Key
Stage 3 Work 7.1
Using ICT
In this unit pupils will plan and create presentations about
themselves. It is intended that each presentation will be
projected on screen and accompanied by a spoken commentary.
The audience will be the rest of the class. This unit is
expected to take six lessons of 60 minutes. However each
activity has a guide time, which can adjust to alter the
number and duration of lessons, to suit your own school timetable 7.2 Using Data and Information Sources
In this unit, pupils identify the purposes of information.
They consider how to set up a survey sample and phrase questions
appropriately, so that they gather information that is relevant
to the task. They will explore the Internet as a source of
information and learn how to narrow down a search. Finally,
they will learn how they can be misled by inaccurate or incomplete
information and how to judge the reliability of a website.
This unit is expected to take three lessons of 60 minutes.
Each activity has a guide time so that you can alter the
number and duration of lessons, to suit your own school timetable. 7.3 Making A Leaflet
In this unit pupils will plan and create a leaflet to give
pupils in year 6 information about subjects they will study
in key stage 3. Your pupils will explore the use of images,
text, colour and layout to enhance their leaflets. They
will consider how to match the design of their leaflet
to a given audience and purpose. Finally, pupils will identify
evaluation criteria and use them to evaluate their work
for different audiences and purposes.
The lessons are designed for pupils working at levels 4 and
5, with extension work for pupils working at a higher level.
Adaptations and additional material are suggested for less
experienced pupils or for pupils working at lower levels.
This unit is expected to take six lessons of 60 minutes.
However, each activity has a guide time, which you can adjust
to alter the number and duration of lessons, to suit your
own school timetable. 7.4 Introduction to modelling and presenting numeric data
In this unit pupils will use spreadsheets to model simple
situations. They will use basic spreadsheet functions to
construct, explore and amend simple models and consider
how to manipulate graphs and tables in order to present
their findings effectively. This unit uses the example
of a school disco. Teachers can achieve the same learning
objectives with a range of other examples. The lessons
are designed for pupils working at levels 4 and 5 with
extension work for pupils working at higher levels. Adaptations
and additional material are suggested for less experienced
pupils or for pupils working at lower levels. This unit
is expected to take five lessons of 60 minutes. However,
each activity has a guide time, which you can adjust to
alter the number and duration of lessons, to suit your
own school timetable. 7.5 Data Handling
In this unit pupils will consider how to collect relevant
data to answer a question. They will design a file to handle
the data and will check their entries for accuracy. Finally,
they will use the database functions in a spreadsheet package,
such as Microsoft excel, to interrogate their data and
consider the plausibility of the conclusions they have
drawn. The lessons are designed for pupils working at levels
4 and 5, with extension work for pupils working at higher
levels. Adaptations and extra material are suggested for
less experienced pupils or for pupils working at lower
levels. This unit is expected to take six lessons of 60
minutes. Each activity has a guide time so that you can
alter the number and duration of lessons to suit your own
timetable. 7.6
Control & Monitoring
The unit helps pupils to understand that technology is used
to control many everyday events, such as the operation of
traffic lights and the raising of car park barriers. Pupils
use software to simulate a range of familiar scenarios and
to develop and refine flowcharts for control programs. The
efficiency of the program is enhanced through loops and subroutines.
In the final lesson of the unit, pupils consider how the
systems controlling a lighthouse could be adapted to help,
for example, a person with impaired hearing at home. The
lessons are designed for pupils working at levels 4 and 5,
with extension work for pupils working at a higher level.
Adaptations and extra material are suggested for less experienced
pupils or for pupils working at lower levels.
The unit is expected to take between five lessons of 60 minutes.
Each of the activity has its own guide times so that you
can alter the number and duration of lessons to suit your
own timetable. |
8.1 Public Information Systems
In this sample teaching unit, pupils create an information system
for a travel agent to look up details of the climate for customers
who wish to know about the weather they could expect at their holiday
destination for the dates they want to spend there. The system
uses a spreadsheet to gather data from the internet, to select
and process the required data and to use text, tables and graphs
to display the data. The focus for pupils is on understanding the
three parts of a system-input, process and output- and the way
that automating the processes leads to greater efficiency. This
unit is expected to take five lessons, each of 60 minutes duration.
Each activity has a guide time. These guide times will help you
fit activities into the time available in your school if the lesson
length is different.
8.2 Publishing On The Web
In this unit pupils use web technology to design and create
a website for a ‘virtual’ visit to a school. Groups
of four pupils design and implement a sequence of linked web
pages. Over the eight lessons, pupils should develop sufficient
understanding of web technology to create and evaluate an efficient
and effective website design. You will need to help pupils
to understand that web browsers display web pages in different
ways and remind them to take account of this when they are
creating their websites. The example of a website used in this
unit is a ‘virtual’ visit to a school but you could,
if you wish, substitute any other topic that enables the same
learning objectives to be achieved. A range of applications
can be used to create web pages and websites. To exemplify
this process, this unit uses a basic package Microsoft FrontPage
Express, referred to throughout to FrontPage Express.
Sample teaching unit 8.2 is expected to take eight lessons of
60 minutes. Each activity has a guide time so that you can alter
the number and duration of lessons.
8.3 Information: reliability, validity and bias- unit overview
In this unit, pupils will extend and refine search methods.
They will explore the Internet as a source of information
and consider
the importance of evaluating the information they find in terms
of its reliability, validity, and possible bias. Finally they
will decide how well the information satisfies the reason for
looking for it and the extent of its ‘fitness for purpose’.
This unit is designed mainly for pupils working at level 5,
with extension work for more advanced pupils. Adaptations and
extra materials are suggested for less-experienced pupils or
for pupils working at lower levels.
8.4 Models and Presenting Numeric Data
In this unit pupils will use spreadsheet software to develop
models. They will be introduced to techniques to enable them
to create more complex models and to interrogate and analyse
them. They will be shown how to generate random numbers to
provide test data and to simulate events. They will then consider
the purposes for which simulations and animations are used.
The examples used in this unit include a school fete, tossing
a coin and mobile telephone tariffs. Teachers can achieve the
same learning objectives with a range of other topics. The lessons
are designed for pupils working at levels 5 and 6 with an extension
activity for pupils working at higher levels. The extension activity
is suggested in lesson 4 but it could take the form of a project
which pupils develop as this unit progresses. If used, it should
be treated flexibly and at appropriate stages in the unit to
match the needs of the pupils.
This unit is expected to take five lessons of 60 minutes. However
each activity has a guide time, which you can adjust to alter
the number and duration of lessons, to suit your own school timetable.
8.5 An ICT System: Integrating applications to find solutions.
This unit involves a feasibility study for a charity fundraising
project to raise seedlings for sale at a later date. The school
has received a letter from a charity, with whom they have worked
in the past, asking if they would consider being involved again
after a break of several years. The charity would like the
school to raise bedding plants from seed. The young plants
would be advertised and sold by advance order and then be available
for collection at the charity’s open day. The school
has a greenhouse that can be used, but it is not accessible
outside school hours, so a simple control system would be needed
to run it automatically.
During the unit pupils will work in groups and produce tasks
the first is the development of the financial model. This can
be used by the pupils to help with their decision- making.
In lessons 4-6 pupils explore the automated control of a greenhouse,
then in lessons 7 and 8 they address the marketing strategy.
The final product is a summary report of the three subtasks.
This report is intended for the head teacher, to use in concluding
whether the project is feasible. There are opportunities for
formative and summative assessments.
|
