Posts
PLAN B (also from Smartest Tractor)
-
1. PC Tablet
2. Beamer, or projector
Better features, like handwriting recognition, and exceptionally portable.
To add student participation, you buy a Bluetooth Wacom Graphire3 tablet.
This is a big help.
One of the administration's selling points is that eventually every student will be equipped with his own individual response technology so answers can be wirelessly beamed to the Mother Ship up front just like on Jeopardy (that's how Ed put it in his notes).
More later -
Most of the "lessons" on a SmartBoard are hide-and-reveal. One can create some interesting material with Geometer's Sketchpad. In fact, after attending a sales pitch session at a "cutting edge" SmartBoard classroom, the presenter could not find any way her lesson could not have been done on an overhead project.
The SmartBoard is usualy centred on the wall, monopolizing the space. Since only one person can writing on it at a time, unless you are creative with other laptops and Bluetooth, the process of taking up math questions is exceptionally slow.
Primary teachers tend to use the SmartBoard as a centre. It is a costly spot in the classroom in my opinion.
Reviews of the usefulness of SmartBoard usually focus on student engagement, not student achievement. How exciting!
RH is absolutely correct in her note saving comment. In the year and a bit that one has graced my wall, I have printed off less than five items for students looking for missed information. Once again, the overhead had a scroll on it so all our notes were saved.
As for posting the information, I love the idea. I have thought about doing it myself to complement all the other material I post. If there was a payoff, people actually using it online, then I think I would do it. Since the net traffic on the Parent Communication Calendar is zero, I haven't taken the time to transfer the documents to pdf.