Drill and practice

Drill and practice is a software that provides practice exercises to students. The software also provides immediate feedback on the students' correctness. The feedback can be simple as a text display or as elaborate as verbal explanations. Some programs are designed to go directly to the next item providing that the student enters the correct answer.

 

Types of drill functions include:

c
Flash card activity

    This function is the most basic. It allows students to answer questions one at a time, the students then get a positive or a negative feedback depending on their answer. If the answer is correct then the feedback will be a positive one, if it is wrong or incorrect then the feedback will be negative.

 

c
Branching drill

    The software is consisted of questions that are in different levels. The software takes students from the lower levels to the more advanced ones. This takes place only if the students are successful at each level. After successfully completing a level the software might allow the student to choose their next activity.

 

• 
  Extensive feedback activity
  

This function allows students to know exactly where they went wrong and why they got the problem wrong. This function is often mistaken for a tutorial, which provides instructions, but the drill is not a software designed for instruction but for practice.

 

A well designed drill and practice program should:

    c Allow students enough time to answer and to read and examine feedback before proceeding to the next question. The software should allow students to select the next question by pressing a key when they are ready to move on.

 

c It should allow the students to enter their opinions in the form of short answers rather than selecting an answer that the software provides. This will encourage critical thinking.

 

c The feedback must be appropriate since some drill software gives feedback that is too amusing when the answer is incorrect. When the software does this, the students deliberately answer the questions incorrectly so that they will be able tom see the amusing feedback.

 

The benefits of using drill and practice

1. The software allows students to receive immediate feedback whether or not the answer is correct. The feedback will help the students to identify where they went wrong and how to correct the mistake.
   

   
    

2. The software also motivates students to do the necessary practice that they may really need. The students might get demotivated when they have to write practice questions on paper but the computer tends to be creative and motivational. The students will enjoy working on it and the computer will not get impatient when the students consistently get the questions wrong. This will encourage the students to work harder and they will be allowed to work at their own pace.
   

   
    

3. It also saves the teacher time since the teacher does not have to correct the questions, the drill software automatically corrects the questions. The teacher can use this time to address other students' needs.
   

   
    

Limitations and problem

Some teachers use this software to introduce new topics rather than to practice the skills of the topic.

 

Source: M.D. Roblyer, 2006. " Integrating Education Technology Into Teaching"

 

MATERIAL GENERATORS

Material generators include test generators, individualized education program (IEP) generators, graphic document makers, wooksheet and puzzle generators, PDF and form makers and desktop publishing software. My main focus is to inform you about desktop publishing software.

Desktop Publishing Software

This software allows teachers and students to design elaborated printed products and the publishing tools give them an important advantage of complete control over a potentially powerful form of communication. This control is defined as desktop publishing (M.D., Roblyer).

Desktop publishing allows you to mix text and graphics on each new page and can be done using the word processing software. It can be used to produce classroom brochures, newsletters, flyers and posters. There is a more advanced layout feature offered by the desktop publishing software which can be used only if the teacher is teaching students to design and lay out large, complex documents such as newspapers, books and booklets, magazines.

Benefits for desktop publishing includes increases in children's self- esteem when they publish their own work, heightened intrest in writing and motivation to write for audiences outside the classroom and improved learning through small group collaboration. There are a few classroom examples that you can implement into the classroom. They are:

• Allow the students to create an attractive flyer or a brochure with intresting communication. This task will allow the students to develop their grammar, spelling amd communication skills.


• Encourage students to develop their creative side by allowing them to create their own personal books. These can be sold at fund raisers and will be very motivating to them.

Some websites that can be used to assist teachers with desktop publishing are:

• Microsoft Publisher
• Adobe In Design and Page Maker
• Quark Express

These websites are according to M.D., Roblyer,2006.

The following is a video that you can use to help you better understand how desktop publishing works.

Desktop Publishing.

GRAPHIC TOOLS

Have you ever wondered what are graphic tools? Well I can let
you know what I understand about them.

Graphic tools include a number of application that can be used in the classroom. These applications can also be used privately. Some graphic tools include draw/paint programs, image editing tools, charting and graphing tools, clip art, photo and animations.

The graphic tools mentioned can be very useful in the classroom. It will ensure the accuracy of data in terms of the charting and graphing tools. The other programs will make the lessons very interesting and enjoyable. These programs will alllow the students to be very interactive with each other while being very productive.

The program that caught my attention was the graphing and charting tools. This program will ease the teacher and the student from the traditional chart and graph making that demanded manual labour and loads of material. When using the graphing and charting tools you only need the required data and paper if you need to print the chart. the chart can be displayed from a projector if desired. If you lack artistic ability then this is the ideal program for you. The software will allow you to choose the format for your chart and they will design it.

Graphing activities in science, social- studies and geography are a few subject areas that will profit from software graphing and charting tools (M.D. Roblyer,2006). A very useful software that can be used in the classroom to assist students in creating charts is the Advance Grapher. For more details on graphing and charting tools you can follow this link to charts.