Crick Software UK Blog

Here are two stories that have been related to me by teachers who use Clicker as their class word processor.

The first from a Year 2 teacher. What does she think is the best thing about Clicker? Undoubtedly that it speaks as the children write. (Clicker speaks each sentence as the end punctuation is added.) Her young writers have become very aware that if the computer ‘stops speaking to them’ they need to look at their work and add the missing full stops.  Not only does it encourage them to self-correct, but has led to a greater awareness of the place of punctuation in writing.

The second is from a Year 6 teacher who observed one of his pupils as he was writing a story. As the pupil wrote, he listened to the speech feedback in Clicker. He realised that his sentence did not make sense, spoke what he had intended to write aloud, and then corrected his writing for himself.

Both of these examples illustrate the power of Clicker’s talking word processor and how speech feedback can really help children to actively appraise their own writing, encouraging them to think about their work and take steps to edit and improve it for themselves.

Clicker 6 wizards are a fantastic way of creating resources really quickly, and in the latest update, we have made them even easier to use.

When you’re using the Clicker 6 sentence building wizard, did you know you can paste in sentences from the current Clicker Set?  This is useful if you want to use the same sentences, but with different Model Sentence options.

When you click the "Paste" button to paste text into a wizard, you get three pasting options:

- From Clipboard

- From Current Document

- From Current Clicker Set

"From Current Clicker Set" finds all the sentences from your current Clicker Set and pastes them into the wizard.

"From Current Document" is useful when you are working with a group of children on sentence building. As you collect their ideas, type them into a document. From there, the sentences can go straight into the wizard, without using the clipboard.

Note that you’ll see these paste options in other wizards too, whenever you are pasting text. If you don’t see these options, you need to get the latest update.

Thank you to everyone who entered our competition to win a 1 year whole-school license for WriteOnline. There were lots of fantastic entries, and it was very hard to select a winner.

Congratulations to Thomas Venables from St Paul's School for Girls, your prize is on its way to you!

For those of you who were unlucky this time, please remember that you can still have a free 30-day trial of the product by emailing your details to info@cricksoft.com.

Keep an eye on our Facebook page for more great competitions and giveaways in the future!

As we count down to the 2012 London Olympics you will find a wealth of Olympic resources on Learning Grids, suitable for children across the primary age range.

One of my favourite sets is Olympic Games – Viewpoints which explores arguments for and against the Olympic Games from the point of view of athletes, children and others in the community. Its aim is to stimulate discussion about the games in terms of economics, Olympic values, community interests and the value of sport. It’s designed as an on-screen book which can be read with the class on the whiteboard – there is a lot of structure in presenting the different arguments and you can encourage children to formulate their own ideas as they agree or disagree with the different views presented on each page.

An accompanying set is Olympic Games – Persuasive Writing designed for children who are learning the conventions of this writing genre – it contains a writing frame, relevant vocabulary, and connecting words to help children to present their own ideas. It may be helpful for some children to have the Viewpoints set open as they write to remind them of some of the ideas they have read – they can move between the sets using the tabs at the bottom of the screen.

Of course some children will not need the scaffolding provided by the writing frame and they can use Clicker as an open-ended word processor. They might want to use some word bank sets for specific vocabulary, for example, Olympic Games Words and Olympic Games A - Z are available on Learning Grids and can be saved in Favourites for pupil to access if they feel that they need them.

For those pupils who are not yet ready to write their ideas, it will be helpful for them to record their thinking – they can do this on the final page of the Viewpoints book. Alternatively use the Talk About Wizard - add photos of the children and get each of them to record their views.

For other sets on the Games, Search for Olympics on Learning Grids. You can connect to Learning Grids from within Clicker (there’s no need to log in) and can run the sets straightaway so it is quick and easy to use them in your classroom.

With local elections being held around the country this week, why not take the opportunity to debate lowering the voting age with your students?

A great starting point for WriteOnline users is the Voting Discussion Frame Wordbar, which provides students with useful sentence starters to state their case, and a range of phrases to support whichever side of the argument they are taking. With additional tabs containing useful topic words and phrases to help them form their argument logically, this Wordbar will support them in creating a coherent case from start to finish.

For Clicker users, the Voting Frame Clicker Set provides sentence starters, along with key words and phrases to help pupils write an extended argument that makes sense.

Once the students have written their arguments, why not set up your learning space with chairs in rows facing each other (creating a ‘parliament’ feel) and let them hold a debate on the issue, with a vote at the end? Who knows, our next politicians could be in your classroom!

A major new feature in Clicker 6 is Click & Edit. This feature is a very important part of our aim to give pupils more choices and opportunities to work independently.

When a pupil opens Clicker 6, they can choose to get started with their writing from the new Quick Start screen. They may choose to start a document, but can also choose to make a book - so immediately they can make choices about the type of writing outcome they wish to produce.

When they write a book, they are offered a page with a text and picture area. To add text they use the keyboard to write and can access Clicker’s word prediction for additional support. When they add a picture they can browse, paint their own picture, or use the webcam to take a picture which drops into the cell immediately. They can even change the background colour of their page, add as many pages as they wish, and record their own voice.

As a teacher you can offer more support, even as the pupil is writing. For example you can add words to a pop-up grid – your pupil may want help to spell particular words or you might wish to suggest words for them to use as they revise their work. Type them into the pop-up and the pupil can click to add them to their writing in the usual Clicker way.

If you want to set up a Click & Edit book so that relevant vocabulary and pictures are available in pop-ups when your pupils first start writing, you can use the new book making wizard. The on-screen instructions will step you through and there is also a video and handout in the CPD section of our website.

As you set up the activity, you can decide which of the many Click & Edit features you want to make available – you might for example decide that you don’t want your pupils to be able to browse for pictures or you might want to define a set number of pages for the book. Or you can leave it totally open ended for the pupil to decide.

When finished, the pupil can ‘turn off’ Click & Edit. The book is now ready to share whether as an on-screen book for others to read, or for a class presentation.

As a member of the sales team, I spend much of my time showing schools Clicker 6 and many of the free resources that are available from our LearningGrids site.

I will often vary the resources I show, depending on the type of school or the time of year but two of my favourite resources are: ‘People at Work - Questions’ for pupils aged 6-7 and ‘Powerful Animal Verbs’ for ages 7-9.

People at Work shows many of the speaking and listening possibilities that Clicker 6 has to offer; particularly focusing on the importance of both asking and answering questions – excellent for developing early writing skills. The activity also includes a writing frame to support with a piece of writing linked to the questions – a great way to evidence children’s understanding!

Powerful Animal Verbs is a flexible activity that can either be used as an independent activity (as it is fully speech supported) or as a quick whole class starter activity to support word work in a literacy session. The word lists could also be printed to support a display. It is a simple yet effective activity which shows the flexibility of the free resources on LearningGrids!

With many UK schools now up and running with Clicker 6, we have been busy finalising the joint Windows/Mac version and the localizations. The first batch of new DVDs has arrived, and includes Win/Mac versions for the UK, North America and Australia/New Zealand.

This will keep us busy with order processing – having shipped to many hundreds of UK schools over the past few weeks, we are now able to tackle the queue of US and ANZ orders.

The Curriculum Team have been busy too, creating lots of new Clicker 6 resources for LearningGrids. Accessing LearningGrids resources from within Clicker 6 is so quick and easy that with many resources we are recording hundreds of downloads within days of making them available!

Our next job is to prepare Clicker 6 for the translation process, so we won’t be putting our feet up just yet!

This term we have been very busy promoting our products internationally, starting at the BETT show in January, where Michael Gove (Secretary of State for Education in the UK) gave the keynote speech and mentioned some of our export successes! Since BETT, I have been working with our resellers, preparing them to present and promote Clicker 6 – see our Reseller List to find out if we have resellers in your country. We started shipping Clicker 6 earlier this month and the international response has been exceptional – with great excitement from resellers and teachers alike:

“I am having a huge amount of fun showing Clicker 6 to people around the country. So many happy smiling faces – they are loving it!”  Catherine Brill, New Zealand

“I've just finished watching the web demo...... I'm still in a daze!!!”  Jim Sprialis, Australia

In addition to the launch and release of Clicker 6, we continue to support customers in countries where we have Language Editions of Clicker 5. This has included training teachers in Moscow, where the Ministry of Education bought the Russian version for their schools, and working with companies in Mexico and Spain to promote the Spanish versions (Latin American and European).

Clicker 6 has now been released for one month and we are continuing to receive very positive feedback from our customers. The majority of support calls about Clicker 6 have been queries rather than technical issues, so here are answers to the most commonly asked questions:

Question: Can Clicker 6 open files created in/for previous versions of Clicker?

Answer: Clicker 6 has been developed with backwards compatibility for existing Clicker 5 activities. You can open all your Clicker 5 files in Clicker 6.

Our own "Powered by Clicker" resources (e.g. Planet Wobble, Find Out & Write About, Clicker Phonics…) are also compatible with Clicker 6, with the sole exception of Clicker Animations. If you experience issues, you are likely to have an older version of the resource. You can contact Technical Support (support@cricksoft.com) to obtain the newest versions.

Please note that Clicker 6 no longer supports the older .wmf image format. Clicker 5 grid sets that contain these will open in Clicker 6, however the images will be missing.

Question: Can I use my existing symbol sets with Clicker 6?

Answer: Previous versions of Mayor-Johnson PCS Metafiles use the .wmf image format, which is no longer compatible with Clicker 6. Existing installations of Widgit Symbols and SymbolStix will appear as registered Media Libraries within Clicker 6.

Newer versions (containing new symbols) of each of these three symbol sets are now available. Please contact Technical Support (support@cricksoft.com) if you wish to upgrade to the newest version of your particular symbol set.

Question: Can I use my existing switches with Clicker 6?

Answer: Yes you can. Please see support article C6WH8 for further information.