Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Gr 12 Revision

At school we have been told to prepare a revision schedule for the learners. Many of my colleagues will be doing revision in the holidays and over weekends. I have decided to use the PAT work as my revision for the practical. I may be forcing the learners with respect to the PAT but some need supportive forceful measures.
I have started with Access. The learners had to create a database and in the field structure use the following: Different data types, Required, Input masks, Primary key, Field sizes, Captions, Format, Validation rule and validation text, etc. They have to do the Access quiz mentioned in a previous posting. Today I looked at Reports and grouping and calculations in grouping. Later this week I will look at a switchboard. They have the videos on the tips page to guide them, and we have just bought headphones. I will then go on to look at Excel and Word. All these activities are obviously done in keeping with answering their questions in the PAT.
Chapters 6.1 and 6.2 are great but I will leave them until I have forced some of my challenged learners to get going with their PATs.

Gr 12 PAT - Phase 4

Here are two examples of my learners's Phase 4 - Abrahams and Kolbe. They both achieved 37/40. They both lost marks where they were told to list things.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Excel quizzes

Here is a link to a collection of Excel quizzes I made. Please feel free to use them. I am just sorry that they cannot be downloaded and used off line.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Access switchboard

Phase 5 of the PAT mentions a Switchboard in Access. You may want to use my video for help. I suggest you download it, open with a browser and use in the classroom.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Examination question papers

Have a look at the wonderful information re availability of examination papers!

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Gr 11 - Third term assessment task

In the third term Grade 11 have a task, Item 5 in SAG : Assignment using additional package. It is based on using PowerPoint or FrontPage and is about cell phone use.
This task is one of the best I have yet seen. The learners have to think and it is within their sphere of interest. They are doing real Internet searches! Luckily I am on the part-time staff of a university and am able to access academic online journals and databases (Science Direct) through their library. The learners have also matured and are not putting all their information on the slide, rather just key words.
The learners are also required to create a document describing their strategy based on pages 306 to 308 of their textbook. This is such nice preparation for their PAT.
On the CD there is an assessment sheet but a colleague and I made this one before I found it there.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Videos for learning

I had a wonderful time during the holidays training CAT teachers. I was asked to create some videos. Here are some new videos.

Working with long documents - Section breaks, Column breaks, Using styles
Excel functions - Round
Always look on my tip sheet for videos.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Excel functions videos

Some Excel functions videos to download - Sumif, Countif / Count and Round.
Other videos can be found on my tips page.

Monday, July 7, 2008

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Word - Working with long documents

Have a look at some videos I made to teach aspects of working with long documents. You can download them and then view them off line in a classroom by opening them with a browser.

Modifying styles, Modifying styles of Captions, Table of Contents, Table of Figures, Cross references, Track changes

There are many other teaching videos on my tips page. If other videos are required please just send a request - you may just get your request.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Grade 12 PAT

My Grade 12 learners are just finishing off Phase 4 of their PAT. A problem has become apparent. Although they are showing what they intend doing with the applications, they are not using enough features of the applications to warrant marks. They should look at Phase 5 to see all the features they are meant to use, and bring them into Phase 4. They must also rephrase some of their questions so that they DO use the required features of the applications.

I recommend that in future I print out the whole PAT instruction manual and give it to them. This year I did not as I thought they would lose the pages. I am learning how to manage the PAT.

Keyboarding

End of year examinations are coming up and on reflection I realise that I have neglected to test my learners on their keyboarding skills. In the coming term I must check that. I must also check how to assess their keyboarding skills correctly so that I can give my learners a correct indication of their ability. This may be a problem as I do not have a clue how it is done in examination conditions.