Children's Educational Software Review

Spex Review No1

This review was conducted with children aged 7 - 9 years and with Spex being reviewed over a period of 5 weeks rotating 20-minute sessions each day in ICT, Maths, Art & Design and Geography, covering simulations, budgeting, 3D design and mapping.

Overview of teaching with Spex

Spex is an easy-to-use, colourful simulation and modelling program.  It supports both these aspects of the ICT Curriculum, as well as the 'solving real life problems involving money' aspect of the Numeracy Strategy.  The 2D to 3D facility could also support shape and space topics.  The title consists of a selection of 'environments' to be designed. Children choose an environment to work in and are given a budget to work within.  They then drag and drop objects into the plan view of the environment, arranging and rearranging them as they please, but keeping within the budget.  They can also adjust wall and floor colours and add friezes, windows and doors to the walls.  At the click of a button, the plan can be changed from 2D to 3D and back again.  The disc also comes with printable worksheets and structured schemes of work.  These give easy to follow instructions, which meant even my least able could work independently.  Ideally, I would have used it in the ICT suite, with the whole class working on it in pairs simultaneously.  As it was, careful planning meant it slotted into Maths, Geography and ICT lessons.  Although the rest of the class were always doing something different, it was possible to link the learning objectives.

Installation

Installation was very straightforward from the CD-ROM.  Additional files could be loaded from a second CD-ROM to give greater choice of environments. (all the environments are now included with Spex Classic) Once installed, all environments can be run without the disc.  The program loads all the environments from the hard disc on start up, but this does not take long.  There is no uninstall option, but Spex and Spex Environments come up as separate listings in Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel.

Content

The title supports various Curriculum topics, including those quoted in the manual (scale, measurement and units; the link between plans and the real world; different methods of presenting information; ergonomic design for some rooms; creative arrangement; hierarchy and grouping; budgeting using real life costings).  Some individual environments could support other topics such as Ancient Egypt and Space.  The selection of environments provides variety and interest, as does the amount of variables within each environment.  This also allows for children of different abilities to be challenged at an appropriate level.  Because the title could support a range of learning objectives, these need to be made explicit to the children and set in context with relevant non-ICT work.

Curriculum Relevance

The title supports Maths topics, including shape and space; budgeting using real life costings; scale, measurement and units.  It also supports Geography topics such as the link between plans and the real world and mapping.  It can be used to enhance creativity (trying different arrangements) and to explore different methods of presenting information. It also supports the ICT simulation topic and spreadsheets and modelling.  Not all of the environments allow for budgeting, so this needs to be checked in advance if you are using the title to support 'the budgeting using real life costings topic'.

Design and Navigation

When the program is opened, it loads all the available environments very quickly before a window pops up with large, easily identifiable, labelled icons for the different environments.  A click of the mouse on the relevant icon and another on the OK button opens the settings window for that particular environment.  These can be adjusted either by the teacher, or the pupil.  Clicking on OK opens the environment screen, which is clearly laid out with most options easily visible.  Almost all functions can be controlled using large, colourful buttons at the bottom of the screen.  The icons on these buttons are easily interpreted and there is very little need for use of the menu bar.  One particularly useful feature is the facility to move objects between environments, making a very wide range of objects available for each environment.

Ease of Use

This title is for learner use and can be used with minimal initial input.  My class of 7-9 year olds needed no additional input once they had begun.  The buttons are self-explanatory and all functions can be undone.  There is no onscreen help, but the user manual is well illustrated and very clear.  Work can be saved at any stage and easily reloaded.  The supporting documentation, which can be printed off the disc, includes example schemes of work with step-by-step instructions, as well as templates for your own schemes of work.

Spex for Children with Special Educational Needs

This is a very visual program, which requires very little reading so that poor readers have no problem using it.

Courseware

Pupils can work through different environments, but there is no built in progression or definite end to each scenario.  Pupils need to keep track of whether or not they are still within budget.  There is no signal when the budget is exceeded.  Pupils can click on the 'budget' button and a window pops up with the budget, amount spent and amount remaining.  The amount remaining goes into negative numbers when the budget is exceeded.  Where an environment has a budget, this can be adjusted to make the task take more or less time.

Conclusion

Spex is an easy and fun to use program, which had the children engrossed and gave them a sense of independence.  It is an excellent way to introduce the concept of planning.  The 2D to 3D function is a satisfying and instant way for children to compare 2D and 3D objects.  The children loved the modelling aspect of the title - clicking and choosing items and arranging them in the rooms and responded well to the added challenge of keeping within budget.  I found the budgeting and spreadsheet features particularly useful.  The title is an excellent way to introduce the children to spreadsheets, as they can see why they are useful.  The spreadsheets, like everything else, are clear, colourful and easy to follow.  The program is colourful and simple to use with large bright icons.  It can be used to support many different topics and subjects. 

See more independent educational software reviews;  Spex software review for children aged 10 - 11 years, and a Spex review for children aged 11 - 12 years.