Many of our customers purchase a student support subscription or Flexi-subscription and want to find out the easiest way to install the software on numerous Windows devices.
We suggest using ‘Intune’ and following the steps below (you may want to pass these instructions on to your IT team or provider).
To install Clicker using Intune:
- Download the latest Clicker installer from Subscription Management.
- Run the downloaded file and click "Install" to start unpacking it.
- Close the Clicker Installer that auto-starts and extract "Clicker8-enGB.msi" from the MSI subfolder.
- In Intune, deploy the MSI as a "Line-of-Business" app.
- Specify these parameters (where PIDKEY = your serial number and SHAREDFILES = where you’d like Clicker to save documents):
/qn PIDKEY="XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX"
SHAREDFILES="C:\Users\Public\Documents\Clicker" - If you would prefer to use cloud storage, replace SHAREDFILES="C:\Users\Public\Documents\Clicker" with EXPLORER=”OneDrive”.
Possible values for EXPLORER are “OneDrive”, “Google Drive” and “DropBox”.
If you need any further help, please get in touch with our support team by filling in our support form, or you can call us on 203 221 2697 and we’ll be very happy to assist you!
LearningGrids is one of Clicker’s most popular features – teachers love having instant access to a free library of curriculum resources – at the time of writing there are over 3000 available!
However, I am sometimes asked when training schools – “What if there aren’t any resources on my topic? Is it difficult to make your own?”
Well, the simple answer is ”No - it’s really easy!”
I was recently asked how Clicker could be used to support a Year 6 class studying Romeo and Juliet.
To start with, I’d suggest a class discussion on the character traits of Romeo and Juliet. Create a Clicker Board from one of the pre-made templates by selecting New Clicker Set > Planning Boards from the Quick Start screen in Clicker 8.
You can add your own pictures as a stimulus or even drag-and-drop images from search engines:
As a class group, discuss the character traits of Romeo and Juliet, filling in the cells on the Clicker Board:
Bridge the gap between planning and writing by transforming your mind map into a word bank - just click on the Export button and select ‘Create Word Bank’. Save this to your school’s cloud storage system (such as Google Drive) and it’s instantly accessible to support your class on their devices as they write!
I then searched the web for a ‘Romeo and Juliet’ synopsis – there are lots of websites that summarise the play for children in a few sentences:
I copied all the text and pasted it into Clicker (Clicker Set ribbon > New > Sentence Set). I added a couple of extra grids so I could split the longer sentences to simplify them and keep them under 12 words.
Choosing ‘View & Copy’ provides children with a model as they build their sentences.
You can use the exact same text to create an activity for your more confident writers – in the Clicker Set ribbon, select New > Word Bank, paste in the words, choose alphabetic grids, and filter out high frequency words.
And there you have it – accessible curriculum resources in a flash!
If you need a little help with creating your own Clicker Sets, take a look at these excellent short tutorials from our training team: Clicker 8 - Tutorials | Crick Software. For some one-to-one support from a Clicker Education Consultant, you can book a free Customer Care meeting here: Customer care meetings | Crick Software.
Recently, I was in conversation with the lead psychologist of a group of schools, who wanted to know how Clicker could help with metacognition.
“Put simply, metacognition is ‘thinking about thinking’. Some teachers also define it as ‘learning to learn’.”1
I thought it was an interesting concept to cover, so I’ll be taking you through how Clicker offers children lots of opportunities to work through their thought processes and ‘learn about learning’ – by planning, analysing, organising, and reflecting.
Clicker Board
Clicker Board is a great tool for organising and planning ideas – children can share their thought processes and engage in critical feedback from their peers or teacher. Children can use ready-made storyboards to plan out a story or a recount of an experience or event, either with written notes or verbally with Voice Notes. Even better – get them to collaborate on these kinds of planning tasks so they are experiencing and benefitting from peer-to-peer learning.
K-W-L charts
K-W-L charts help to engage learners in a new topic, activate their prior knowledge and support them in monitoring their learning. Use the Clicker K-W-L template to support research on any topic, in any curriculum area. It could also be used when starting a new book or chapter to encourage more engagement with the reading. Or how about using it before and after going on a field trip to ensure that students are focused and make the most out of the educational visit?
We also have a great selection of social and emotional learning sets to support the areas of self-awareness, self-management and decision-making. Use the Daily Reflection Talk Set to record an achievement and challenging event for each day.
Our Rose, Thorn, Bud activities help children to identify and reflect on positive moments (roses), areas they found challenging (thorns), and new ideas (buds). Introduce our Decisions – Pros and Cons and Decision-Making Planner to help learners organise their thoughts and resolve difficult issues. And of course, it’s easy to edit these resources or even create your own metacognition activities.
If there’s a specific topic or skillset you’d like some support with, click here for a free demo with one of our education consultants and find out how Clicker can help.
1 https://www.educare.co.uk/news/what-is-metacognition
In today’s connected society, being able to share files quickly and easily is important.
As a result, more schools are adopting the use of cloud storage like OneDrive and Google Drive. These services enable you to store your files online, so you can access them from different devices, and share them with other users.
Having listened to customer feedback, we’ve now made it easier to access your cloud storage within Clicker 8 and DocsPlus.
The “Home” location
Until now, the Shared Files location has been the default when opening / saving. Depending on your installation, this points to a certain folder on your computer or your network. It can only be changed by your IT Support.
In the latest version of Clicker 8 and DocsPlus, this has been renamed Home and can be changed whenever you like.
If you have any of the following cloud storage accounts installed on your computer, you can easily set it as the default Home location:
- iCloud (Mac)
- Dropbox
- Google Drive
- OneDrive
Alternatively, if you want easy access to your cloud storage without it being the default, you can add it as an Additional location.
For full instructions on setting up Home, and sharing files across all platforms, please use our file sharing guide:
Contact Support
Our Support team is always happy to help if you have any technical questions or difficulties getting set up with our software. You can reach us by email at support@cricksoft.com, by phone at 203 221 2697, or by completing this short form.