LD Resources

© 2006 Dr. Brian S. Friedlander
brian@assistivetek.com
http://www.assistivetek.com

After using a piece of software day in and day out for a couple of years, it is always refreshing to take a look at it through the eyes of students and teachers who have never used it. I have been working with a school on a regular basis and the teacher shared with me that her students would be working on graphing data. It didn’t take me too long to know exactly which software package to reach for. Graph Club 2.0 has been out for some time but with schools now using interactive whiteboards the software takes on a whole new dimension in the classroom. Graph Club 2.0 is ideal for students who are just beginning to understand the meaning of graphing data. With it use of pictographs students quickly are engaged in the process of graphing data. With the more than 450 icons built into the program it is very easy to represent all types of different data. The students in the classroom that I was working with started out by taking a survey of their favorite pets. It was very easy to add additional symbols to the pictograph and then have students come up and graph the data. The teacher has been using a mimio Xi system in the classroom and so students could drag the associated symbol of their favorite pet to the right column and watch as the pictures were building the graph.

Graph Club 2.0 is full proof in that it will not allow students to place the symbol of a cat into the dog column and vice versa. The students were very excited to be able to create the graphs and enjoyed the interactivity of the lesson. Graph Club 2.0 is really indispensable when working with students in the early elementary school grades. These students are just beginning to understand the sense of representing data and having multiple views on the data set really helps to support their level of understanding. Being able to have a pictograph on the left half of the computer screen and a table on the right hand side- really helped students to understand the relationship of the data and the graph, Graph Club 2.0 is an ideal program to use with interactive whiteboards in the classroom. It really engages students and allows them to interact while they are problem solving. This is also and ideal tool for teachers to demonstrate different graphing concepts. For example, it is possible to introduce the concept of scale, in Graph Club 2.0 which is a more advanced skill by simply clicking on the Y axis and setting the parameter. Likewise, it is possible for teachers to transform graphs very simply by clicking on the appropriate icon to show students line, bar, and pie charts. Having a tool that can represent so many different types of charts is ideal for students who are just beginning to understand graphing concepts.

Graph Club 2.0 also can be purchased with and additional CD which contains ReadyMade Activities that can be used across the curriculum. The true strength of Graph Club 2.0 is posing questions about the data and watching students begin to think through their answers, using the data that is presented in the graph. With more emphasis being placed on interpretation and analysis of data on high stakes testing it is imperative that we as educators expose our students to programs like Graph Club 2.0 so that they can practice understanding visual data.

Working with Graph Club 2.0 made me realize once again just how wonderful this piece of software is and how great it is to be able to use with interactive whiteboards. If you haven’t taken a look at Graph Club 2.0 in a couple of years it’s worth looking at again. For more information go to: www.tomsnyder.com