There are many schools in Ireland without a reasonable level of broadband. This means that they rely on offline software, which puts them at a big disadvantage. I was asked to recommend software for schools where broadband is bad and, sadly, I was disappointed to note that there still isn’t really a lot of good software for PCs out there. I thought I’d try and list some that are good but the vast majority of them are quite old. This doesn’t mean they are bad as such but they may not work on very modern machines so it’s best to check before you buy them.
Literacy
Wordshark and Literacy Activity Builder are the only two pieces of software I can recommend here. Wordshark is very famous in schools and nothing beats it for teaching children phonics and literacy skills. Literacy Activity Builder allows teachers to make different games to support literacy. It used to be very popular when teaching spellings was in vogue but it’s still a useful, fun and easy piece of software to play with a class.
Maths
For maths and numeracy, it’s the mathematical equivalents of the above that are best. Numbershark and Numeracy Activity Builder are similar to their literacy counterparts and worth using. There are lots and lots of mathematical software but mostly they focus on drill and practice.
SESE
I probably am biased but the Who Took the Book? series, are educational games I’m very proud to have made. The games, though hard to get now, are a cross-curricular journey around Ireland and Europe. I also recommend the Know Your… series, Know Your Ireland covers Ireland well in terms of Geography and there are many others in the series. Again, they might be hard to get.
Other
The only other software I can probably recommend is Microsoft Office. It’s still available on CD/DVD and it’s still the best Office suite in the world. More basic Office Suites, I don’t believe, are as good but it’s easy enough to pick one up and they’ll do the job well enough.
Last Update: March 28, 2018