Pattyjane’s Weblog

This ejournal is an entry on interactive white boards in connection with polyvision group work that Vicki and I did. I went to the sight you sent us, “Interactive Whiteboards in the Classroom” and discovered a great article listing some basic definitions of variations on interactive whiteboards, or smart boards. Essentially, I learned that interactive whiteboards are replacements for traditional classroom whiteboards (which I have in my room) which permit teachers and students to show anything that can be on a computer desk top–and more. IWs allow teachers and students to save, store, record presentations. Which is a great way to save a lesson in case it will be reused again or needed for review. The best way for me to get my mind wrapped around this incredible teaching tool is to think of it as a computer screen, in which anything on the computer can be presented on the white board screen. The interactive white board, like a computer, comes with its own software or programs in the hard drive ready to use, like the jeopardy game stencil Todd showed Vicki and I. I really enjoyed getting my feet wet with our class introduction. But it went so fast. There is so much that Todd showed us that we can do with an interactive white board that I’ve already forgotten some of it. I think a course on just using an interactive white board would be necessary for a teacher who has one to effectively be able to use it. Also, some information on grants or funding sources would be necessary. While visiting this site I went to jeopardy games and played a few of those and saw how they are set up. I also went to: “How to: Use an Interactive Whiteboard” by Jefferey Banzburg. The article, along with the jeopardy presentation Vicki and I did in class, highlighted some of the best uses for interactive whiteboards. For examples: Presentations and projects, Web streaming and videos (Teachers can show streamed or downloaded video clips while using the interactive features of the whiteboard to pause, circle, annotate, highlight, parts of the video. DVDs can be connected to the LCD projector and showed on the whiteboard.) Printing and Saving notes. Anything written on the whiteboard (computer) can be saved–I think to the whiteboard???–Teachers can put notes in a file or a shared server for students to download or post. Another way interactive whiteboards can be used is to encourage critical thinking. Students ideas can be added on the whiteboard or to a presentation. The different (large fonts) and bright colors make a difference to students who are visual learners *(who isn’t?) The variations in font and color and items presented can help keep their interest. I can see that this would be essential way to keep students engaged and the kinestetic feature of touch writing on the board will also help. All in all it’s a new way to present information in a more interesting and varying way. I think classrooms of the future will need to have them and soon they will be seen as an essential learning tool. I like the freedom of being able to do something like that in my own classroom–if I can ever get the equipment. Right now, I have to rely on my computer tech/librarian person to help with any presentations involving using the LCD projector because we only have one for the whole building. The links I went to from the site at Education World (a great resource site) were “Whiteboard stimulate Student Learning” which discussed individual student held whiteboards and how they can be used in the classroom. I didn’t find this article too helpful, though interesting. The “Speaking of Electronic Whiteboards…” article was more focused on interactive whiteboards. This article further clarified some of the important improvements that electronic whiteboards have over the computer and projector, like highlighting an important statement, add an interesting fact label a graphic. Teachers can also go to other web pages, save, and send what has been written to students’ computers. White boards can respond electronically to the touch of a finger or special marker to interact with the information on the displayed on the board. I can see where this would be so helpful in teaching math, like coordinates and geometry, in an interactive way. Right now I rely on my overhead projector and the limitations with that are obvious. It does seem to me, that with the unfortunate attention competition resulting from students playing video games, the interactive whiteboard is good in that it follows and uses the kind of stimulation that students are accustomed to at home, which for them, is engaging. It makes learning with the interactive whiteboard more like the “games” they are use to at home. When students are allowed to manipulate the board themselves, an educator, Pamela Solvie (from Minnesota) noticed that students’ learning and interest rose dramatically. Lastly the article looked at costs of electronic whiteboards–I was surprised to learn that they start at $250, not a small sum, but perhaps manageable. After all, when computers seemed essential, lap tops arrived for middle schoolers in Maine– maybe this argument should be used to get electronic white boards in classrooms–with sufficient professional development–so teachers will really start to use them in their teaching. I did notice grants are possible to obtain from some of the companies who sell electronic whiteboards, such as Mimeo and Smarttech. Smarttech offers online videos so teachers can see how they might use an electronic whiteboard.

About Wikis and their Use in an Educational Setting. One of the articles I read online, “Teachers New to Wikis”, covers many of the basics like, “What are Wikis?” “How can teachers use wikis?” “Appropriate spaces” “How can teachers introduce wikis to students?” “obstacles” and “getting started”. I learned something new about wikis in every sub topic and some assumptions I had were validated. So in “What are Wikis?” I learned that wikis are free online writing spaces that anyone can use and read. Anyone who writes a wiki has to accept the fact that someone may edit (I prefer the word, “revise”) (add, delete) anything they’ve written. In this way wikis are collaborative and can be a creative writing experience. I didn’t know that wikis can show a history of previous writings and edits. This is much different than the usual word processed document, where teachers usually only see the final draft, because teachers can go back and see the process of writing. Another important distinction is that no one author can claim the wiki as all their own writing. Instead, it is acknowledged that the wiki is a joint effort of the participating community of writers. In addition I learned that a wiki is all about writing, really. It’s not suppose to be a presentation space (like power point) or a blog, where no one edits but comments back. As I become more familiar with wikis, blogs, web sites, links, etc., I realize the importance of these differences.

I was most inspired by the part, “How can Teachers use wikis to facilitate teaching, writing development, and learning?” First of all, providing an alternative space for students to write will encourage them to write in the first place. It can also provide a space where students can carry on a debate or share information on a current events topic, subjects studied in class. I might use it to document debriefing of a unit or study where students take the K-W-L chart to reflect on what they’ve learned and continue to build on each others ideas. In the past, I’ve had the class write poems together with me at the overhead being the scribe. But with a wiki, students could go up to the poem and write when they are inspired or edit to make it better. One year, I had students put together a “text” book on the solar system. But with a wiki, students could collaborate on writing another kind of text, let’s say a “Civil War” joint diary where groups of students take on the persona of a few people effected by the events of that time. I could see as students learn more, they could inject period details creating a first person historical fiction account. Soon I will be doing a “service learning project” and I like the idea of students using the wiki format to jointly build a web site on the project. I like the ideas presented for introducing wikis to students, but for myself, I would first try it out on a project like one of the ones I mentioned above, and then wait and see. Though, I could see the possibility of some students getting upset over revisions made to their writing. When I do peer response groups for in class writing projects, I always leave it up to the author’s choice, whether or not to act on revision advice. A wiki would diverge from that writing protocol. I could also see students still claiming some ownership of the piece and keeping mental track of what they’ve written. I can hear them now, “I wrote that part!” or “Grace wrote that!” It’s a possibility that some students might deliberately sabotage others writing. And there would always be the question, How public should our wikis be?, to ensure student privacy. In this article, I journeyed to a link on wikibooks. I especially liked two ideas discussed in this article: One is the idea that wikibooks could replace or augment the traditional textbook in the same way that wikipedia has augmented the encyclopedia. Teachers could get online free (open source model strikes again!) “texts” in curriculum areas. They could also edit the wikibook and customize it to their teaching and student learning needs. A second idea I liked is the notion that wikibooks could augment the traditional academic publishing model. Usually academic authors have to wait for peer review before publishing, but the wikibook approach, permits the author to publish it online and make it available.