Now here is something a little different. Longman Logotron produce a number of excellent educational programs, as well as Éseriousæ packages such as Eureka and PinPoint. One of their newest is Picture Point Ö a database designed for young children. The uninformed may ask why should children aged 5, 6 and 7 involve themselves in such an apparently austere exercise? Well, part of the requirements of the National Curriculum states that, by the age of 7, children should be able to ÉEnter and store informationæ, and that they should ÉRetrieve, process and display information that has been stored.æ (Key Stage 1 Ö National Curriculum Ö Programmes of Study)
More importantly, my experience as a primary school teacher for many years, is that using a computer to do all these things is fun, and children derive great pleasure from seeing their work displayed so easily and tidily, as well as being able to draw simple conclusions from the data they have collected. Other databases are available and a look around the BETT Show in London each January will display a range of choice (Bear Base and Find It, are just a two examples). It would be nice to do a comparison but I donæt have all the other applications.
The package
This particular database comes in the usual Longman style Ö a user guide wrapped up in a classy A4 booklet and a sealed envelope containing the two discs Ö one application disc and one set of topic files Ö and the now familiar copyright and licensing conditions. A slight irritation here Ö I do wish Longman would provide a pouch in the manual to hold the discs. Not everyone has hard discs and it would be nice to keep the floppy discs with the manual.
Installation to hard disc is simple, with clear instructions, and is accomplished in seconds. There is no protection, and floppy disc users are urged to make a set of backups.
The programs
There are two sets of programs: !Collector which allows the actual data to be collected and !Designer where new database topics are designed.
!Collector
Clicking on !Collector installs it on the iconbar. Topics already created are embedded within the program and an arrowed window allows the user to scroll through the topics. By default, they include a variety of subjects commonly covered in the the early years in school: throwing a die (probability and chance), footwear, favourite fruits, different ways to make a journey, pets, rubbish, school dinners, sports and weather. The window also contains a short description of the topic and an appropriate picture.
Having chosen the topic, a click on Create File and the database entry screen is displayed. This is very attractively laid out in a grid with appropriate sprites and words enhancing the simplicity of the design. Clicking on a picture (which is effectively the field) increases the total by one and a very clear sound effect is heard.
In fact, clicking on any part of the screen elicits a sound or a spoken word. And herein lies one of the major attractions of Picture Point Ö digitised speech. It really is quite exciting to hear what is shown on screen as well as the obvious appeal of allowing children whose reading skills are limited, to use the database with ease.
Alongside is a simple toolbox allowing the child to add or subtract data, create a graph, save and print. Data is entered by clicking on the picture in the correct box (hence the name of the program, Picture Point). Clicking on the graph toolbox icon brings up a graph choice box (as well as the word, öGraphingò), which includes pictographs, bar charts and pie charts Ö easy enough for younger children.
Picture Point even counts the totals in the columns and Ésaysæ them. Up to 99 can be entered in each field. The graphs are very attractive, automatically adjust to fit the page as the numbers increase, and are hot-linked to the data entry form so that the graph can be seen to change as the data is entered. Printing of the data or graph in portrait or landscape mode is done from the print icon on the toolbox.
Another nice refinement is an ÉOptionsæ facility found by clicking <menu> on !Collector on the icon bar. This allows the user to alter the sound options, change the default font, adjust the layout of the data entry grid, disable the number entry and print graphs, either in solid colour or in skeleton form where the children can do the colouring-in (as well as saving valuable coloured ink if a coloured printer is available).
!Designer
More ambitious teachers will soon want to create their own topics. This is where !Designer fits in. As this installs on the iconbar, you get a, öWelcome to Picture Pointò! Clicking <menu> prompts the creation of a new topics folder. The default folder is used otherwise. Clicking on Create Topic opens a box where the topic name, description, sprite and number of boxes on the data entry grid is entered. This is automatically added to the topic folder.
With the empty boxes displayed, any sprite or drawfile can be dragged into them. The box name can also be entered, edited or deleted and the order of boxes within the grid can be changed by simply dragging and dropping. Sounds are dragged into the picture and/or text box; layout and font printing options can be defined and more boxes can be added (up to 99 if required). Saving the topic adds it to the topic pool.
Sound samples in Armadeus, DataVox and Windows WAV can all be used. Some form of sampler is, of course, needed.
Conclusions
This program is excellent. It does all that is required by the National Curriculum and provides an environment that is easy to understand and use. The use of speech and sound adds an extra dimension and the resultant graphs are easy to produce and print. Designing is straight forward and the manual is easy to read and follow. It is an excellent Key Stage 1 program and delighted my colleague who was desperately trying to find some way of using a database in her classroom. At ú29 +VAT for the single user version (ú33 through Archive), this is great value for money. Recommended.áu
