The Roman Empire and Britain

KS3 (Years 7 - 9)

History

Description

The Hodder History CD-ROM 'The Roman Empire and Britain 1066 - 1500' contains a wide range of interactive activities for the whiteboard. Although it is designed to be used by the whole class there are plenty of interactive starters, main and plenary activities that can be used independently or in small groups. Being produced by Hodder Murray, the program supports the teaching and learning objectives of each chapter in their Hodder History Student Books: The Roman Empire and Conflict, People and Power: Medieval Britain 1066 - 1500. The accompanying documentation says that the activities are designed to be used at the beginning of Year 7 to aid students' progression from Key Stage 2 to 3 by developing their historical skills. This is more true for the initial section. The two main units develop and extend students' knowledge and understanding of the key learning objectives of the course outlines

On each page there are useful navigation links. The 'Teacher's resources' suggest ideas for using the activity and provide possible answers. There's a 'Reset' button if the students want to try again or correct mistakes made. A 'Return to Menu' page does what it promises, a 'Launcher' which allows the student to open a Word document or Powerpoint presentation should they want to write anything about what they have been learning, a 'Technical notes' page which opens a .pdf file which goes through all the navigation controls and of course the 'Exit program' button.

Purpose of the Program

The CD-ROM provides material designed to be used in conjunction with each chapter of the Hodder History books but can easily be used with others. It adds an extra dimension to your teaching and their learning by providing fun and exciting starters, main and plenary activities. They can be used as part of an individual learning package for less able students working on their own or in small groups with a teaching assistant. They can meet a pupil's particular learning needs, act as a stimulus for individual research using ICT or provide the basis for a record of achievement. All the activities have specific suggestions provided within the Teachers' Notes on the CD-ROM.

Teacher Controls

The CD-ROM is designed to be interactive so there are no teacher-only sections. If the first few activities are teacher-led students can very easily navigate their way through the program. However, for the less able, the sections which require written work will need to be supervised by the teacher or teaching assistant so that, once completed, it can be checked.

Being designed to compliment Hodder Murray's History textbooks the content covers the key learning objectives of each unit.

Appropriateness

Content appropriate for target age group

Activities pitched at the right level

Suitable vocabulary

Activities relevant and easy to access

The first section, History Detectives, contains such activities as spot the difference, organising your thoughts, timelines, selecting the best evidence, expressing opinions and using quotes. The sections on the Roman Empire and Britain - 1066 - 1500 contain true/false exercises, multiple choice, drag and drop, click and find, noughts and crosses, rank order, team quizzes, games, heads and tails, wordsearches and crosswords which will appeal to Key Stage 3 students.

Although each topic has a suitable starter and plenary activity, there is not always enough content in the main activity for a long lesson. Ideally, it ought to augment the textbook or other learning stimuli.

Ease of Use

Classroom resources included

Easy to navigate

Supporting documentation

Logical progression of content

Lesson plans/ideas for use in the classroom

Suitable for Whiteboard use

Suitable for lesson starters

Suitable for whole class teaching

Suitable for individual use

When I first tried using the CD-ROM I experienced a number of problems. Although the installation only took seconds it did not open afterwards and did not leave a short cut on the desktop. I used the 'Running the CD-ROM' instructions on the inside of the cover and tried to run the index.htm file but could not easily locate it. I had to scroll down through hundreds of files and eventually found it in the Hodder History folder on the Hodder Murray directory on C: drive. It brought up a Windows Intenet Explorer window which suggested the CD-ROM should open automatically. As it hadn't I clicked the link provided. In fact I clicked several times and no window opened. Why? Because a pop up underneath the command line informed me that Active X had to be enabled. When it was another window opened with a blank page with an error message telling me that 'To help protect your security, Internet Explorer has restricted this webpage from running scripts or Active X controls that could access your computer'. When I clicked for options to allow blocked content a blue security warning appeared. Bravely, I clicked on 'Yes' and the Christian Muslim Jewish Experiences ICT Resource came up. In a yellow box in the bottom right hand corner it said enter program with an arrow. I clicked it but nothing happened. I clicked it again. A double click was needed

Once on the menu page I found none of bottom three left hand navigation buttons worked, only the Introduction and Acknowledgements. I could select one of the religions but on clicking on the heading nothing happened. I clicked instead on the number which opened the page. Again the bottom navigation buttons would not work. Escape didn't work so the only way I could get back to the menu was to press Control, Alt and Delete, go into Task manager and close the program.

In the Acknowledgements page I found a telephone number and within two hours had the solution E-mailed to me with two fixes in the attachment. I had to go into Add/Remove programs and uninstall Macromedia's Flashplayer and then reinstall it from their website. When I did, Hey Presto! Everything worked perfectly.

In class, after demonstrating how to access the program and navigate the first two activities it proved very easy for the students to find their way through the activites. They all seemed to have no fear of making an error and clicked or dragged on whatever they thought would work. There were some links which seemed as if you just clicked on the highlighted text but you had to double-click on the adjoining button instead. Students worked this out and mastered it more quickly than I did.

Quality

British English spellings

Activities easy to access

Activities become more difficult

The quality of presentation is good. The font size is large and black text on white background makes pages easy to read. The language used is the same used in the textbook so helps reinforce students' knowledge and understanding. Simple colour graphics add variety to the pages but there is no accompanying sound or video footage. For those students who want to do further research there are no accompanying extension materials or Internet links.

Ideas represent good practice

The only differentiation is the suggestion that less able students can be encouraged to give their feedback verbally instead of writing it down and encouraging students to work in small groups may make the activity less daunting if they are allowed to share ideas.

I'm looking forward to using this CD-ROM with my students as are colleagues I've spoken to about it. Those I've demonstrated it with have commented how valuable it'll be. I know that it'll enhance my lessons dramatically and am now disappointed that we have dropped the unit on the Roman Empire. Being linked to the Hodder History textbook would make it sensible to have a class set but it's not essential. The activities will sit nicely with any course outline on these two History units.

Product Overview

This product is distributed by Hodder Murray (Tel: 020 7837 6235)