Clicker®

Mari Wallace & Sarah Clark
Isobel Mair School Glasgow

Isobel Mair School, in East Renfrewshire in Scotland, is a special school which caters for children and young people 5-18 years of age with severe and complex learning difficulties.

ICT is used extensively throughout the school as a powerful tool to support all apsects of learning and teaching and has been identified by HMIe in a recent inspection as a major strength in the school.

Although 'programmed software' is used to support learning, there is a focus throughout the school on the use of 'content-free software' which enables teachers to be creative in their approach in meeting the very wide range of individual needs and learning styles within the school. Clicker 4 & 5 are two programs which are used extensively by ALL classes across the whole age range and ability. They are very easy to use and have motivated staff to harness the power of technology.

The use of such flexible software is limited only by the extent of the imagination and creativity of the staff.

For example:
To support the delivery of SQA (Scottish Qualification Authority) Access Units.
Each course has a teacher-developed differentiated talking book with pupils providing voice recordings, video clips and photographs. The talking books are used to motivate pupils and provide an interactive learning environment. They also provide a valuable form of evidence of achievement and attainment.

"Each pupil has an individual
talking book to provide
a record of achievement..."One of the access units being undertaken is the SQA Practical Craft Skills unit.  Each pupil has an individual talking book to provide a record of achievement for each of the individual learning outcomes. This includes voice recordings, photographs and video recordings of the practical craft activity.  It is a great motivator and, used on the interactive whiteboard, is a fantastic resource for consolidation of present and future learning.  This also provides a valuable bank of evidence for SQA and is saved on CD as a permanent record of achievement. Each talking book is reinforced in the classroom with wall displays and used as a revision aid for assessment purposes.

Clicker is also used to support reading and creative writing. Through the creation of talking books, teachers, in collaboration with pupils, are able to create age-appropriate resources, many of which are on current topics, e.g. The World Cup. Talking Books are also used to support all curricular areas including Environmental Studies, Health Education, Religious and Moral Education topics etc.

ICT is given high priority within the school and a rigorous programme of staff development is available to all staff (teachers and support staff) in addition to our in-house programme of 'Sharing Good Practice.'

ALL members of staff have been trained in the use of Clicker and are not only building up a bank of resources which can be shared to promote learning throughout the school but also extending their creativity by finding different ways of presenting the curricular CONTENT in exciting, age-appropriate and relevant CONTEXTS for learning, thereby raising levels of attainment and achievement.

Go to top