Do you know someone who can't tell the time? This four-part program can help.
Designed by Brian Kerslake
Programmed by Tony Benesh and Jason O'Broin
Graphics and animations by Glenn Burnett
Manual by Marshal Anderson
Talking Clocks is Copyright ⌐ Brian Kerslake 1995
Published by Topologika 1995
Introduction
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Talking Clocks gives children the chance to explore analogue and digital clocks. It also gives teachers the opportunity to find out what they can do with them.
When designing the program we focussed on four skills, so the pack has four parts:
In 'Say The Time' children can hear a clock speak its time. They can click on buttons to 'write' (and say) the time, thus mimicking what they first try to do in real life. The computer works out whether what has been entered is correct, and gives amusing feedback.
In 'Set the Clock' the computer gives them a time to set a clock to.
In 'Match the clocks' learners have to match the time shown on one clock to the time on another.
The fourth part asks them to work out 'How Much Time?' there is between two clocks.
All four parts can use analogue or digital clocks, with colourful animations and sampled speech. They keep track of questions asked and answers given, and a performance record can be printed out.
A set of worksheets is provided which can be used to set work away from the computer. The sheets cannot be given to children as supplied because they need hands or digits adding to them. We suggest that you photocopy the sheets before you customise them for particular groups of children.
Configuring Talking Clocks
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This section introduces some of the main ways in which you can get Talking Clocks to work in the way you want. How to make these changes is described in detail in the section called Choices on page 14.
Full Screen Mode
You can use Talking Clocks on the desktop, that is in a window on the screen that can be moved around. Many children (and teachers) are now quite used to this way of working, especially when using two or three programs together.
However, there is no particular reason for using Talking Clocks in this way. It has the disadvantage that children can click themselves into all sorts of trouble very easily. We have therefore provided a full screen mode in which the program appears to take over the whole screen so that children cannot easily get to the icon bar or anything else on the desktop.
You can still get to the desktop icon bar by pressing F12 while at the same time holding down one of the Shift keys.
Locking Activities
You can lock the program into one of the four activities to enable children to practise just that particular skill.
Sound
Although the program is called Talking Clocks we recognise that there will be some situations in which speech and other sound effects will be a distraction. Tools to turn these off are therefore provided.
Time
Talking Clocks can use 'am' times, 'pm', or the 24 hour clock. Which of these options is chosen has no relevance to analogue clocks (clocks with hands) except when one appears beside a digital clock, in which case the analogue clock will, for completeness, add 'am' or 'pm' to the time it speaks (see page 8). Digital clocks treat midnight as 0000 and noon as 1200.
Getting Started
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The Talking Clocks icon will appear on the right-hand side of the icon bar at the bottom of the screen. Click on this to start the program. Any time this manual refers to the Talking Clocks icon it means this icon on the icon bar.
Printers
Talking Clocks can print out a breakdown of children's work at the end of each activity. A sample of a typical printout from each of the four activities can be seen in Appendix 1 (page 21). To use this feature you will need to load a RISC OS printer driver. Although it is possible to load one at any time, it is usually best to load and configure it before you load Talking Clocks. You will find more information about printers and printing on the separate Release Notes.
The Main Menu
Common Things
Hearing the Time
Each clock in each activity can speak the time it is showing: just click on the clock's mouth. The time is always expressed in 'minutes to' and 'minutes past', e.g. 7.55 is '5 minutes to 8'. Clocks may be silent because someone has turned the sound off. How to turn it on again is explained in the Choices section on page 14.
Checking Answers
After the pre-set number of questions each activity will stop and a score will be shown. If a printer driver has been loaded, work can be printed out (questions asked, and the answers given), or the activity can be repeated (click on 'Continue') or another one selected from the Main Menu.
Quitting an Activity
In desktop mode activities can be quit at any time by finishing them or by clicking on the window's close icon ('x' shaped, top left). In 'Full Screen' mode finish the activity or hold down Shift and keep it pressed while you press F12 to bring the desktop icon bar to the front of the screen. Then use the Choices options (page 14) to either lock in another activity or to quit the program.
Quitting Talking Clocks
This is done from the desktop icon. In desktop mode quitting any full screen activity will reveal the icon bar. Click MENU over the Talking Clocks icon and click on Quit. In full screen mode press F12 while holding down Shift to bring the desktop icon bar to the front of the screen, then quit as just described.
Say The Time
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In 'Say the Time' the computer must be made to speak the time on the clock. If something doesn't work when clicked on it may have been switched off in Choices; the sounds made by the red lips and the clock's mouth can, for example be switched off.
Analogue Clocks
Here 'Say The Time' is using the analogue clock, so the am and pm buttons are 'greyed out' (displayed in grey on a white background). The time can be entered into the white box at the bottom of the screen by clicking on the buttons provided. If a number is needed which isn't in the panel at the right hand side of the screen, find the appropriate one by using the left and right arrows to scroll the number, then click on OK.
Click on the clock's mouth (the green curve below it's brown nose) to hear the time it is currently showing. Click on the red lips to hear the time entered. Click on the rubber to clear the answer box and try again.
Click on See (the 'eye' icon) to check your answer. Depending on how this is configured in Choices, a second or third attempt at the same question may be possible if you got it wrong.
Setting the number of 'goes' to just one in Choices enables each activity to be set up, if required, as an assessment task. It would be a good idea to disable the clock's mouth!
Digital Clocks
Acceptable Answers
Answers must always be in 'minutes to' or 'minutes past'.
No number bigger than 29 can be selected, so answers like '40 minutes past three' are not allowed.
The word 'minutes' is not compulsory, so '25 to 6' is OK. This can give rise to the occasional odd sounding answer like '15 past 5', which is correct as far as Talking Clocks is concerned.
When an exact hour is shown, it must be followed by 'o'clock'
If 'am' or 'pm' is omitted, its input will be requested except on your last 'go' at a particular question.
Set The Clock
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Here the clock must be set to the time given at the bottom of the screen.
Analogue Clocks
Use the 'hands' on each side of the clock to run it backwards and forwards. Clicking on the hand at the left of the screen moves the clock's hands clockwise, while clicking the hand on the right moves them anti-clockwise.
The hands may move in 'jumps' rather than passing every minute. The size of the jumps depends on the time periods configured in Choices.
Clicking ADJUST has the opposite effect to SELECT.
Digital Clocks
When using the digital clock option (not shown) the time to which the clock must be set is given with 'am' or 'pm'. The hand on the left side of the screen changes the hours, while the one on the right changes the minutes. As above, numerals may move in 'jumps' rather than passing every minute (the size of the jumps depends on the time periods configured in Choices). Clicking ADJUST again has the opposite effect to SELECT.
Match The Clocks
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'Match The Clocks' can use any combination of the two kinds of clocks. The left hand clock must be altered until it matches the one on the right.
At its simplest 'Match The Clocks' can be configured (using Choices) to show two analogue clocks giving practice at telling the time simply by setting both clocks the same. At a higher level children can be tasked, as shown above, to match an analogue clock to a digital, or vice versa. This could help the many children who can set a video recorder to catch their favourite television program but who can't tell you what time it starts in 'real words'.
If one of the clocks is digital and Talking Clocks has been configured in Choices to deal only with 'am' or 'pm', the digital clock will only wind through the relevant figures: 0000 to 1159 for 'am', and 1200 to 2359 for 'pm'.
How Much Time
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Here we have to work out how much time there is between two clocks which can be analogue, digital or one of each. Time periods can be just am or pm, or both, and answers can be given in minutes or in hours and minutes. These options are all covered in the Choices section (page 14).
One or two boxes are presented for entering the time, depending on whether the time difference to be input is configured (in Choices) to be in hours and minutes, or just in minutes.
Click on a box and type numbers on the keyboard, or click on the 'bump arrows'. All the usual keyboard editing keys - Delete, the arrows etc. - work in these boxes. The Return key swaps between boxes if there are two.
The Choices Menu
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This menu lets you configure Talking Clocks to suit pupil's needs. There are lots of options, so we've split it into three 'pages'.
To get to the Choices pages, click MENU over the Talking Clocks icon. A window like this will pop up. We'll look at the other options later. For now, move the pointer to the word Choices, and click SELECT on it. Page 1 of the Choices windows will open up.
Buttons
Two types of buttons are used in the Choices Menu. These will appear slightly differently depending on the version of RISC OS on your machine.
Moving Through the Choices
Use the Next Page and Previous Page buttons at the bottom of each page to move about within the Choices.
Setting Choices
When the options are set as desired, click on the Use button to return to Talking Clocks with the options temporarily applied. Clicking on Save and Use will apply those options and save them to the currently loaded file (see later).
PAGE ONE - 'CLOCK OPTIONS'
Here you can control the type of clocks used throughout the program.
Clock Type
Select either analogue or digital. In 'Say The Time' and 'Set the Clock' this refers to the only clock on the screen, while in 'Match the Clocks' and 'How Much Time?' it refers to the clock on the left hand side of the screen.
Times to Display
This sets the time intervals Talking Clocks will use throughout. It can be set to any or all of the five minute intervals shown, including exact hours. Alternatively 'any minute' can be used in which case all of the other time intervals will be greyed out. To get them back, just de-select the 'any minute' option.
Time of Day
This allows the program to be constrained to using morning times, afternoon times, or both. This option takes effect not only when a digital clock is displayed on its own, but also when an analogue clock is displayed with a digital. For example in 'Match The Clocks' and 'How Much Time?' the analogue clock will have 'morning' or 'afternoon' displayed beneath it.
How?
With this option set to Random, the program will generate a random time on whatever clock or clocks are displayed every time it sets a question, giving the opportunity in 'Say the Time', for example, to configure the program to present just the hours at random.
Alternatively if the option is set to 'In Sequence' with just the hours selected, and twelve questions, the hours will be presented in sequence. Careful use of this option in combination with each of the others enables a powerful range of exercises to be generated, from tasks in which children can use the program to explore how clocks work, to teacher-controlled tests (eg random, am, 1 attempt, don't tell answer): Load file 3 (page 18) to see one example of this.
Whatever you choose applies to all four activities. Since it doesn't make sense to use the 'Sequential' option with 'any minute' (only 20 questions can be set, so children would only get a short way into the day), the program won't allow it. In 'How Much Time' the right hand clock moves in random jumps rather than to pre-defined times. It always moves forwards.
PAGE TWO - 'ACTIVITY OPTIONS'
Here you can set options attached to specific activities.
Say the Time
Numeric inputs are from the number buttons. These will be converted into words (eg clicking on 7 makes the program write 'seven') in the answer box if the words option is selected, to help less confident readers.
Set the Clock
Similar to the above, but this time the questions can be set to show the time as numbers and words (e.g. '4 minutes past 1' ), or as words only ('four minutes past one'). Setting the option to 'either' will make the program present questions randomly in either form.
Match the Clocks
Here the type of clock to be displayed on the right hand side of the screen can be selected. The left-hand clock is set on Choices page one, and is indicated in the sentence 'Match (clock type) to ... '.
How Much Time?
Again, the type of clock to be displayed on the right hand side of the screen can be selected. Whether the answers are to be entered in total minutes or as hours and minutes can also be configured.
PAGE THREE - 'CLASSROOM OPTIONS'
Decisions can be made here about the way the activities will be used.
Number of Questions
This sets the number of questions asked in each activity. After that number a score is presented and the questions asked and user's performance can be printed out, if a printer driver has been loaded. Clicking on 'Continue' runs the same activity again (allowing a group of children to do the same activity), while 'Menu' (only displayed if the activity is not locked - page 19) returns control to the Main Menu. The maximum number of questions that can be set is 20, except when the program has been configured to choose just one time per hour in sequence (eg all the 'five pasts'), in which case the number of questions is limited to 12 to avoid times repeating.
Number of Attempts
This is the number of wrong answers the child can enter by clicking the 'See' icon. If the answer is wrong, the program will respond with 'No, try again' or 'Am or pm?' if such has been left out. If the number has been used up (or time has run out), the program records the answer as wrong and moves on to the next question, giving the child the correct answer if it has been set to do so (see below).
Working Time Per Question
This is the number of seconds Talking Clocks will wait for a child to click the 'See' icon. Clicking this option 'on' makes the program display a timer which counts down on screen while the child is contemplating the answer to a question. When time is up the program checks to see if an answer has been entered; if there is none it assumes a click on the 'See' icon at the end of the count down. Alternatively 'no limit' can be chosen.
This option should only be used with children who have a good idea what they are doing and know their way around the program, since some of the activities demand a fair amount of real time for the answer to be entered.
Show Correct Answer?
In some circumstances (for example if you are assessing a child's ability) you may not want the correct answer shown at the end of a question.
Sound
As long as the children have the required reading level, none of the speech is strictly necessary for the program to be useful. Each of the sound functions can therefore be switched off individually, and we have also provided a volume control. The numbers scroll from 1 (quietest) to 15 (loudest) when you click on the 'bump arrows'.
'Speaking Clocks' refers to the way in which analogue and digital clocks speak when their mouths are clicked. Switch it off to stop the clocks speaking. One reason for switching off the Speaking Clock is that this facility can be used by the child to find the answer to questions; if they are being 'tested' this facility would really mess things up.
'Speaking words' refers to the way in which the red lips at the left hand side of the screen can speak the text, so that children can make the program read back their answer so far.
'Spoken rewards' controls whether or not the program will respond to answers with 'Excellent!', and similar.
'Sound effects' controls the output of all other noises.
Use
This lets Talking Clocks run in the desktop or take over the whole screen. The Main Menu will still be on the desk top in both cases unless the program is locked into one activity (see below). When not locked into an activity you can get to the Main Menu at the end of each activity by choosing the Menu button. Activities can be terminated to get access to the Main Menu via the desktop icon by finishing them or by using Shift-F12 to bring the desktop icon bar to the front of the screen.
Lock User To
This makes the Main Menu unavailable to the users, locking a single activity in place. It may be the preferred option in the classroom.
Load Choices
If you follow the arrow to the right of this entry in the icon menu you will see three file names: File 1, File 2 and File 3. Each of these contains a set of Choices which tests have shown will be most useful. Whenever Talking Clocks is loaded it always loads File 1, but whichever one you click on will be loaded. You can use it as it is or you can save any changes that you have made in Choices. To do this, click on 'Save and use'. This saves the current Choices set up to the file currently ticked, rubbing out the previous contents of the file.
Multiple Sets of Option Files
Option files are saved in !ClockOpts.optfiles. They are called options1, options2 and options3. Any number of sets of these three files can be created, each with particular characteristics to suit particular children. Just copy !ClockOpts in to as many directories, as needed. To run a specific set of options, double click on the required !ClockOpts before running !Clocks. All Choices will then be saved and loaded from this set.
Talking Clocks In The Classroom
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Age Range
Talking Clocks will be useful right across the primary age range and through to early secondary. Even very young children are able to use 'Set the Clock' if the time periods are suitable (eg just the hours) and if it is configured, via Choices, to run in Full Screen mode with that activity locked. 'Match the Clocks' can be useful too: working with just the hours they could first be given the task of setting the hands on one analogue clock to match those on another. Talking Clocks also suits older children who, once they have cracked telling the time, can be asked to work out 'How Much Time' there is between two clocks, although you will need to configure this carefully as it can quickly generate fairly difficult questions.
Talking Clocks as a Teaching Aid
Classroom trials have shown that the program will be useful as a way of testing and developing particular skills. The worksheets provided with the pack can be used to reinforce this work away from the computer. Please note that the worksheets are 'blank', ie the clocks on them don't have hands or digits. Remember to add hands and numerals before you photocopy them!
Talking Clocks is also a unique means of demonstrating how clocks 'work', ie how the hands of an analogue clock move in relation to each other, and how the numerals on a digital clock change. Unless it's pointed out to them, many children fail to notice (or quickly forget) that one hand of an analogue clock moves rather more slowly than the other. Set the Clock (any minute/analogue) can be used to demonstrate this. Don't worry about the question it's asking you, just click on the fingers of the hands of the clock to move the clock on, and ask children to watch how the hands move. Better still, put children in control: Talking Clocks is a great way for them to explore how clocks work.
Many children find learning the difference between 'past' and 'to' difficult. Say the Time (five minute intervals/analogue clock) displays times such as 'five past three': clicking on the clock's right hand (your left) to scroll it in five minute intervals then on its mouth to speak the time can quickly show children exactly when time changes from 'past' to 'to'. Discussion can lead to the notion that times such as 'thirty five minutes past' are perfectly valid but that we don't usually say them, and that we can find out how many minutes 'to' it is by subtraction.
Number bonds to sixty are, of course, a skill children start to need when they're learning digital time. Using 'Set the Clock' (any minute/digital), it's easy to demonstrate that when the clock shows, eg, 00:40 it actually 'says' (click on its mouth) 'twenty to one'. It is easy then to scroll the clock from 00:01 to 00:59 showing them (all?) possible bonds and, perhaps, writing them on the blackboard. Who can say them all with their eyes closed?
'Match the Clocks' is the perfect vehicle for mastering clocks. When children have a grasp of each kind of clock but need even more practice, they can be set the task of matching the time on one type of clock to the time on the other. This really gets them thinking and by careful pairing each child will learn from the other through discussion, exploration and explanation.
Volume
If Talking Clocks is too quiet, check the volume setting in Choices. If it's still too quiet, think about plugging a pair of 'Walkman' type speakers into the mini jack socket at the back of the computer. If it's too loud but you still want the children to be able to to hear what's going on, use stereo headphones. Hi-fi shops such as Tandy sell 'splitters' which plug into the mini jack socket and into which two or more stereo headsets can be plugged.
