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Databases are ideally suited to classroom projects at all levels
of schooling. By their very nature they require a collaborative effort
to collect the data and enter it into the computer. The data itself can
be part of any topic which is being studied at the time, so collation of
a database fits easily into the crowded curriculum. Furthermore, the process
provides an ideal way of assessing students' progress in a number of the
outcomes from several of the eight Learning Areas.
The types of databases most commonly in use in schools are "flat files" such as those found in Claris Office and Microsoft Works (Mac and PC) and Pinpoint (Acorn). These can be thought of as the equivalent of an index card arrangement in which all the information for each item is held on one page, or perhaps a few pages clipped together.
Readers who have not yet used databases will find that to achieve a moderate level of proficiency with these packages will require about the same amount of effort as that required to master basic wordprocessing. Time taken reading the general introduction to databases in the manual will be well spent.
As an example of subject matter dear to everyone's heart consider the topic of "Food". Discuss with the class the sort of information you will collect, and how it will be collected, including text, numerical and possibly pictorial data. For example if there is one record or "card" for each food item then you might record the food group it belongs to, its energy value, sugar content, cost and so on. Also discuss the questions which the collated database should be able to answer, such as the relative percentages of the five food groups found in the sample, or people's chocolate preferences.
Many database projects fizzle out because there is not enough information entered to provide a meaningful real-life data collection, so require each student to enter at least five records. Use parent help for younger students.
Databases can be used to resolve hypotheses posed by students, and cover a significant proportion of the Working Mathematically and Chance and Data Outcomes of the National Curriculum. They also form part of the Information outcomes in the Technology learning area.
The Food database could also be used in the People and Food outcome in Health and Physical Education.
Teachers looking for more comprehensive packages will want to investigate "Relational" databases such as FileMaker Pro and Access.
Instead of having all the information on each item on one sheet, the data is split into a number of smaller tables to avoid duplication and give more options in the way the information can be manipulated and viewed.
We use FileMaker Pro for all of our database work because it allows the end user to easily add and alter lists, forms and reports. It also has the distinction of being genuinely cross-platform in that it will simultaneously allow access by Macintosh, Windows 95, Windows 3.11 and Windows NT clients.
Traditionally relational databases have been reserved for tertiary studies
because the table theory involved can be somewhat abstract. However for
those are interested in the area the use of "E-R" diagrams provides an
alternative approach which should prove accessible to students from Years
Ten up.
Teachers wishing to provide meaningful learning experiences for
their students when using the Internet as a teaching resource may well
be interested in the concept of Web Quests. An example of a Webquest can
be found on the Oz Teacher net web site where students engage in a project
entitled; A Quest for Peace -An Internet WebQuest on East Timor. The introduction
to the quest provides a background to East Timor's recent history following
the departure of the Portugese in 1975.
The students are asked to explore the role Australia should take in our geographical region. Working collaboratively they are directed to a number of web sites including The office of Tourism for Indonesia as well as news coverage from CNN.
Some members of the class who wish to look deeper into the issues of the East Timor conflict and can take on a nunber of roles by looking at the issues from the point of view of A UN Aid Worker, An East Timor National, A member of the Indonesian army or a member of the militia. Relevant Internet sites are provided to direct students to information.
On the completion of the task the students are asked to debate and discuss the situation. They are also encouraged to write to a number of political leaders involved in the decision making process. Good Web Quests should generally incorporate the following attributes:
There is little benefit in having students searching the Internet with no clear task or purpose in mind. Webquests such as the one mentioned above are developed to make use of the Internet in conjunction with other resources in a structured and
meaningful manner.
A successful project will challenge students working in cooperative groups to explore real life tasks. A Webquest can be constructed to suit primary or secondary students. There are a number of quests that have already been developed. Templates for creating a new WebQuest can also be used.
To find out more you can visit the following sites: These sites include examples from Professor Bernie Dodge and Tom March who developed the WebQuest concept as one strategy for effectively integrating the Web into classroom instruction.
The WebQuests for Learning site:
http://www.ozline.com/webquests/index.htm
The Oz-Teachernet Web Quests page:
http://rite.ed.qut.edu.au/oz-teachernet/
Information Technology can be used to give an added dimension to
traditional classroom projects such as ecological studies, science experiments
and field trips. Commonly used packages such as Microsoft Works and Claris
Works can be used for more than just word processing.
These integrated packages for both PC and Mac based computers allow students to present information and explore data in ways which are not easily accomplished with pen and paper. In addition the whole project can be documented and published electronically using a school Intranet.
A recent Science project at one school illustrates this approach; A number of duck eggs were incubated over a 28 day period. After a successful hatching the children began a two week period of observation.
One duckling was selected and weighed each day. The results were recorded in two formats: on a display board in the classroom, and on an Acorn computer using a simple graphing programme called graph plotter, and the database Pinpoint Junior.
Students used both traditional pencil and paper graphs and electronic means to plot the data. They explored the suitability of different graph formats such as pie-charts, line and bar graphs by changing the format on the computer, rather than replotting on paper.
Students in higher grades might prefer to create their own database with additional information such as size, colour, breed and food preference. Once the data is collated the whole project could also be presented to a wider audience within the school by publishing it on an Intranet.
An Intranet is a local version of the Internet, which uses a normal browser such as Netscape to access information on the school network rather than the World Wide Web. A publishing program such as Home Page is used to create the pages, which are then hosted by a Web Server program.
It is surprising how quickly young students can learn to create their own web pages. We have also observed that sometimes electronic methods open doors for some students who do not always find it easy using traditional media. In the duckling project children in Year Four loaded digital photographs onto a computer, edited them, then added text to produce a series of linked pages showing the progress of the whole project.
The skills required to publish information in this way can be applied to almost any curriculum topic at any year level. The three or four hours required to gain these skills will be time well spent for most teachers as they will be able to use them in a wide range of cooperative publishing activities.
The topic itself and its learning outcomes will, in general, be seen
as the priority. The processes applied to produce the final outcomes of
any class project should be the chief focus for the classroom teacher.
School libraries are changing. and are under threat. Traditionally
seen as the repository of printed material, the shift of all types of information
into digital form has meant that new resources and skills have had to be
learnt rapidly.
The first moves in this direction began in the mid-eighties when computerised systems were developed to catalogue the books in each library. Students could then find everything the library had on a topic such as 'planting rice in Indonesia' These systems also automated loans and returns using bar codes for borrowers and books.
As more material appeared on CD-ROM, libraries were often the first places to incorporate them into their collections. Budgets permitting, more machines were gradually added to improve student access.
Over the last five years more and more information has appeared in electronic form on Internet Web sites. This includes journals such as New Scientist, Government department information, museum and art exhibitions. As a result libraries no longer expect to hold all necessary information in their own collections. Librarians have to know how to get it from other places efficiently, and they also have to know how to train students in these techniques.
Computers by themselves do not teach such skills. For example, you might think that with a powerful search engine like Alta Vista a student should be able to find whatever they want with virtually no help from a librarian. But a search for information on 'Indonesia' yields 200 000 items which have to checked through. A more specific search on the island of 'Bali: still gives 40 000 listed items More sophisticated search engines improve the process, but after all this it turns out that if one is simply looking for a map, the best maps are to be found in an atlas.
The Internet, or a CD-ROM are not good tools in this instance, and yet librarians report that even older students will often look there ñrst. On the other hand, recent tourism information on Indonesia would be more likely to be found on an Internet site.
This is a simple example, and in practice students need to become reasonably competent in selecting information and resources. Teacher Librarians are trained to teach these sorts of skills, in the same way that Maths teachers are trained to develop maths skills step by step, from year to year. It doesn't just happen by chance, and it is a great mistake to think of Teacher Librarians as people who just stamp out books.
In an age where access to information, and more importantly the skills
to efficiently locate it, are becoming increasingly important, it is ironic
then to find that libraries are having to do more with less. The information
age requires people trained in information handling and it is the Librarians
who are best equipped to do this training.
In the early eighties teachers who found themselves with a computer
in the corner of their classroom asked, 'how do I incorporate this piece
of technology in my day today teaching?'
That question generated many exciting projects in classrooms throughout Tasmania, including electronic mail projects with other countries, the beginning of computer aided design, and the transformation of whole classrooms into worlds of adventure and learning.
Tasmania was one of the first education systems in the world to have a computer network linking schools. The Elizabeth Computing Centre played a pivotal role in training teachers and producing software which was used throughout Australia.
Although the performance of computers has increased dramatically over the last fifteen years, the fundamentals of computer education remain largely unchanged. These are the availability of suitable software, and access to appropriate professional training. Some application areas such as publishing, have changed considerably. From simple text based word processing to multimedia publishing on the World Wide Web. A whole new set of skills are required to successfully incorporate these new tools into the learning process.
Other areas, for example integrated learning using packages such as Granny's Garden, have changed very little. Indeed the humble BBC Model B from 1984 remains as useful as ever for running much of this software, probably because the emphasis was on stimulating discovery and collaboration rather than on eye catching graphics.
The State Government's Directions statement challenges those of us involved in education to look critically at how to best utilise technology to enhance learning in the classroom. Computer hardware by itself will not produce successful outcomes. It is the combination of suitable software and the knowledge of how best to apply it to suit the educational needs of the students.
Our interest is in classroom applications and not in any particular computer hardware. Although there will be occasions when some innovative new hardware will be reviewed.
Passive Viewing or Creative Investigation?
Multimedia, the combination of graphics, sound and text, has been with us for almost fifty years in the form of television. What distinguishes computer based multimedia is the facility for the viewer to jump from one point to another at the click of a button, hence the term Interactive Multimedia.
Five years ago CD-ROM based encyclopedias became available. Their success sparked a surge in the production of multimedia reference titles ranging from careers guidance to human anatomy. Readers may be familiar for example with the Dorling-Kindersley titles, one of the better series available, which includes The Way Things Work and The Encyclopedia of Science.
At first sight packages such as these seemed as if they might open new doors to learning. Many teachers, ourselves included, were excited at the potential of such software. We imagined these as additional resources for almost any topic, full of rich graphics and sound, and with an interactivity, which would allow students to navigate through them at their own pace.
Unfortunately things did not turn out that way. It soon became apparent that even when students were prepared to sit in front of multimedia presentations they came away with only a superficial understanding of what they had been looking at. Only when the computer based material formed part of a larger project, which extended and reinforced the topic did the software achieve anything lasting. Schools may need to be highly selective in their choice of published multimedia material looking beyond the initial impact of a first viewing.
Having had the opportunity to review a number of recent examples of interactve multimedia software it is our belief that students would be best served by being provided with the opportunity of creating their own collaborative multimedia projects. Possibly one of the best ways to introduce students to the use of multimedia in education is to 'Do It Yourself'. Why not observe and record the movement of native animals locally rather than view a polished Wildlife documentary produced by others. Easy to use authoring packages are now available which allow groups of students to combine their own writing, pictures and recorded sound into classroom presentations. Some of the packages currently used in schools are;
. HyperStudio (Acorn, Macintosh and Windows),
. Genesis (Acorn),
. Toolbook (Windows),
. mPower (Macintosh and Windows)
. Hypercard (Macintosh).
Costs may be up to one hundred dollars per computer for some of these
programs. Alternatively teachers might like to consider using one of the
newer Web publishing packages as a means of students producing their own
multimedia material. Pages are easily linked to each other, and although
some of the special effects are not available, there is the advantage of
being able to use a standard browser to view the pages. Front page or Claris
Home Page are good because of its ease of use and speed, but any of the
newer editors should be suitable. At a cost of less than forty dollars
per machine this might be a more attractive alternative.
There are three keys for the successful use of images;
The number of compression formats available can be confusing, but an understanding of two of the most commonly used standards, JPEG and GIF, should be sufficient for most needs.
JPEG is most suitable for realistic, photographic images containing many millions of colours. JPEG allows for different levels of compression, but forty percent is usually a safe figure. If file size is critical you can try sixty percent and check the resulting picture quality.
GIF compression is best used on images with between 1 and 256 colours such as logos or digital art created using a paint or drawing package. If you want a transparent image which lets the background show through then you will need to use the GIF standard.
There are a number of image manipulation programs available for PC's, and Apple computers. Many of the high end packages may be too expensive, particularly if you need multiple copies. If you are looking for a program which will cover most of your needs at a reasonable price, consider Paint Shop Pro 4.12 for Windows, or Graphic Converter for Macintosh.
These packages will allow you to convert between a large number of image formats, and where applicable you can choose the level of compression you want.
We have been using both programs with digital camera images, which initially occupied 120K on the computer. After saving in JPEG format at forty percent compression, then loading the images into Internet Home Page documents, we have found that the files have reduced to about 30K without appreciable loss of quality.
Paint Shop Pro costs $87 for one copy, $605 for a 10-pack, and $35 for each additional user over ten. Graphic converter is a shareware product, and a registered version with extra features is available for under $50.
Trial versions of both of these programs can be downloaded from the Internet from the Tucows site at: http://tucows.wire.net.au/
A CD version with manual of Paint Shop Pro can be purchased from the Australian representatives Communique Communications at http://www.jasc.com/products/paintshoppro/ or by fax at 02 9671 5624.
Article: Changing the Nature of Education
