Tom Sparrowhawk for Teachers Evaluating Educational Multimedia, June 2002
As a demonstration tool in the hands of a very experienced user, who has had time to practice the difficult manipulations required to control shape, size, orientation and graphical coordinates that the program requires, this program can be a very effective tool for addressing many aspects of the National Curriculum. Only students who are very experienced in manipulating images, shapes, etc., or who are very willing to spend a lot of time practicing these skills, should be presented with this program. The software does offer many excellent opportunities for learning, but it is hindered by its slow operating speed and problems with manipulation. It also lacks the facilities for teachers and students to print their completed work or any information from Help.
This software was used as a whole class demonstration aid (in conjunction with an interactive whiteboard) to show the principles and theories involved in enlargement and triangles. As a whole class teaching aid in experienced hands, it was a very useful tool and generally all the objectives of the lessons were achieved satisfactorily.
It was also used to investigate positive and negative correlation, with the students working on individual machines. This aspect of its use was not as good as whole-class demonstrations. Many students found it difficult to manipulate the data (plots and coordinates). Some students also tried to run their own investigations into shape and size and found the software very difficult to use. I would strongly recommend using the title as a whole-class demonstration aid, in conjunction with an interactive whiteboard. The teacher must spend a lot of time practicing the manipulation skills required.
Resources, including lesson plans and demonstrations, can be found on www.crocodile-clips.com and are very useful as practice and lesson material. I would not recommend using the software with one student per machine, especially when lessons require the students to manipulate objects.
The demonstration abilities of the title are very good, but they fall down on the display: a demo will not all fit on the screen, it cannot be printed, and Help is difficult to use as it often disappears from view or covers most of the demonstration screen.
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