Aldus SuperPaint (Now Purchased as Adobe SuperPaint)
Silicon Beach Software, Inc.
Mac Computer, Mouse, Colours, Printer (Preferably colour which would make work attractive but this can be expensive also.), HDD or CD Rom.
Aldus SuperPaint can be purchased for around $98 dollars. This is rather a large sum, (although not too bad compared to some other computer software) but if it can be downloaded onto various computers in a school it can be an additional tool for the classroom. It can be used across the curriculum, from areas like maths (drawing graphs and diagrams) to art (making pictures) to technology (creating detailed diagrams and pictures). And it is also a program which can be used in the early years of schooling, for simple drawings right up to late highschool with technical drawings. The only real drawback is that it can only be used on a Mac and if they aren't available its a no go. But overall there are many areas of the curriculum which can benefit from the use of Aldus SuperPaint. Also as part of Publishing, where children can create and print it out, it can help with self esteem as the childs designs take form and are presented on paper. It an enjoyable and educational tool which could assist in a variety of areas within the classroom
Aldus Superpaint (AS) is a fairly simple program to use, and is fairly similar to other paint programs. It has a few features which take some practice to understand how they work (eg. changing colours is a little tricky), but this is soon overcome as more time spent on the program. Maybe 10 - 15 minutes mucking around with the basic techniques and tools is long enough. I would suggest that primary children spend at least a half our practicing before using the program for a specific purpose. This could probably be done during independant learning times or allocated roster times for computer access. It is a useful program where a variety of pattern, shapes and other designs can be manipulated and transformed to make desireable pictures and diagrams. It appears to be a fairly simple piece of software to install, I actually didn't have the opportunity to try for myself but I have installed similar pieces of software and they were just simple installations. On the Hard Disk Drive, Aldus Superpaint is very easy to open up. You just select Aldus SuperPaint from the Apple Centre and your in!!
Although I could not find a Aldus SuperPaint package as they are sold in the shops (they would need to be ordered in) I was told that it was highly likely that they software cam with operating instructions and other documents which usually come with software, like help instructions and techniques available. I am pretty certain that there wouldn't be student worksheets available with the software as it is not a program designed specifically for education purposes.
Aldus SuperPaint allows you to create any new type of picture or related document which can be then published. It is a very manipulative program, in terms of using tools and techniques to create pictures and other sorts of diagrams etc. There are some parts which cannot be changed while there are several others which can. This includes tools like colours, there are around a hundred or more different colours, which can be changed to suit particular desires. As well as being able to change patterns, fonts, sizes, tool thicknessess and many others.
Aldus SuperPaint is fairly straightforward to use. There are a variety of tools available and these are shown on several palettes. All that needs to be selected is the tool or colour, and there are several of these between four palettes. One is CURSOR CO-ORDINATES which shows the cursor co-ordinates and the size in inches. Another, the LINE AND FILL palette shows the line or fill selection and the colours which can be chosen (of which there are over 100 I would guess) as well as several different plain patterns and several bright trippy patterns. The third palette is the FREQUENT FILLS palette. This one records all the colours and patterns which have been used, or used most frequently and displays them so that you can quickly change back to a previous colour without going through all the rigormorale involved in the LINE and FILL palette. The last and biggest palette is the TOOLS palette. There are two parts which can be selected, the technical tools, symbolised by a compass, while the painting/drawing side is symbolised by a paintbrush. Each of these two areas can use the following techniques (selectively or individually):text; move; paintbrush (including dots etc);3D images and other shapes like snowflakes; spraypaint; paintbucket (to fill in selected areas); pencil; eraser; straight angled lines; lines; circles; curves; straight lined shapes; ink drop (to quickly change to another colour already being used on screen); free draw and fill and zoom. They are fairly difficult to explain and probably require experimentation to figure out how to do each one, which would be easier to understand.
AGE GROUP: Grade 2 (7 years of age)
SOFTWARE: Aldus SuperPaint 3.0
EXPECTATIONS vs RESPONSES: As this is a fairly simple program my initial thoughts were that the child would be able to use the drawing program with a fair amount of ease. This was confirmed as the child used tools and techniques to play around. I didn't have time to have the child produce a result which was related to one of the lesson plans so I decided to watch them experiment. Because she had used other Paint programs before it took very little time to get the hang of this program, even though it had been rarely used before. She seemed to enjoy herself, as she created objects, changed colours and manipulated different shapes and patterns. While there was a need for initial instruction with some things like changing colours and using a few tricky techniques, the child soon picked up the techniques by memory and was away. It appears that she developed enough skill to perform related educational worksheets (see lesson plan for examples) in the future with confidence and motivation in Aldus SuperPaint 3.0.
