Is it Data Handling or is it Art?

Have you ever wondered what the Ofsted Inspector thinks of your work on data handling with your class? He or she must be delighted, you think, because you've made a display using printouts of the children's graphs and it looks absolutely beautiful up there on the wall of your classroom. But what's in the mind of the inspector as you watch him peering at it and making a note in the dreaded clipboard?

The answer can be found in a presentation by Gabriel Goldstein, HMI, the former head of ICT at Her Majesty's Inspectorate. "If you produce a graph using a computer and print it out in colour, then stick it on the wall," he said, "then you've done a piece of art. If, on the other hand, you ask a sensible question of your data, then produce a graph to illustrate or answer your question, and then stick it on the wall, you've done a piece of mathematics."

He's right of course. Look at these two examples. In the graph on the left the children have pressed some buttons, produced a graph and written what they did. The maximum ICT skill level is only about Level 1 (can press buttons to achieve a desired result). In the second example the children have first selected the children who travelled by bicycle and then plotted a graph of their home countries. The result, as you can see, is that the Danes are far more likely to use bicycles than children in the other countries represented. And just like the children in the example, you might like to speculate why more Danes travel by bicycle. Do the Danes have safer roads? Do they promote healthy travel methods? Are there less hills in Denmark? Or is it the particular mix of children and countries in this datafile and would a larger study produce a different result?

The children in the second example have been working at around Level 4 or 5 in ICT and your Ofsted inspector will quickly spot the difference. Incidentally, both examples were produced using Junior ViewPoint from the same datafile - and it's a file that comes on the CD when you buy Junior ViewPoint (you can also download it from the Logotron website if you've misplaced your CD). If your children are six years old, the first example shows that they are working with a database, something which is not strictly required until they are a year or so older, and their ICT Capability is appropriate for their age. But if your children are eleven years old, the same graph would show that they are not working at a suitable level at all.

And it's all there on the wall! A person who had no experience of using computers to handle data would probably be impressed by the professional appearance of the graphs. But the Ofsted inspector will quickly spot the educational process that lies behind the printouts.

So make sure, when you create a display, that it illustrates the work your children have really done. Avoid labels that begin "we printed a graph" and use instead words like "We wanted to know . . ". After all, when the inspectors are about you can use all the plus points you can muster.

Junior Viewpoint, recently updated with 70 datafiles and 150 worksheets, is the perfect data handling tool for KS2. For further details click here.

For details on how you could save money on buying Junior Viewpoint as part of Logotron ICT Tools, a collection of our five 'best of breed' KS2 tools for just £129, click here.

For data handling at KS3-4, click here for details on our Secondary product, Viewpoint.