Jane Nimmo, Morebattle Primary School, Scottish Borders

Overview

The Dolphin System is a whole school ICT Skills tutoring programme covering strands from all levels of 5-14 ICT (Levels A to E). It is aimed to be used as a peer to peer tutoring programme and provides the foundations for all the necessary skills required to complete ICT work. The children work through a comprehensive hierarchy of lessons (The Ladder of Success) which have been carefully structured to develop their computer skills. These lessons are linked to software that the children would use in every day ICT work.

To use in the classroom, a new skill is explained to a small group of children (who become peer tutors) and they then work through the program to ensure their own knowledge is secure. Once the group of tutors feel comfortable with the particular task, they then teach another child what to do. As we only had two computers in the classroom, it meant each tutor was only tutoring for perhaps 5 or 10 minutes at a time. Once all children knew exactly what to do, they were allowed to go through the tasks alone to reinforce the skills. I also tried to link other computer work to the new skills learned that week, so we would perhaps focus on desk top publishing or creating pictures for example.

The software provides a set of step by step instructions for each lesson and the children learn how to work through each. If teachers are lacking in confidence, they should run through the lesson first so they are aware of what is covered at each stage. They may also wish to do a class lesson before starting the Dolphin System to go over the skills of minimizing, restoring and closing windows as these skills are essential for the completion on each session. If a teacher is at all unsure of any of the skills though, they can click on the help buttons and access the step by step guide.

Regular assessment tasks make sure skills have been acquired and retained and pupils are also encouraged to take responsibility of their own progress by keeping a personal record booklet. They also like using this to look ahead to see which lessons they will cover next.

Installation

No problems at all with installation. Setup starts up automatically and runs without difficulty. As this was a demonstration disk you have to click on 'run the demonstration CD' then select the demonstration number you have been given. You must then enter a username and password (suppiled with the software).

Once installed the program operates very smoothly. It is not a multimedia CD and there are no voiceovers, so no problems here!

Contents

The dolphin system is appropriate for 5-14 ICT strands, although does not cover the early stages of level A. Younger children would also require more support from the class teacher so the software would therefore be more suitable for primary 3 onwards.

The content is very good, although it may not always tie in with software you are using for other areas. For example, lessons on Multimedia at Step 3 are focussed on using Hyperstudio. Schools that do not have this software would therefore need to adapt it to suit their own format. However, I believe that Enlighten are developing an additional section here for use with Textease.

The software is developed in the UK, so all language is in English. There is a lot of reading required and so children must be confident language users. It is therefore best to choose more able pupils (particularly in primary 3 or 4) to become the tutors.

Curriculum Relevance

The Dolphin System software is specifically linked to the Scottish Curriculum 5-14 ICT and an overview showing which lessons cover which strands can be printed from the disk. It covers the following aspects:

Using the Technology: Levels A - E
Creating and Presenting: A - E
Collecting and Analysing: A - E
Searching and Researching: B - E
Communication and Collaborating: B - E
Controlling and Modelling: B- E
Developing Informed Attitudes: addressed throughout

Design Features

This software is almost a tutorial in itself. It has a Help aspect at every step of each lesson and provides very straightforward instructions.

Navigating through the program requires the user to be able to minimise the Dolphin System and work on other programs at the same time. The user must also know how to maximise, restore and close windows.

You can print many aspects of the software including the lesson steps, certificates and different form of record keeping.

Once peer tutors are up and running, the Dolphin System requires very little teacher input. The children make it run effectively, although younger children will obviously need more input. It is very well structured and the pupils know exactly where they are going after each lesson.

It is not an interactive piece of software and so requires children to have good reading skills as everything is explained in this way.

There is a huge amount of supporting information in the on-screen Teacher's Manual and there is also a website containing a lot of detail about the system and how it works.

As this is an ICT skills development program, you do have to use other pieces of software to cover different skills. The software can be whatever happens to be on your PC for word processing, painting etc.

Suggested Improvements

This is a great piece of software to encourage children to become independent workers on the computer and to develop skills and self esteem. The first two steps in particular are of great help, especially for teachers who lack confidence in doing ICT with their class. The software does however, make specific reference to particular pieces of software and it would be helpful to know at the start of a step which software the lesson is actually referring to. Although most desktop publishing packages follow the same basic format, there are some cases where instructions do not match up if you are using a different program. The system also relies on using good readers as peer tutors and it might have been helpful to have a voiceover option in the help sections. There are also areas were some basic animation would have brightened up the lesson!

Note from author in response to suggestions:
  1. I can certainly include a note at the top of each page as to which software the module refers to - this could appear in the next upgrade - version 4.11. (NB Software can be changed in the control panel for many modules - for example 'Story Writing' helps can be set for Textease or for MS Word. Further helps are being added all the time.)
  2. Voiceover is under development. We have the technology - but are awaiting funding - more orders please!!
  3. Animation is also a good idea, although we don't want to overdo it. Suggestions from customers would be welcomed here - what level of animation would you like to see, and where?