I am a sales professional in the Interactive Classroom Technology space and have represented products that include interactive white boards (IWB), clickers and the like. I have the opportunity to work with faculty from all grade levels in orientation and training pertaining to the technology the school has adopted.
One of the examples I have used in orientation for the IWB is a traditional worksheet. In the case of substitution, rather than handing out individual sheets the worksheet is shown on the IWB. The worksheet can now be annotated over, notes and other pieces of information can be written on it and the entire image can be saved. The saved image can be emailed to students or saved as a PDF to be printed later.
Common classroom activities, such as quizzes, can be augmented with basic clicker/responder technology. The quiz can be distributed to the students either on paper or projected on the board. The students take the quiz and respond via their clickers/responders. The answers roll directly into the software and are scored via the teacher's key that is built into the software when the teacher creates the quiz. Valuable time is saved for the teachers and depending on how the feature is set up the students can receive their scores immediately or the teacher can choose to provide them at a later time.
With virtual library collections becoming more available in the K-8 community new options for comprehension and vocabulary become available and leads to my idea on modification. The company Star Walk provides the opportunity for the entire class to check out the identical book. Readers progress is stored and can be accessed by the teacher. The reader can virtually high light passages, words, phrases and any content they have questions about. This content can be revisited by the student.
I am citing an example that was shared with me by a physics teacher at Ludington High School for redefinition. He used Edmodo extensively in his classroom. Edmodo is a "social learning platform" website for teachers, students, and parents. It is often referred to as the Facebook for schools. He would share videos or video tape science experiments for his class and the students would view them at Edmodo and collaborate and interact with one another identifying what was happening in the videos. He cited that often precious resources for experiments were not always available and posting these videos expanded the experience for his students.
Susan i enjoyed reading your response to this weeks question especially the part about the white boards. Our school purchased one for each classroom but very few of the teachers knew how to work them. Now that they have found out how helpful they are in bringing your subject to life more teachers are starting to utilized them because the students really get involved when the board is in action. I think the teachers really should have had a class on how to use them to help the students get the most out or the equipment.
ReplyDeleteI agree that technology have helped students tremendously as far as resources such as books and other valuable material needed to assist with certain projects. Now you can have your entire class read the same book on line and not have to worry about not having enough books . You can do a science experiment live and video it for your entire class to see and let them do the same so each student can see how user friendly technology really is. These are some of the tools in today's educational system that I think make students want to learn and be more engaging.
I am going to point out that you used the thing you sell (the IWB) in your S and A examples but not the M and R. To push you a bit, I'll play devil's advocate and say, "that sounds like an expensive toy that doesn't transform learning." (again, for the sake of discussion...I fully understand that this could come off as snarky)
ReplyDeleteYour observation is correct. I did not use that technology for M and R although I could have. The software that drives the IWB and clicker technology is the same that allows the BYOD integrations. It is not always clean and depends on the strength of the building's wireless. There are web options with BYOD as well but, in many cases they are not as feature rich as a 1:1 with iPads or chrome books in a classroom. That being said, IWB technology is trying to justify the cost/existence but, it seems like the harder they try the further behind they get. If a school has already made the IWB investment the best thing they can do is upgrade their software and conduct regular PD to make sure they get the most from their investment.
DeleteAwesome post, Susan. Those IWBs are so very functional. I am super grateful that my district has one in every room. At the risk of sounding snide, I was wondering why you decided to classify the Edmodo piece under the "R" category? It seems like the physics teacher uses thing as more of an enhancement rather than a transformation. In other words, how is this any different than just showing old movies of experiments?
ReplyDeleteShaun, no worries I should have explained myself better. He approached it as a "flipping the classroom" type of learning experience. The students viewed the clip at Edmodo and identified what was happening before meeting in class.
DeleteI see. That seems to be a trendy topic in education these days. I'm not quite sure how I feel about the whole "flipping" idea for my subject, but it sure does seem like a neat idea.
DeleteI couldn't imagine teaching with out my IWB & Document Camera. We're lucky to have them in all of the classrooms in our building.
ReplyDeleteAs for the flipped classroom conversation, I'm not sure how I feel about it either. The district where I went to school is using it across the board and has been featured on CNN for their success. They're claiming that they failure rates are dropping, but I'm curious on some other data like reading levels and MEAP/ACT scores. I've listened to some of the videos and they're quite dry, they may even be more dry than a traditional lecture.
It is great that your district provides these. I hope they reinforce with continued learning as well. All the IWB companies that I am familiar with have on demand PD available at their websites as well which can make it easy for educators to enhance skills and learn new things. I believe that with all technology it only gets better as the user explores and enhances their own skills.
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