DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION
Tasmanian Curriculum
 
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Shopping program

The shopping computer program was developed by the Teacher Assistant. It is used to pre-teach skills required for shopping, which the students access as part of their cooking and life skills programs – ‘Money, money, money’ and ‘Real world wanders.’ Students are able to use this adapted program to familiarise themselves with the general layout and format of a supermarket.

Students can read or listen to the list of items available in each shopping aisle. The aisle signs are similar to those that are found at the end of an aisle in a supermarket. Students familiarise themselves with the words and items that they associate with in particular aisles. By selecting sound students can hear the list of items read out to them. Image of nine aisles

Enlarge image

 

When students select an aisle, they are presented with a screen that displays the items and their respective prices.  The screen image alongside has been altered for copyright reasons. In this example, the clip art pictures have been used to replace the ‘real’ images.

Ordinarily the screen has real images of food and other supermarket products. This ensures that the students are exposed to a simulation that is as realistic as possible. The program was created using Dreamweaver® but could also be produced using a program such as Microsoft FrontPage®.

 

 Image of aisle 2

Students are able to access an online calculator to tally their shopping list and use the ATM program to reinforce the concept of withdrawing money. Full use of the program develops skills required for shopping.

The items that are found in the program have their prices regularly updated to reflect an equivalent price to the items in the supermarket.

The program has the capacity for students to select items and add their names and prices into a Word document by using a shopping list link.

blank shopping list

Shopping list

Programs such as Penfriend XP Version 3® and WordQ® can assist students with spelling, speech and word suggestions as both of them are compatible with Microsoft Word® documents.

See stories of success about the program.