Creating maps and adding new media content for early years children
Creating maps and adding new media content for early years children
MapCaster is a brand new software program that allows children to add images or videos to maps they create within the program or download from the internet. The finished map can be presented by children to the whole class.
By using digital media, MapCaster will add a new dimension to many areas of the curriculum, for example:
• in local history, children can make their own map and add to it, either scanned historical photos of how areas looked in the past, or their own video record of historical sites in their area;
• on field trips, children can work in groups to record plants or features of the area, and go back to a computer and discuss the best way to add these images and video to a local map, which they can present to other groups
• MapCaster can be used with a range of subjects:
o in science studying plants, animals or material usage in the nearby environment;
o with ICT for it’s use of images, video and making presentations,
o to study Citizenship and with areas such as Outdoor Studies.
During pre-release trials, an Education Development Officer, Scotland said about MapCaster:
“The fact that it offers opportunities to connect with the world outside school and allows the kids themselves to create and manipulate a range of digital media ticks all the boxes, especially as the end product is easily shared with a wider audience (class, whole school assembly, school website etc.)”
Mapcaster may be supplied on CD-ROM format or online, through a subscription service. It will also work through VLEs, and Storm Educational are partnering with a number of VLE suppliers to make the software available in this way. Single User versions cost £26 + VAT and an unlimited Site Licence costs £199 + VAT.
For further information, contact:
Peter Miles
Storm Educational Software
The Education Barn
at Holm & Ivy
St. James
Shaftesbury
Dorset. SP7 0JA.
Tel/fax: 01747 858323
Mobile: 07967 808201
http://www.stormeducational.co.uk
email: peter@stormeducational.co.uk