A seemingly unstoppable wave of whiteboards has washed over UK schools in the last five or six years, with an incredibly high proportion of classrooms now proudly boasting interactive whiteboards (IWBs). Aided by ring-fenced Becta funding, it has promised much, but opinion now seems a little more split as to whether this new dawn of interactivity has truly been successful in raising standards of teaching and learning.

In terms of hard facts and figures, IWBs have not had it all their own way, with some major reports questioning their ability to impact directly on exam results. For example, Newcastle University recently published a report via Becta, specifically showing that no significant improvements in KS2 SATs results are apparent with the introduction of IWBs. But these reports always seem to have qualitative caveats attached to them which outline overwhelming support from teaching staff for the new technology. It all leaves a slightly muddled picture, and maybe it is still too soon to be even attempting definitive answers on the impact of IWBs. Maybe it’s even the wrong way to be looking at evaluating their impact – SATs (to use the previous example) are often deemed more a reflection of direct instruction rather than long-term understanding of concepts, and it has long been felt that added interactivity and creativity will be most beneficial under these latter circumstances.

It’s also a mistake to look at the IWB in isolation. It’s been argued that they encourage a more didactic, front-of-class teaching style, the very approach that the technology was designed to help overcome. This may be partly true, but whole-class teaching is about so much more than the IWB, and always has been – perhaps the Becta funding, by being very specific about a board-based strategy, has obscured the bigger picture about whole-class teaching and what can be achieved. With so many other types of technology enabling additional flexibility and capabilities, the boundaries of ICT use across the curriculum can be fully expanded by changing the way we look at the IWB. Indeed, this has been a common theme in many of the debates in the educational media: that the IWB should be seen more as the hub for whole-class teaching, and less as a stand alone tool.

And perhaps this thought process should go further than that: maybe it’s more about areas of control within the classroom, with the IWB being one option for the front of the class, but not the only one. While trying to develop solutions on how to develop a whole-class teaching strategy, my philosophy has always been the same – to match the solution to the teacher, not the other way around. With all the choice, just leading with an IWB is outdated and prescriptive. It’s much more relevant to look at the classroom in five different whole-class teaching categories:

These categories try to give a more helpful guide as how to best match technology to pedagogy and I’ll be looking into each category in more detail in forthcoming blogs. There are a multitude of devices available, but it really is a case of deciding which best suits the needs of the school, department or even the individual - “mixing and matching” is no longer a problem, as all the devices will work in tandem no matter what the original manufacturer.

• Front of Class Display  (e.g. projection, plasma)
• Front of Class Control (e.g. IWBs, e-beam, overlays)
• Roaming Control (e.g. Wireless pads, Gyration)
• Group Interactivity (e.g. Interactive tabletops, Voting Systems)
• Whole-Class Enhancement (e.g. Visualisers, Audio enhancement)

The days of being told what technology to use, and how to use it, are well and truly numbered, as teaching, and not just learning, can be personalised with a broader approach to ICT in the classroom. ]]> http://sensiblecity.wordpress.com/?p=328 Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:42:40 +0000 interactiv http://sensiblecity.wordpress.com/?p=328 Debbie Yasenka, the channel architect for educational technology giant Promethean, Inc., has joined Simtrol, Inc. (OTCBB: SMRL) as Vice President of Channels, effective immediately.

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A saber... amante del elearning y de asuntos de igualdad... no te lo pierdas; Ahí van algunas de las entradas que más me han llamado la atención:

• CALIBRATE: Calibrating e Learning in Schools
• Evaluating Online Learning Challenges and Strategies for Success
• ICT - Information and Communication Technologies
• ICT Competency Standards for Teachers
• Investigación sobre las aplicaciones de las Pizarras Interactivas Educativas PROMETHEAN ( 2006-2008 )
• Informe Final Del Observatorio e-Igualdad
• Profesorado y tecnologías Web 2.0
• Banda ancha, crecimiento y políticas en los países de la OCDE

no te puedo explicar mucho de ninguno... ya te digo que recien he leído el correo que envia BENED a quienes estamos suscritos...

más lecturas para vacaciones... :-) espero que mi chica no se enfade demasiado :-)

Live, from the cozy confines of the Newton Marrriot, it's quite an echo from NECC (17,000 wandering masses). So far so good.

So, we start with Promethean, demo of their handheld text input devices (via OllieBray.com - Active Expression) - cool way to see bar graph results of most popular results.

It's a quick way to do Crowd-sourcing; springboard to conversations.

Followed by some Interesting comments about Commons use of UStreaming conference proceedings - ie bandwidth

Ewan McIntosh - Scotland

Its Not all Native Wit - from Creativity to Ingenuity

Main idea of debunking of digital nativism, a digital anti-nativist movement!? But point being there is no dividing line between who can use new technologies, and who is perceived to be able to...

EM inviting the group to follow along via Twitter: twitter.com blc08

Analogy of the "river of news" - navigating the river of information;

Take-aways:

• Tanya Byron - safe use and the power of transformative schools rather than transformative techology
• Clay Shirky - socially interesting technology tools, but need for familiarity; but how is the measure of familiarity altered by the need to swim in the info river, ie what is unfamiliar/familiar?
• Students Against Closures - Scotland's reactions to school closures - slogan crowd sourcing; "barely motivated activism"
• micro-audiences within macro communities, ie the 20 something trusted members within 185 million - looking at the anatomies of social networks - Saturation learning proces

Showcase of divergent efforts in a convergent world: Johnny Lee - 5.5m views - head tracking

Quality and teachers - most predictive of quality education - McKenzie recent report;

Need to access February 2007 News Map - FIND THIS as well as the academic tracking video!!!!!!Atlas Learning / media

• flashmobs shared awareness. secret/group/publishing/performance/participation/watching spaces

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Mark Nieker – NAF Collaborations and Professional Development

Digital Arts Alliance – 8,000 kids a year

National Academy Foundation – high school academy programs, started by Sandy Weil – NAF focusing on a mentorship and internship models, small school initiatives, offering student career themed learning

Nieker discussed The LongTail and how it relates to PF's work with NAF, that is providing ongoing pulse to initial PD, as the impact plays out in NAF academies over a period of time.

reference – Curtis Anderson – blockbuster with no tail…

Once the web connection was restored, MN focused on the collaborative model of PD with Pearson Foundation with NAF
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Practical Pegagogy: Web 2.0

Lauren Panton, Chatham University

pre-service teachers; technology integration, (and the room is PACKED)

Lauren provided a great overview of how to create professional development that is sustainable, practical, engaging, and viral

She provided a really practical overview of tools and pd tensions:

Tensions within district models

push<>pull

formal<>informal

personal <> group learning spaces

Some of Lauren's favorite tools:

• Wordle - for badges among other things
• slideshare ( also slidecasting)
• diigo ( versus delicious) - groups, highlighting, and sharing ; slide function
• classroom 2.0

Hey, cool backpack. I followed quite a few of those at NECC, too.

Checking out what's new at Promethean will find you visiting all their Partners as well!

Activboard Work

Cerca de 810 alumnos del Colegio Base de Madrid disfrutan ya en sus aulas de pizarras interactivas de 78 pulgadas y con tecnología electromagnética. Esta solución se está convirtiendo en una herramienta pedagógica más en las aulas de este centro educativo.

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 Nancy ~ Both SMART Board and Promethean Activboard  encourage active student participation in a learning activity.  A very exciting and rewarding experience for students is  when they become teacher for the moment and “teach” their  fellow students such as reviewing a concept in their own  words. This becomes a powerful reinforcement and review activity because students are hearing the concept explained at their learning level and perhaps in a very different way. The interactive whiteboards get students engaged in learning.  Watching a video becomes interactive when the teacher can pause the video, point out details and have a class discussion before resuming.  Learning how to tell time or make money change becomes more intriguing when the students use the electronic manipulative of time and money.  Reviewing for a test is easier when the teacher captures the instruction both audio and visual from the SMART Board using the built-in Recorder.  Students can play and re-play the lesson in video format.
 

 Stephanie ~ Both interactive boards, SMART and  Promethean, are great student motivators.  Since most kids  today are visual learners, the ability to attract attention and  keep it with a large screen vs. a dry erase board or chalk  board is the first motivator. If a teacher uses the board as  intended- as an interactive board- motivation and learning are further enhanced.  Students always want to be a part of the learning, with both boards the learner is engaged. The SMART Board is great, I have taught with one for over 7 years. The touch-sensitive screen is great and the software is very easy to use.  The Activboard requires a pen, is much more durable, and allows for the user to create very specific lessons. Cool things to do – the boards act as the monitor of your computer so whatever you can do on your computer monitor, you can do on the board. You can record, both audio and video, lessons.  These can be then exported and viewed at a later time for students, parents and even used for sub plans. The boards are very motivating for a student to touch their finger or use a pen on a huge screen in front of the class and make something happen.  What a very empowering feeling for anyone! Both interactive boards come with “slates” and “clickers,” other interactive products, for students to use at their seats. These added products also allow for immediate response to help guide instruction and enhance learning from others. 

What do you like best about interactive whiteboards? 

Google Earth is an excellent tool for schools to teach all content areas, as well as imbed videos and images from unitedstreaming to further enhance these areas. Examples of practical uses include: Earth Science: mountains, volcanoes, glaciers, weather patterns; History: Visit the sites of famous battles; Literature: Visit the sites of famous novels, settings and authors; Math: Measure distances and areas, determine travel time, study angles and intersecting lines; World Languages: Visit the landmarks and cities of foreign countries; Geography: See the cities, countries and geographic features of the world; Civics: Learn about the layout and businesses of your hometown. This all day tele workshop will enhance your curriculum with good uses of Google Earth for your classroom! Tele* classes fill up fast, so sign up today!

* Cooperating School Districts in St. Louis upgraded the tele that replicates an eMINTS-type classroom (in which there is 1 computer for every 2 students) & includes enhanced features. Tele now is equipped with:

• 14 computer workstations running both Macintosh and Windows XP operating systems and connected to the Internet with webcams
• Software applications include: Microsoft Office 2003 (Win) & 2004 (Mac); Inspiration, Kidspiration & SMART Ideas; iLife
• SMART Board & Promethean Activboard
• Student response systems: SMART's Senteos & Promethean's Activotes
• Polycom 4000, interactive two-way audio and video equipment that can be used for videoconferences & distance learning
• Document camera & DVD player

MINOOKA -- After lunch some students used to look forward to math class, where the teacher was certain to turn the lights off and use the overhead projector to teach -- the perfect opportunity for a nap. But not anymore.

Math teachers at Minooka High School are saying goodbye to loud overhead projectors and messy dry-erase boards and are diving into the future with new interactive computer-based boards.

"It makes writing on the board and overhead projectors obsolete," said Shawn Capodice, head of the math department.

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Most people probably know of this tip...but in case you haven't... Using transitions from page to page is very useful in your flipcharts.  When I don't use transitions, I sometimes forget "have I turned the page or not?"  The default setting in ActivStudio is "no transition".  So if you would like to add just a wee bit of flare - do the following:

Right click over your arrows that cause the page to move forward and backward.   

If you then click on the arrow in the transition box, you will see options for page transitions.  My favorite is cube face rotate.  Once set, the setting is kept until you change it. 

Now my flipchart pages change with flare!   ( ...and I get less lost!)

You can get a preview of the work in progress and update your blogrolls and feeds at: http://blog.prometheanplanet.com

The mystery of Web 2.0 quickly disappeared. It was now time to demonstrate some of the features and benefits. I opened Delicious to the CreekViewElementary page and displayed the contents on the Promethean board. I explained the benefits to using this kind of system for bookmarking over the traditional 'favorites' . Delicious links are available any time and anywhere you have internet access. Next I made four simple requests.

1. Each participant had to download and install the Firefox browser.
2. They had to sign up for a Gmail account.
3. They had to set up a Delicious account.
4. Next they imported the Delicious add-on to Firefox.

This took about 15 minutes and they were able to help one another in the process. Next I asked them to enter voicethread.com and then click the handy little delicious TAG button now found in their browser tool bar. I just love this feature. I explained how tags are used to file things by topic. The best part about tagging is being able to file one site under many topic headers. For instance, I put Voicethread under interactive, multimedia, projectbasedlearning, and web2tool. Now when I click on interactive, it appears as one of the options.

I pulled up an example of a 4th grade language arts project in Voicethread. The teachers could easily see how VT could be used within the classroom and even as a collaborative grade level project. Once teachers realize they has the necessary computer skills they get very excited about the prospects of using new tools. The necessary computer skills are very minimal and are virtually the same as the skills required to send an email. This is really another wonderful feature of Web 2.0. It is easy to use. Ahhh, finally and it keeps getting even easier. It really does. At this stage is you can read, type, attach pictures or documents and are willing to follow instructions, then you can enjoy all the web has to offer.

At this point, the participants felt fairly comfortable and were beginning to grasp the intrinsic collaboration component found in Web 2.0 tools. Suddenly they noticed a dialog box open on the Promethean screen from my laptop. It said, 'ready?' Oh, that's my good friend Jen Wagner from California Skyping in to join our session. I will let her know we are ready. I typed back, 'OK'.  I clicked the green call button and we connected. Jennifer Wagner is so warm and friendly she instantly gained the groups' attention and started us on a journey exploring Google applications. She started with Google Reader and had everyone subscribing to her blog, jenuinetech.com/blog! She is one smart cookie. She spent 45 minutes with us, covering Google-Calendar and Docs. Jennifer has an amazing way of bringing concepts to life with spot on analogies and concrete examples that teachers can relate to. She was the highlight of the session. Why? Because she is an amazing teacher and because she was speaking to us from California and it felt like she was in the room. Not only did the participants learn about Google apps they also saw the wonder of Skype in action. I was able to walk around and check on progress and offer assistance. It was a wonderful experience for me and I think now, it is the only way to really get teachers interested in the power of edtech.

Jen, I owe you one! You did 'steel' the show by strengthening the case for integrating technology. Now if we can just get one or two of them to listen to Women of Web 2 on Tuesday nights from 9-10PM EST ... If you are a teacher who thrives on new forms of communication and enjoys participating in lively chats about the latest greatest teaching tools then you really must tune in to Jen's Show on Tuesday nights. She and 3 other stellar women host a variety of edtech gurus. You listen and chat while they have a conversation. If you do decide to test the water by joining the chat on Tuesday nights please say hello to me (sendkathy) and Jen (jenuinetech).

There has been very little written about this concept, and I wrote this, at the end of last year, by way of an article to support a product which is to be released by Promethean in early 2009.

Cooperative learning encourages children's interpersonal skills which can be especially helpful in enhancing children’s cognitive development.  Asking children to actively exchange ideas and to share different points of view is likely to be most effective when the right environment/platform is offered. Collaboration skills are not inherent in children and the skills needed to work together in pairs or small groups are quite distinct from working alone.Situations such as these are not easy to set up and to be able to add an element of technology will be an engaging catalyst to these objectives.

During early childhood, children often act first and discuss later, a teacher can play a vital role by helping them clarify their goal before they attempt to solve the problem. The sharing of ideas amongst group members is the underlying premise of collaborative learning in contrast to competition in which individuals are driven to win.  The level of interaction is helpful to children in developing their social abilities and developing mutual respect for each other.

Collaborative learning has been proven to increase children’s engagement and offering children the opportunity to use two pens simultaneously opens up a whole new world of interaction.  Not only can the children work together on a problem, they can also respond immediately without having to take turns or impact on their partners’ interaction. Very young children often work along side each other, needing to feel accompanied in their activity but still needing to feel in control of their own actions.  Collaboration is something which children need to explore to enable them to develop their social skills and appreciate the value of a friend’s opinion.Using more than one pen at the same time, means that spur-of-the-moment opportunities present themselves allowing for adult intervention when required to ensure that the opportunity is maximised.  Encouraging this type of activity can be planned for or can be part of independent activity where children can access the board throughout the school day.By providing an interactive ‘Arena’, where pupils can collaborate more easily, learners are encouraged to interact with each other, not just the whiteboard.

Working together on tasks has been shown to improve children’s understanding and retention of knowledge. In addition, there are social benefits – collaboration encourages development of communication skills and enables students to take a more active part in their learning.  

We also know we will offer both SMART Board and Promethean Activboard training. Many are requesting advanced unitedstreaming, more Web 2.0 courses with blogging, podcasting, and social networking.  Internet Safety/Netiquette courses are a growing request as well.

The final course offerings will be posted in April, so make sure to check back. In the meantime if you are interested in other courses, let us know. Keep in mind that most of our technology classes offer University credit through Lindenwood University. Also we can offer any of our classes as on-site PD or through videoconferencing too!

Sonny Magana opens up the 2008 Summit in Sarasota, introducing Promethean CEO Jean-Yves Charlier. Learn more about Mr. Charlier here.

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Even portable technologies that are not marketed as AT solutions are helping students with disabilities succeed in mainstream classrooms.

One such student is Joe Griffin, a fifth-grader at Maude Sanders Elementary School in Walton County, Fla., who uses Promethean's Activslate--a wireless, tablet-style device that is small enough to sit on a desk or to move around the classroom. The Activslate can be used in conjunction with Promethean's interactive whiteboard, the Activboard. Though Griffin cannot use his hands and is wheelchair-bound, with the slate's Activpen stylus mechanically attached to his hat, he can write and participate at his desk with the rest of the class.

"Usually I have to have an aide to help me write things, but with this [slate] I can do it all by myself," beamed Griffin during a recent news broadcast.

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Energy Star:

An Art Teacher Runs a Tight, Environmentally Friendly Ship

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Promethean Names 'Activworld' Award Recipients

by Dave Nagel

Education technology provider Promethean has announced the winners of its "Enter My Activworld" contest. The contest challenged K-12 educators to create short videos showcasing the use of Promethean's Activclassroom technologies in their classes. Three winners received prizes ranging from $2,000 in funds to purchase Promethean equipment to a full classroom makeover.

First place in the contest went to teacher Cindy Wallace at Evangel Christian Academy in Louisiana, who will receive an Activclassroom makeover for her class, as well as a trip to the NECC 2008 conference in San Antonio, TX. The winning project was called "Making Math Accessible."

Debbie Dawson of Glen Cove Elementary in Virginia took second place, winning $3,000 in Promethean equipment for her class's video, "A Brief History of Educational Technology." And Lynn Winn of Lee Middle School in Georgia took third place for a video entitled "Enter MY Activworld." Her class will receive $2,000 in Promethean equipment.

Promethean is exhibiting at the FETC conference this week in Orlando, FL in booth 1102. More information can be found at the links below.

http://www.thejournal.com/articles/21867

The lowdown on high-tech teaching tools

January 27, 2008

BY Jason Freeman Correspondent

A child who spends his or her free time playing handheld video games, talking to friends online or downloading the latest mp3s into a 60-gig music player might find the more traditional methods of teaching a little mundane, said former teacher Dagmar Ladle.

"A lot of the research out there shows that kids process information very differently today than (in the past)," she said. "Neurologically, the brain has evolved."

If books, pencil-and-paper tests and lectures aren't enough to hold a child's attention, then what can?

Promethean demonstrated its new student response system, called Activexpression. This new solution lets students express themselves through full phrases, symbols, and numbers—and instantly share their responses with the entire class. Activexpression enables two-way communication between teachers and students, and it enables teachers to give feedback directly to individual students as well as the entire class. The system also allows teachers to create quizzes and polls spontaneously, without prior preparation. The software that drives the system includes a question master, which allows for the creation of question banks using a full range of response types: multiple choice, true-false, yes-no, put in order, fill in the blank, Likert scales, confidence checking, text response, and alphanumeric response.

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