Kenny: They reacted to it positively, they seemed to be able to find their way around the program and they seemed to achieve success with the activities that they were doing. They were all able to work at their own pace and, and they all seemed to be able to take something positive out of it. So yes, I thought it went very well.
Caroline: What I noticed was there was one or two in the class, it's a kind of bottom set - so there's one or two in the class that have motivational problems, and one boy in particular, we usually give him the text and he thinks, oh what are we doing today, sort of thing but he was actually engaged. He was clicking on the computer, he was enjoying it.
Pupil A: It's just more fun, 'cos we get to go at our own pace on the computers and in the classroom we have to do it at a certain speed and it's easier.
Caroline: I think what it achieved was a sense of interaction, the sense of working at their own pace as well. I think that one or two of them appreciated that. I find that in the class, you give them a set time, I'll give you ten minutes to do this adjective exercise, and then we'll feed back to me. However some of them aren't finished; five of them might be, another four of them aren't, and this way they can get it checked and we can easily go round and they can move onto the next exercise.
Pupil B: It was very fun doing this instead of being in a classroom.
Caroline: Sometimes what we do in classes, if we're trying to understand characters, I make them draw the character's head and generally features of them and write round the outside adjectives, well this time it gave visually what Buddy might look like, using pictures from the text, and you could visualise Buddy Holly, something that they don't quite understand because they're not of the age to remember Buddy Holly. So they can visualise the character and then the adjectives matching to a face, that kind of thing, brings it more to life for them.
I think it's particularly suited to lower ability classes because they're the ones that have the concentration problems, they're the ones that need the visual input and they're the ones that need the support. And I think the layout of a computer classroom is good for giving them support and for working on their pace et cetera.
Kenny: One aspect that might make it a little bit easier to use is the fact that it will appear on the web and people can access it via the internet so in terms of accessibility, that shouldn't be a problem and that perhaps will be the one thing that would lead to wider usage of this type of resource