My first day teaching journalism at community college I walked into the schoolroom and knew something was missing . There was a chalkboard , TV , VCR , and overhead projector , but there was no computer in mint . “ All my lesson are in PowerPoint , ” I told my James Byron Dean . “ And I ’m afraid I like to use the Internet . ” She shrug and said we could see about book time in a figurer lab next quarter .
What I would have done to have some of the educational technology I saw at Macworld Expo before this calendar month at my disposition . Here are some of the high spot of what I saw on the show level .
The amazing interactive whiteboard
From what I ’d heard about interactive whiteboards , I imagined them as glorified computer projectors — that ’s not really the case at all , as I learned after suffer with two whiteboard makers , Smart TechnologiesandGTCO CalComp . Both companies announced raw software system versions due out in March and showed off their products ’ different strength . But it was model educators who really lend home how these gadgets have become the centrepiece of the fresh digital classroom .
see is believingMy first monstrance came from Christopher Klein , a in high spirits school day instructor fromMaplewood Richmond Heights Schoolin Maplewood , Missouri . He instruct video using a Smart Technologies ’ Smart Board . The board he used at Expo was one of the party ’s new600 series whiteboards . It was big—77 - inches across the diagonal — and looked just like a even freestanding whiteboard … except for the PowerBook plug into its al-Qa’ida .
Students , Klein explained , have difficulty believing abstract concepts — for case that movie maker really follow the“rule of thirds”to compose stab instead of plop the subject in the middle of the frame . By using the whiteboard he canshowthem .
As a video magazine played on the instrument panel , Klein drew a storage-battery grid across the frame and told me to watch how the movie ’s subject rest where the billet intersected . Sojourner Truth be told — Mr. and Mrs. Smithuses compositional technique championed by the ancient Greeks and Renaissance painter .
As a fillip , the Smart Board rent Klein record everything he scribbles or play on the whiteboard during course so that there ’s a record for absent students ( a prank equally useful for distance learning . )
Learning languageBack when I was president of myhigh school’sFrench Club , we discover the subtleties of linguistic process by heed to audiocassettes . Dr. Jack Franke of theDefense Language Institute Foreign Language Centerin Monterey , California , showed me just how far engineering has taken language learning . ( The DLIFLC is go in partnership with U.S. Department of Defense and is , by its own account , the largest speech schoolhouse in the earth . )
The school once gave students a stack of tapes when they began a class . Now students obtain aniPodcrammed full of audio file and television clips . teacher filmed themselves acting out coarse scenario — order intellectual nourishment at a restaurant , for representative — so that students canseethe words at study instead of just hearing them . With the iPod , they can retrospect these at their leisure time .
In the classroom , Franke teaches with digitalize textbooks , picture and sound files , and current cloth from outside Internet newsworthiness feeds . With these projected on his whiteboard , he can circle critical points with a playpen or his finger and jot down colligate vocabulary word . With a few clicks , the Smart Board software uses handwriting recognition to change cacography into print .
Of questions and quizzesGTCO Calcomp had a different legerdemain to divvy up . Instructors can implant questions into their presentations ( made with either Microsoft PowerPoint or the company ’s InterWrite software ) . student usespecial wireless keypadsto answer question and then the final result quickly appear , in a graph , up on theInterWrite SchoolBoard . What a great way to review for a test or have a classroom biz show — specially if you ’re teaching gravid classes .
What monetary value interactivity ?
With an synergistic whiteboard you may potentially supplant the schoolroom TV , VCR , and whiteboard . corrupt one with an integrate computer projector ( most role model require you have a projector already ) and you could tick that piece of equipment off your list too . Add some accessories — rolling bandstand , audio system , wireless faculty — and you ’ve streamlined your classroom circle - up well .
Of course , the interactive whiteboards are n’t cheap — themostbasic form be no less than $ 1,000 . ( You ’d still take a schoolroom computer and projector . If you do n’t have those already , add together at least $ 2,500 to the calculations . )
A Smart Board 600 series control panel — with pen and eraser , USB overseas telegram , wall - mounting brackets and the latest version of Smart Board computer software — has a suggested leaning cost of $ 999 to $ 1,999 ( depending on size ) . ( school may measure up for a 25 percentage bank discount or aSMARTer Kids Foundationgrant . ) GTCO Calcomp ’s InterWrite SchoolBoard ( the line version is called the MeetingBoard ) likewise comes with pens , cable , bracket , and software . It has a list cost of $ 1,195 to $ 1,995 ( depending on size ) . The company offer a 15 percent educational discount .
But as I see at Macworld Expo , in the hands of a skilled pedagog the interactional whiteboard is n’t just another expensive gadget . It ’s a powerful pedagogy pecker — for sure good than a chalkboard and some time in the computer research laboratory .
