Recommended software for education
From Usefulwiki
If Geoff Dellow and many educators (software favoured by Stephen Heppell) were to choose software for use in the classroom for children aged 3 upwards then Flash 4 (the web design software designed initially by Macromedia to "Put Life into the Web" ) would be his first choice if used with well designed templates (similar/on a par to those he uses). The fact that it was initially designed as a web design tool is a distraction to its use in the classroom where the ability to upload files to the internet is a bonus and not the main attraction.
It can be used in so many ways in different projects that enable the student to take charge of their own thinking and develop a wide range of abilities. From an educational viewpoint, it is to be preferred to Microsoft products like Word and Powerpoint which are designed to require the minimum of thought and over most other educational software because it has such extensive abilities enabling the teacher to write software themselves to suit the particular area of learning that interests them. The templates (as they have been called) that are available only scratch the surface of what could be achieved with the Flash 4 software.
By contrast with software designed specifically for use in schools, it does not suffer from severe restrictions in its capabilities. It enables creative students to explore problem solving to extremely high levels of thinking, after all it was designed my the top software designers in the world to the requirements of the most demanding end users in the commercial web design world. Having said this it can still be used at a very basic level by children totally new to computers with amazing results.
When using Flash 4 in the classroom (rather than Computer Club) it is essential to use a template as a starting point. This ensures that EVERY child in the class succeeds no matter what his/her ability. This ensures EVERY child finishes the lesson feeling very pleased with themselves because they were stretched to their limit.
This is because a template is a complete program that works in the first place and ANY addition from a pupil allows them to feel that the result was their creation – which it indeed becomes. Thus the task they experience is different from many they experience in class. The pupils were not asked to start at ‘the beginning’ and work their way to ‘the end’ with the result that they could fail in reaching a ‘desired goal’ – finishing a story/ drawing a picture/making an object/ doing a set of sums.
Because of the unusual (probably unique) nature of Flash, the teacher can use/design a template that is a finished program in itself and the task given the children is to go in and modify/extend it. As a result of this open-endedness and absence of the possibility of failing all the children that Geoff Dellow has taught have been captivated by the project. Of 2000 students he was only aware of two that have not got involved with a Flash project. These were year 9 students (13/14 year olds) that came into the classroom convinced that education of any kind was a waste of time – they seemed to fear trying in case they failed and preferred trying to disrupt rather than engage with the activity.
Teachers interested in trying Flash 4 for themselves are offered free lessons and software by Geoff Dellow at gd at tygh.co.uk and through ICTOPUS - http://www.ictopus.org.uk -(who are publishing a series of articles on the use of Flash 4 in the Primary classroom ages 4 to 11). Extensive examples of the use of this software can be seen at http://www.tygh.co.uk/students with a rather chaotic summary 'as it happened' at http://www.tygh.co.uk/new.html There is also a new blog at http://flashteachers.blogspot used by teachers sharing projects. Those thinking of taking this offer up may find that they get captivated by the potentail of the software which requires a small commitment of time to understand enough to use it in the classroom with say 30 pupils.
Note: Flash 4 is the version of Flash that is far preferred over later or earlier versions: it is far more powerful than version 3 and not so complicated as versions Flash 5 onwards that have refinments intended only for the web site designer.
