Hello blog readers,

Those of you who frequently read blogs on various websites will probably be bored of reading about the World Cup by now, so I’ll only mention it briefly in this post.  If you aren’t one of the 2000+ people who’ve downloaded our Interactive Whiteboard World Cup Wallchart, it is still available for download completely free of charge for schools.  This free software allows your pupils to track scores, enter match reports and even choose their Man of the Match for each game.  Some of you might even find it handy if you’ve got any score prediction bets on with colleagues!

Right, that’s the football stuff over with.  I was recently on Twitter and I came across an interesting tweet from On Board Learning, which links to an article called ‘The Culture of Public Education’.  The article delves into a fascinating debate on the current state of public education, and whether or not the focus on testing and grades is good for learning.  The article argues that teachers who gauge their pupil’s abilities through watching, listening and monitoring how they perform educational tasks, are helping their pupils learn more effectively than teachers who rely on tests and assessments instead.

I certainly found it to be an interesting read, so I thought I’d share it with you all.  The full article can be found here: http://www.joebower.org/2010/03/culture-of-public-education.html

Thanks for reading, see you next time.

Hello readers,

The half-term break may be over, but summer is still fast approaching and with it this year comes the (football) World Cup.  I mentioned our two new World Cup-related products in the previous blog post, and they’ve proven to be very popular; we’ve already surpassed 1000 downloads for the free World Cup Wallchart.  In fact, this week we’ve had more hits on our site than ever before.

However, the focus of this post is not on the World Cup, but on our next software program, Ben & Lexi’s Early Keyboard & Mouse Skills.  The program will contain plenty of fun activities which will help young learners get to grips with using a keyboard and mouse.  We are still in the early concept stages of development at the moment, but we have an early screenshot for you to feast your eyes on:

As you can see, we are trying to make the software as attractive and child-friendly as possible.  For the keyboard activities, a full keyboard will be displayed on the screen and the keys will ‘light up’ to show the child which key they ought to be pressing – and more importantly, where it is on the keyboard.  This screenshot shows the virtual version of our Large Lower Case Keyboard, however in the full program teachers will be able to select from a range of keyboards, including our Lower & Upper Case Keyboard.  As the program is still in the early development stage, we are open to any suggestions you might have – leave a comment in the box below if you have any ideas.

Well, that’s about all for this week.  I’ll be posting again next Thursday, if I can find time between watching World Cup matches.  Thanks for reading.

With the World Cup beginning next week, all schools are being offered the chance to download a free World Cup Wallchart, to use on the classroom interactive Whiteboards.  The software not only enables every match result to be stored, but pupils can also enter information about each competing nation, and enter match reports and headlines for every game, if they wish.

Schools can download the free software by visiting http://www.wishtrac.com/products/FREE-Interactive-Whiteboard-World-Cup-Wallchart.html Donations towards the company’s nominated charity, Action for Children, are welcome from schools that use and like the free software.

The wallchart has been produced by Wishtrac House Limited, who develop a range of educational software resources for schools, including our best-selling Booster Phonics software.  If you need to contact the company, please reply to this email or contact us using any of the contact details below.

Paul Strongman
Director

Wishtrac House Limited
Registered Office: 9 Barnfield Close, Wirral, CH47 7DA

www.wishtrac.com

Tel: 0151 633 2777
Fax: 0151 632 6792

The entire wishtrac.com web site has been inundated with visitors over the past week – our busiest week ever, so far…..

We’ve posted a free world cup wallchart as a download from the site (click here) and in the past week around 1000 people have downloaded it, to use in their classrooms during the World Cup.  The free wallchart software not only allows pupils to enter the scores of each World Cup game and watch the draw unfold towards the final, but pupils can also add match headlines and reports, and background information on each team taking part in the tournament!  As a way to encourage pupils to do some report writing, it’s ideal!

Along with the free World Cup Interactive Whiteboard wallchart, we’ve also produced an accompanying International Football Activity Pack (click here).  The activity pack contains over 100 pages of printable resources on a CD ROM, including the following:

• 32 A4 Flags to colour in (ideal for a World Cup display of flags, or classroom bunting)
• Simple Puzzles ideal for Key Stage 1 (Dot to Dot, Spot the Difference, Follow the Line, Mazes) – with up to three differentiated levels for each activity
• More Complex Puzzles for Key Stage 2 (Number puzzles, Anagrams, Word Searches and Quizzes) – with up to three differentiated levels for each activity
• Design Templates – to enable children to design football kits or boots, write match reports, or label a map of the world
• Research & Fact Finding:  32 information sheets for each competing nation, along with templates for children to complete, having found information in the text – ideal for classroom display!

Priced at just £4.95, the materials on the CD ROM can be freely printed or photocopied throughout the school.  CDs will normally be posted same day, so if you order today the CD should arrive within 2 working days.