Spark-Space in Education from Spark-Space Ltd.

This software is an interesting mix of genres. In this review, I will refer to the Spark-Space education based software. There are three products distributed and supported. Spark Learner is designed for students. It helps students understand concepts, organise ideas and produce a finished, structured document. Spark Learner allows a student to learn independently or self-check work using the built in text-to-speech feature. Spark Learner is an ideal tool for those with hidden disabilities such as dyslexia. It often radically improves the learning process for students of all abilities.

KidSpark has features that accommodate children up to age ten and also is also appropriate and useful for older children who experience significant learning difficulties, suffer from acquired brain injury or have some cognitive delay.

Spark Educator is specifically for teaching and therapy staff. Spark Educator caters to all learning styles and accelerates learning by presenting a lesson in conceptual and sequential format. Students are able to plan, present information and then prioritise and maintain concentration. The innovative 3D view assists in analysing and viewing the information as it is constructed. It elegantly and powerfully caters to all learning styles and ability levels in a classroom.

Spark-Space has specifically designed their software programs for simple, uncomplicated use.

Spark-Space software represents ideal teaching tools for use with classroom desktop and Notebook PCs, especially in conjunction with an Interactive Whiteboard. In this regard, all students are able to learn together. Once installed onto a computer, it provides users with some very practical and useful templates and animated tutorials. This assists students and teaching staff in starting to use the software quickly. There is a comprehensive Help system (electronically stored and always available from the Help menu)
with Tips of the Day feature.

As consistent with most software now, the manual is included in the program, as an option within the Help menu. The in-program Help system contains the following:

• Introduction
• Program Concepts
• User Manual
• Installation and First Time Run

You can request a demonstration disk that will install and run on your computer for 30 days. Alternatively, you can download a demo from the web or view examples of the various programs from http://www.spark-space.com/downloads.htm. The Spark-Space website also has an excellent series of online demos, and these are located at http://www.spark-space.com/eddemos.htm.

What Does Spark-Space Software do?

Spark-Space is a relatively new product. It is designed and produced in Great Britain, and is a part of a new generation of powerful, easy to use software products created for the user. Beguiling simple yet sophisticated in function and design, the software is intuitive, offering numerous exciting features that make writing tasks easier from start to finish.

Spark-Space creates a space for your thoughts. It allows users of all ages and abilities to structure their thoughts at speed. It helps connects ideas, documents, web pages and graphics within one map – giving you complete and seamless control over the entire process. The map can be printed or copied to other applications in part, or as a finished product.

Spark-Space shows your ideas from new perspectives using virtual 3D, rotational and split screen views. It therefore turns your idea maps into working documents, presentations and web pages ready for other users to read, examine or edit.

Students thoroughly enjoy planning their written tasks, prioritising, and managing the process all within Spark-Space.

• Employing a visual idea map and writing presentation style, Spark-Space software allows lessons to be presented in a way that caters to all learning styles
• The pre-packaged learning lessons are presented in a unique 3D way. This helps students understand concepts, associations and connections more fully and comprehensively

• Spark-Space has built-in text-to-speech capabilities that allow for increased independence. Students can study and self review content in lessons. These might be the example lessons from the program, or from class lessons designed and created cooperatively with other students and staff
• Online lessons can be published on the web quickly and effortlessly. This helps promote home study and parent involvement in student learning and provides for greater independence with appropriate support

Ease of Use

One of the strongest features is that Spark software can be used within minutes after installation. Each package has been designed and developed by teaching and software professionals. It has an intuitive interface and the icons are clearly drawn, some with animated effects. The toolbars can be customised and various tools can be turned on or off. You can also lock the toolbars to avoid mishaps or restrict some students using tools that are inappropriate.

Many schools use MS Office products for writing, note taking and completing assignments. MS Word is a popular tool for teachers and students but it is a `flat` word processor and does not accommodate nor handle images and multi media very well. It has no text to speech capabilities and the toolbars and features cater to adults in industry more than to students in classrooms. In my opinion, it is too powerful for many learners and has features that are irrelevant or unnecessary for younger or struggling students. Unless it is tailored with inappropriate toolbars with redundant features disabled, it can cause frustration for some students and waste time for busy teachers in their lessons.

Overcoming Problems

There are students who are reluctant to plan their writing as they cannot organise their thoughts or lay out their ideas in a logical fashion. Starting is difficult as they experience difficulties in constructing their essay, assignment or writing task. Therefore in some instances it is too overwhelming. Occasionally they do not start at all or use strategies to avoid the task completely. They become disengaged and then increasingly reluctant to participate in future writing or research tasks. Their confidence wanes and their behaviour and attitude can cause additional problems in and out of class. Writing is deemed as too hard and any written task becomes a chore. Their capacity to participate and succeed is curtailed due to inappropriate choice of software, teaching strategies and/or content delivery that might engage them.

Other students, once they have commenced writing, are reluctant to edit finished work as the overall experience is too challenging. They would prefer to hand in their work at a stage where they consider it complete. Often it is poorly written, with errors, spelling mistakes and the ideas do not flow. At times, the students struggle to correctly negotiate task at hand and cannot define the topic. Writing can be disjointed and the content may not adequately answer the question or criteria.

Most learners need help with logically pulling together information that they have gathered through reading, browsing encyclopaedias, navigating and copying information from web sites and performing research in libraries. They often find it difficult to know where to start with writing essays and assignments. The whole process is too daunting and so they fall back on previous skills or complete their work with minimal energy and enthusiasm.

Adding the Necessary Spark

Spark software is very visual. With built in text to speech, it provides new experiences that are more attuned to the expectations of today`s students. Children have been exposed to television and computer games from an early age. Technology is considered as normal, an every day occurrence. They can operate complex toys and systems that usually befuddle and confuse most adults.

They enjoy using programs and tools that excite and direct their attention to text, moving images and that are associated with music and sound effects. They think, process and act upon information differently to previous generations. Spark-Space offers them opportunities to logically plan their writing with numerous features that adapt to how they process data.

The program

• Allows students to think, reflect upon and place onto the screen what they already know about a topic
• Helps them produce more logically structured work and assists them in organising their ideas using a number of different tools
• Identifies what they still need to know in a visual representation, rather than just lines of text
• Provides a logical, diagrammatic structure for organising the information
• Provides a `scaffold` where they can add elements procured from research, reading and data collection
• Allows them to listen to the text that they have typed or scanned from a book, or copied from another document, encyclopaedia or web page

• Assists them in easily laying out text and images with features that make it enjoyable and fun
• Gives them various tools to view their work and logically link new information to what they already know
• Improves the capacity to edit and revise their own work independently
• Provides tools to rotate their work and analyse it from different perspectives
• Boosts their self esteem by establishing what they do know and represent it in a way that satisfies and age appropriately rewards them
• Motivates them to learn more about the software whilst engaging in meaningful tasks
• Provides a mechanism that is attuned to their needs and is consistent with emerging technologies that provide multi media tools with capacities that excite and help direct learning, innovation and risk taking

What can be achieved?

First you create a document, edit an existing file started in class or designed by the teacher, or open an example file. Essentially, Spark-Space programs have been designed as tools for the creation of documents. It helps realise the strengths in students` writing as they build their documents.

Spark Educator offers a fully operational word processor that is directly associated to each idea object. When you click on an object, editing features are immediately available and are `tagged` to that object or concept. The user has the option to switch between a full text and map view at any time in the writing or editing process. The software assists the user in ordering writing with its unique and automatic approach to ordering and sequencing. Sections are re-ordered simply by dragging and dropping idea objects into a new order. Documents can be printed straight from the program, or saved as a word-processed document for use in Microsoft Word or other word processing programs later. Full text-to-speech capabilities in the text view mode, allow students to listen to any text in the document. In addition, students can export their documents as an HTML file and determine its screen dimensions with or without headers, footers and links to other pages. Building a web page now is so quick and easy. It is one of the simplest web page designers and builders that I`ve used. Students can learn to build web pages in minutes. More importantly, so can their teachers!

Staff and students can quickly insert their ideas onto the map then use the auto arrange feature to save time. This one button click automation is elegant and very powerful. Using the rotational and 3D view, users can acquire a new perspective on their ideas. The yellow toolbars at the top left of the Idea Map screen provide these functions.

Planning notes, lessons and presentations can be time consuming. Educators can use the software to plan and record lesson content. The visual map, together with the word processing options, provides powerful tools for planning any teaching session. Using large monitors, projectors or Interactive Whiteboards, information comes alive. Lessons can be created before or during class with student input. A read-only file can be saved to a network drive, or posted to the school`s Intranet. Students can then access it during or after the class and complete it themselves, using their own ideas, research and visual media.

After the task is completed, students can then present their findings to a small group or to the whole class. They can even post it to the web for the world to see! Spark`s Presenter Mode gives students the confidence to present their map as a finished idea or project.

It is paramount that users of computers organise their time and thoughts, otherwise time at the keyboard can be wasted. Spark-Space with its simple to learn and user-friendly features provides tools that can assist anyone with planning and logically representing ideas and concepts. You can use the education versions of the software to encourage input, generate and document ideas and then expand upon them using the built-in word processing features.

Files can be attached within the program using the hyperlink option. Associated content can be linked, including web pages, to support or provide additional information or evidence. Links are simple to create and generate. They can also be turned off if teachers do not wish them to be used in certain classes or situations. They are dynamic in presentations and in building multi faceted documents and reports. Assignments can be broken down into smaller elements and sequentially or randomly opened to demonstrate findings or show findings, proof or conclusions.

Users can elect to import images from its own clipart gallery and from any other sources on your computer, including memory sticks, CD or DVD disks or from additional disk drives at school or at home. Students can also import images including the very popular digital cameras or mobile phone handsets for use within the idea map or for use with the document feature. The software supports numerous popular graphics formats. To insert a graphic, simply reduce the working window and drag and drop your picture, photo, map or drawing onto the idea map. You can resize it and label it immediately.

Users can create an idea map to organise their data and thoughts. The software allows users to plan and outline any information using their creative reasoning skills. Each feature of map creation is user friendly and intuitive to use. The Help system is useful and the examples assist in identifying how the program can be effectively used to build and construct maps.

Plotting tasks in space gives you the opportunity to constantly re-evaluate priorities and allows you to make critical judgements on the sequence in which students and teachers should approach their task. Tasks can be re-sequenced simply in a map by moving an idea to a different position. Moving, resizing and relocating elements and objects is a simple matter of mouse clicking and dragging. The text view automatically changes to the new order and immediately reflects the new map contents.

In Conclusion

Spark-Space software is exciting to use. It is really three programs in one as users can write and document their ideas, build maps, manipulate them using the 3D tool and automatic rotate features, and add images and annotations, then present it using the Presenter option. The example files are valuable resources and provide templates that can be edited and altered. They also give educators and students ideas as to how they might create their own maps. The built in text-to-speech, graphic library and web resources all help to make this new program quite unique. It has created a genre that will be applauded by educators and embraced enthusiastically by media and technology savvy students.

System Requirements

Windows Minimum System Requirements

• Desktop or Notebook computer running at 166MHz (Pentium or compatible processor)
• Ms Windows 95, 98, (*SE), ME, NT, 2000 or XP operating system
• At least 32MB RAM
• 40 MB of free hard disk space (and add 20MB for each additional spelling dictionaries – if they are required)
• Colour video card and monitor with at least 800 × 600 resolution

Mac Minimum System Requirements

• 300 MHz Power PC G3 processor (*)
• Requires MAC OS X v10.x
• 64 MB of RAM
• 40 MB of free hard disk space (more if spelling dictionaries for multiple languages are required (approx 20 MB per language))
• Colour screen with 800×600 resolution (*)

Linux Minimum Requirements

• 166 MHz Intel Pentium or compatible processor (*)
  
• RedHat Linux v9, SuSe Linux 9.x
  
• 64 MB of RAM (*)
  
• 40 MB of free hard disk space (more if spelling dictionaries for multiple languages are required (approx 20 MB per language))
  
• Colour video card and monitor with 800×600 resolution(*)

* The faster the processor and the more memory, the better the software will perform and respond as it is a fully featured multi media program. The 3D views, spell checker and auto-arrange require a PC with good performance specifications so the MINIMAL requirements above are satisfactory for operating the software. It is always advised to obtain or download a demonstration copy first. It will install and run for 30 days. Then the user(s) can evaluate the software and discover for themselves how it performs on the computer(s) intended for later use.

Note: The free demonstration CD ROM is available from the supplier (in Australia – Spectronics in Queensland Ph: 07 3808 6833).