it; she had used it herself at home for
word processing and spreadsheet work, though she had not used
the database tool. She quizzed the IT Co-ordinator concerning
its features, and it seemed as though it would do what she wanted:
- Enable
her to create a database structure with text and numeric fields.
- Enable
pupils to enter their collected data under the field headings
and save it.
- Enable
her to copy each pupils' data into one big file and save it
for them to analyse.
- Enable
pupils to produce averages of numeric fields for selected records.
- Enable
pupils to produce graphs of data in particular fields for selected
records by copying the required records into a spreadsheet template.
Questions
for Consideration
Database
and spreadsheet programs both allow you to set out data in the
form of a table. They are designed to help you do different things
with the data.
- What
is the difference between them?
- What
database programs do you have:
Make
sure that you are confident in using the main features of these
programs, noting carefully the differences if you are using more
than one program or version.
On
the next page, make a copy and fill out the summary to get a focus
on what you will do. Think of some uses of your own, and make
a short note on what you will have to do to make it work, what
you expect the benefit to be to your pupils, and what difficulties
you expect to encounter when you do it in the classroom.
 Resources
Selected for Work on Mathematics
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