An Expat Educator in Asia

I have spent a lot of today looking at wireless projectors for a client. Some good learning which is worth posting here.

I have been both pleasantly and unpleasantly surprised by what I have found.

On the positive side, I was warned that the screen refresh/data transfer rate meant that the projector might be very poor at displaying the images from PC tablets using core subject software like maths and English activities or even graphics intensive presentation slides via the wireless connection. I found this not to be the case and was very impressed in the fast data transfer by wireless. Whilst it was not possible to transmit a movie satisfactorily, I did not observe delays of anywhere near a second for even the most data rich pictures.

On the downside, something that did not occur to me but should have, was the fact that the connection

between the projector and the wireless laptop/PC tablet is via the single WiFi network interface card in the device. As all vendors are only across connecting in an “Ad Hoc” mode, this means that the laptop or tablet is connected to the school network or the projector but not both. I think that you can see a clear and obvious limitation in classroom applications where a student wants to share with a class what he or she is doing on the internet.

Given that I have been meeting with Audio Visual companies and not system integrators I was not surprised to hear that they had not really tried the projectors in an “infrastructure mode”. By this I mean in a mode where you can connect your projector to an organization’s existing wired or wireless infrastructure. If it is connected to wired infrastructure, the projector has a 10/100 Ethernet port with more bandwidth than any wireless connection could provide. If an Ethernet cable run is not feasible, the projector is put in Infrastructure mode, where it acts as a wireless client and connects to the wireless network specified. With either approach, the goal is to connect the projector to an existing network, which serves as the path over which the projector sends the screen images.

The student or teacher would then connect wirelessly to the network on which the projector is installed. He or she has installed the Projector Software Utility, which allows for selection of the projector, and the student or teacher’s screen is mirrored automatically. This more complex deployment lets clients simultaneously access other resources–the Internet and resources shared on the network, for instance–in conjunction with the projector, and also make presentations on the projector from anywhere on the network.

Whilst connecting the projector in infrastructure mode sounds like the solution that a school should be looking at, it does come with some challenges. Here are a few I can think of.

• There is a potential that a clever and boisterous student might decide to connect to the projector in his least favorite teacher’s room and choose to broadcast a very inappropriate message on the projector.

• In Ad-hoc mode the connection between the wireless device and the projector will be a dedicated 54Mbps. In infrastructure, the wireless device could potentially be sharing an AP with 20 other students. This might limit the data being sent to the projector to 2-3Mbps making it useless.

• Given that the School that we are currently working with has up to 13 Wireless projectors being installed, this is going to mean a lot of projector IP addresses on the network. This is an issue for teachers and students looking to connect to the right projector in their room.

I am not sure of the right way to go here but I have shared this information with quite a few experts in my network so I lookforward to sharing the best advice I get and our experiences moving ahead.

Filed under: Appropriate Hardware for Education | Tagged: LSA_Paul, mobile, PC Tablets, Wireless projectors | No Comments »

I read an interesting post recently about the Open Source Operating System on the XO notebook that Negoroponte wants to put in the hands of the world’s disadvantaged children via the one laptop per child project. This software is called sugar and is apparently now finding favour with more than just the XO laptops. The easy way to run sugar, for those of us who don’t have a Linux system, is to download this http://wiki.laptop.org/go/LiveCd

I love the way that the project is now being referred to as IAEP.  IAEP means “its an education project” - which is the name of one of the ’sugar’ mailing lists, and a reminder that its not a laptop project, per se!

It is this aspect that really makes me think. Here we are in the west with access to technology everywhere and we can’t agree that 1:1, labs of computers, EWBs or anything else is a good idea. What on earth will happen in schools in developing countries? For lessons learned, we can read of some experiences already such as the report from Ethiopia described at http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Academic_Papers

I would suggest that for starters, we all read what is being suggested on One Laptop Per Child rather than look to apparently “benevolent” agencies like Microsoft. A lot of talk of how governments have rejected the XO laptop in favor of machines that are capable of running windows scares me a bit I must say.

Reading statements like “The ICT skills course will be based on the Microsoft Digital Literacy Curriculum” in news reports about the rollout of sub notebooks almost brings a tear to my eye.

Microsoft’s program is clueless and grotesque in its failure to address the needs of the poor. Compare this 10-15 hour program

Computer Basics (Windows only)
The Internet and the World Wide Web (Internet Explorer only)
Productivity Programs (Microsoft Office only)
Computer Security and Privacy (Microsoft security is a very bad joke.)
Digital Lifestyles (Stuff that the poor can’t afford)

with the One Laptop Per Child set of open-ended activities for collaborative discovery, designed so that children hardly need manuals, and with the OLPC Bitfrost security system. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activities

Journal
Chat
Browser
Still and video camera and microphone with Record software
Write
Paint
Calculate
Music: player, editor, digital synthesizer
Pippy Python programming for children
Etoys Smalltalk programming for children
Turtle Art as in the Logo language for children
Measure digital oscilloscope with time and frequency domains

and lots more on the way. Most of this software is also available in Ubuntu Linux, but without the mesh networking, ruggedness, extreme low power, ecological design, and other important features of the OLPC XO.

I really don’t want to sound like I am anti establishment here but I think we have to look very closely at how these big powerful players manipulate us.

For example, some of the best, most creative teachers I know who use ICT powerfully with kids in classrooms are neither Apple Distinguished Educators or Microsoft Innovative Teachers. They are just really good teachers! I wonder if the OLPC people need to bring out a title like this so we can label great innovative teachers who don’t use Leopard or Vista!

Here is another way in which it is easy to loose the wood for the trees:

A project called “Realising girl child Potential through ICT: An empowerment programme for women teachers”
The Concept:
Microsoft through the Partners in Learning Program has partnered Ministry of Education - Kenya, and African Centre for Women in ICT (ACWICT) and other stakeholders to transform education through the use of ICT in
Education, specifically to build the capacity of women teachers in ICT while at the same time addressing the Girl Child issues.

That would include

* Women’s health
* “Female circumcision”/Female genital mutilation/clitoridectomy
* Women’s rights: marriage and divorce, property, access to education,
dress, rape, violence, and much more
* Women in traditional societies

All to be apparently addressed via Partners in Learning (PiL) “Transforming Education”

Microsoft Partners in Learning initiative supports the dual commitment by Microsoft to advance the quality of education and provide alternative channels for economic progress. By building partnerships with
governments and schools around the globe, Partners in Learning works to integrate technology into daily teaching, learning, and research.

The Web site describes a marketing program for Microsoft software, not an education program.

“Key programs areas that help educators employ technology throughout the learning process, and enable students to achieve their learning goals:”

“Employ technology”=”Buy Microsoft software”

At no point in the description of the program is there any mention of asking children what their learning goals are, much less how to achieve them.

Innovative Schools
“Delivers expert guidance in holistic school reform,”

Never defined, and obviously not actually meant.

“plus a roadmap for technology integration to help schools meet their education objectives.”

More Microsoft marketing.

Innovative Teachers
“Connects a global community of educators focused on 21st century learning and recognizes their exemplary efforts to prepare students for the future.”

From Terms and Conditions of the PiL Initiative:

PERSONAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE LIMITATION.

Unless otherwise specified, the Services are for your personal and
non-commercial use. You may not modify, copy, distribute, transmit,
display, perform, reproduce, publish, license, create derivative works
from, transfer, or sell any information, software, products or
services obtained from the Services.

NOTICE SPECIFIC TO SOFTWARE AVAILABLE ON THIS WEB SITE.

Any software that is made available to download from the Services
(”Software”) is the copyrighted work of Microsoft and/or its
suppliers.

NOTICE SPECIFIC TO DOCUMENTS AVAILABLE ON THIS WEB SITE.

Permission to use Documents (such as white papers, press releases,
datasheets and FAQs) from the Services is granted, provided that (1)
the below copyright notice appears in all copies and that both the
copyright notice and this permission notice appear, (2) use of such
Documents from the Services is for informational and non-commercial or
personal use only and will not be copied or posted on any network
computer or broadcast in any media, and (3) no modifications of any
Documents are made. Accredited educational institutions, such as K-12,
universities, private/public colleges, and state community colleges,
may download and reproduce the Documents for distribution in the
classroom.

MATERIALS PROVIDED TO MICROSOFT OR POSTED AT ANY MICROSOFT WEB SITE.

Microsoft does not claim ownership of the materials you provide to
Microsoft (including feedback and suggestions) or post, upload, input
or submit to any Services or its associated services for review by the
general public, or by the members of any public or private community,
(each a “Submission” and collectively “Submissions”). However, by
posting, uploading, inputting, providing or submitting (”Posting”)
your Submission you are granting Microsoft, its affiliated companies
and necessary sublicensees permission to use your Submission in
connection with the operation of their Internet businesses (including,
without limitation, all Microsoft Services), including, without
limitation, the license rights to: copy, distribute, transmit,
publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, translate and
reformat your Submission; to publish your name in connection with your
Submission; and the right to sublicense such rights to any supplier of
the Services.

PLEASE DO NOT SEND ANY ORIGINAL CREATIVE ARTWORK, SAMPLES, DEMOS, OR
OTHER WORKS.

So you can’t actually do much with what you learn here. You can’t copy software for students, or distribute anything to other teachers. You can’t post Free/Open Source Software, because these terms violate Free
Software licenses. You can distribute downloaded documents to students, but you can’t post them anywhere else. Microsoft claims copyright and extensive licensing rights to anything posted here, including the right to prevent distribution.

Innovative Students
“Works with students to increase their capacity and interest to use technology as a learning tool.”

No, in much the same manner as above. Increases their capacity to use Microsoft software and nothing else.

“Policy & Access Works with policy makers, education leaders to formulate, review relevant and appropriate policies and strategies that support ICT in Education. Also create and raise awareness and facilitate capacity
building for leaders to appreciate ICT  in education”

Actually, to prevent consideration of more effective policies and strategies that use Free/Open Source Software and cut into Microsoft’s market share.

Summary of Action
“As part of its commitment to transforming education using technology, Microsoft through its Partner in Learning global program will roll out a 5-year programme that will improve the professional practice of women teachers in Kenya. The programme targets women teachers in public primary and secondary schools in Kenya. It will equip the teachers with the requisite ICT skills that they will integrate in their subject teaching to improve learning outcomes among learners in their classrooms while at the same time addressing issues around “the Girl Child”.

It will totally fail to teach these women how to teach using technology, other than to parrot what they have just been fed.

“The skills will also enable the women teachers to access knowledge and information on girl child Potential and utilise these to empower the girl child to realise her human Potential. Technology is therefore going to
be an enabler in this 2-tier transformation model targeting the woman teacher and the girl child.”

Any book on Web search techniques will better serve the teachers and their students.

Enough!I am sure that you get the point.

It is all well and good that we push the sub notebook manufacturers to bring out devices that support popular Operating Systems but if the OLPC project becomes, in the eyes of many developing countries, the distribution of sub-standard machines to those who have no choice other than to accept them, then maybe we need to really think hard about what we are doing when we insist on the device supporting the latest, most bloated OS.

I guess it all comes back to what you really want to see from kids using mobile devices to learn with.

And what a can of worms that one is!

Filed under: 1:1 access in schools, Appropriate Hardware for Education, Learning for a Flat World | Tagged: LSA_Paul, microsoft, OLPC, OS, sub notebook | 1 Comment »

I just wanted to put up a post with some starter ideas for some early years teachers I am working with in terms of introducing them to the EWB at the moment. Here are some ideas.

Firstly, the kids need to be on their toes, ready to be called up at any time. This classtools.net activity is a great, noisy fun student picker which, being online, is always easy to put on the EWB. You can download it onto your own machine.

This is another one that you can download onto your own machine but you will need Office 2007 to run it properly.

Whilst at Classtools, have a look at the other activities there such as the dustbin game.

If you like the games approach to engaging kids with the board, you will find a great selection of quite usable ones for early years at the ICT Games site. For a great example, have a look at the Sky Writer for a great way of teaching letter formation.

If you are looking for some really great “Wow Factor” on the board, you are hard pressed to go past Google Earth but this will of course, require a download to your computer. There are also some great games and engaging resources under the “games” and “primary” section of the Echalk site. You will only be able to preview these for a while if you haven’t taken out a subscription. If want a free, engaging game that is very, very addictive, try this paper plane simulator but DON’T BLAME ME IF YOU GET NOTHING ELSE DONE FOR THE DAY!

For links to manipulatives that you can use for your lessons, you have a host of choices. Start off in the foundation section of iwb.org.uk for some ideas and free content.

Good Luck and most of all, Enjoy!!

Filed under: Electronic Whiteboards, Ideas for Great Lessons | Tagged: Early Years, EWB, interactives, LSA_Paul | No Comments »

I know that a great many educators in this region are looking at mobile devices including PDAs and even mobile phones as learning devices. I recently read this posting to a list which I felt compelled to copy here so that teachers are at least aware that such work is taking place and is possible.

Many mobile phones can run software that can decode Datamatrix barcodes using the camera built into the phone.  The fancy Nokia N95 has the software already installed in it, but it is available for download for other Nokia models and also many other models of phone.

Datamatrix codes are popping up on some products and posters around the place and contain information such as URLs, phone numbers, or address details for businesses, etc.  Some people are putting them on business cards for example so that the recipient could capture the phone number straight into their phone.

Here is an example of a code http://classroomnetwork.googlepages.com/profiledatamatrix.png/profiledatamatrix-full;init:.png so you can see what they look like.  This one contains a message from the creator of the code.

You may have seen similar barcodes printed with the franking information on some envelopes.  You can decode one on an envelope and find it contains the numbers that are most likely account info for the sender’s Australia Post account (don’t worry these digits are also printed on the envelope, you are not seeing any info that should be hidden)  This barcode would just make it easier for machines to read the info.

An example of where these codes are being used out and about is http://www.semapedia.org/ From their site:” Our goal is to connect the virtual and physical world by bringing the right information from the internet to the relevant place in physical space.   To accomplish this, we invite you to create Semapedia-Tags which are in fact cellphone-readable physical hyperlinks. You can create such Tags easily yourself by choosing and pasting a Wikipedia URL into the form above. Once created, you put the Tags up at their according physical location. You just hyperlinked your world! Others can now use their cellphone to ‘click’ your Tag and access the information you provided them. ”
For example, you put one of these codes on a sign at a landmark and it contains a link to the relevant Wikipedia page.

I was thinking that incorporating these codes with GeoCaching would be fun.  At particular Lat & Long coordinates you could place one of these codes that when decoded gives either a clue for finding the next coordinates or could give the actual coordinates for the next waypoint.

Here are some more links to Datamatrix generators http://mobilecodes.nokia.com/index.htm (This one has some software for Nokia phones)  http://www.idautomation.com/java/dmservlet.html (This is another free code generator)

Another use for mobile phones… I think that Scratch has Java software for use on mobile phones too.  Scratch has been discussed extensively here too.

Let me know if you decode the Datamatrix code!

Photo: ex mobile phone! by besto-Baker

Filed under: Appropriate Hardware for Education | Tagged: Datamatrix, LSA_Paul, mobile learning | No Comments »

I just read this post from Barbara Braxton on the Oz Teachers list. I remember sending this rather addictive link around myself last year.

Try http://flightsimx.archive.amnesia.com.au/ (but don’t get addicted) and create a league for the students.  Have them investigate all the different designs for paper planes and experiment to see if one design flies better than another; if the weight/ type/ colour of paper influences the distance; what factors do influence distance flown.

From an email I sent last October when many of us were hooked on this site …… science looks at the effect of the turbulence created by both fan and chimney and how this might affect the result; more maths as you investigate whether loop-de-loops affect distance travelled; design and technology to see if a real paper plane could be flown that distance, and which type of design is the most efficient and aerodynamic; the effects of drag and résistance; the mechanics of flight; ICT- how is it done?

This is a fabulous thing to do on an Electronic Whiteboard! Good starter maybe??

Photo: Paper Plane by Chrstopher

Filed under: Ideas for Great Lessons | Tagged: challenge, design, LSA_Paul, technology | 2 Comments »

I came across a great post by Jason de Nys last week that is worth sharing, especially if you are one of those really organised teachers already working on planning for the new school year.

Jason mentioned two tools for classroom organisation:

Termites for creating seating plans

and Monkey, for creating productive groups

Here is what he had to say about each:

Termites allows you to input ‘relationship’ scores for your students. That is, if you think that they work well together you give them a score up to +10 and if you’d rather that they didn’t sit together you’d give them a score as low as -10. The generator takes these values into account when allocating seats. If you have a student who has poor eyesight you can specify that they are placed at the front of the room. If you have a real firecracker you can even ‘glue’ them to the seat closest to you so that you can keep a wary eye on them and everyone else will be shuffled around them.

Creating the table layout is also blindingly simple. You are presented with a grid of whatever size you like. You then click on a box to make it a table and click on it again to clear it. Very easy to set up rows or pods.

And Monkey:

Monkey works on the same principle of entering relationship values but also gives you the opportunity to input an ‘ability’ score from 0 to 100. You then have the opportunity to group according to ability as well as taking into account the relationships. Group size and number is customised in the same way as for Termites and so is ‘glueing’ a student into a group.

They both sound like they are worth checking out.

Clive Dawes and I also had a conversation last week about online mindmapping software. Clive introduced me to Best for Chart, which looks great for any diagramming. The collaboration tools look really easy and powerful as well.

Clive also suggested that Awesome Highlighter may be a good way to get some of the functionality of Diigo without all of the other tools that can confuse the first-time user. I have to say that the additional commenting tools, the ability to share bookmarks to multiple lists, including delicious and the numerous other social networking features make Diigo a clear winner for me.

Filed under: Ideas for Great Lessons, Learning for a Flat World | Tagged: classroom, groups, LSA_Paul, organisation, seating plan | 1 Comment »

I really enjoyed the conversation in the back channel during the most recent episode What Stalls the Shift? of David Carpenter and Jeff Utecht’s On Deck Podcast. This was the first time that my commitments allowed me to do this but I am a big fan of this style of interaction and will ensure that I join in again.

I just want to pick up on one point. David and Jeff have both worked for what I would say are fairly dynamic, progressive international schools in Asia and the middle east and their network of contacts is predominantly from this style of international school. I work in Hong Kong with a range of schools including the larger internationals like the one that David was formerly from. I also work with some internationals that are very different to this.

Quite a few of these international schools are not the dynamic “Switched on to IT” style of school that seemed to be portrayed as the norm in the last episode. My reason for saying this is when the backroom conversation turned to how a teacher who is really enthused about the use of ICT to further 21st Century Learning in his or her classroom might get a slightly reluctant senior administrator to see the benefit, the comment eventually came from Andy Torris that maybe it is easier to move to a school that does “get it”. Andy went on to say how he was very keen to attract teachers that are switched on to ICT for learning.

Whilst I have to say that this is good advice and ultimately the best thing for a teacher to do, it is anything but easy to do in a lot of cases. I constantly hear stories of teachers trying to use ICT tools and either not getting the necessary support or having so many barriers to jump put in place that they become disillusioned. I am currently working with a teacher passionate about using a document camera in his school and not being able to convince the Senior Administration of the benefit in spite of demonstrating excellent classroom practice with the tool. The teacher has finally bit the bullet and decided to purchase it himself. This is in a school that prides itself as being very technologically advanced.

There are a number of schools that I have visited that pride themselves on being very forward thinking when it comes to ICT but when you look more closely, it is about every kid leaving with high competencies in Word Processing, Spreadsheets and Databases. The use of ICT for learning in core subjects is almost non-existent.

So, to clarify what I was trying to say in the back channel, I wholeheartedly agree that if a teacher finds themselves hitting their heads against a brick wall in trying to get Senior Admin to see the value in using ICT to support lifelong learning and connectedness in their students, one of the options open to them would be to find a more supportive school. Sometimes, however, due to lots of factors including financial, family responsibility, promotional opportunities etc, this can be hard to do.

One thing that is out there for teachers like this that can feel frustrated is a supportive, sharing and open online community.

I don’t know what I would do without this online community!

Filed under: Learning for a Flat World | Tagged: LSA_Paul, podcast, shifting, SOS | 3 Comments »

Just returned from the citers 2008 conference at HKU. It was really professionally organised, as usual and was a credit to all at CITE.

I enjoyed the plenary by Professor Nancy Law. She spoke of the SITES2006 study into pedagogy and IT use in schools around the world.

She also introduced another study by researcher Ms Y. Lee who gave an Information Literacy Performance Assessment to 40 local Hong Kong schools and one International School in Hong Kong. The findings were quite embarrasing for local education in Hong Kong.

Here are my very rough notes of the Plenary Session:

Professor Nancy Law on Study SITES2006

21^st Century Learning. The capacity to engage in Life long learning (self directed and collaborative inquiry) Conectedness (Communication and collaboration with experts and peers around the world.)

IS there evidence of pedagogical change in HK Classrooms?

Has ICT been acting as a lever for change?

22 participating Ed systems.

100% of schools surveyed in HKSAR had internet access.

Hong Kong has made great leaps in no of computers in schools.

Teachers use of ICT HKSAR has around 70% of Maths 85% Science and Humanities had some use.

Impact of ICT use depends on how, not how often ICT is used.

Ms Y Lee

Information Literacy Performance Assessment

Instruments developed and given to 40 local and one international school.

Assessed via online assessment tasks.

Showed some examples. They look well thought out.

Large diversity across the schools. All kids were weak in communication and explanation.

Mathematics PA

Some mathematics literacy items. Some tough items. They were online.

The international school kids were much better at using them.

Evaluation and integration skills are weak.

Some interesting comments about the analysis. The international school kids had parents who mostly came from professional backgrounds

Really good indicator of the results in that kids from local schools are more likely to go to the manual for help where as the international school kids ask someone. The culture of book based learning is just so strong.

Nancy Law made comments about how bad it is in some of the local schools.

Differences

Professor Edmond Ko

Senior Advisor to the Vice-President for Academic Affairs.

Filed under: Education in Hong Kong, Educational Conferences | Tagged: CITERS, LearningSolutions, SITES2006 | No Comments »

I responded to a post in the OZ-Teachers email list today on rolling out EWBs in a school in Australia.

Have just taken delivery of our first wireless (wacom) tablet & data projector (with more on the way) as we explore less expensive alternatives to putting interactivity into our classrooms. I am very excited about the opportunities it presents us to explore the future of education.

At present we are using what is available without going out and buying any IWB software – so I am happy to take all suggestions for shareware/freeware or creative uses for what we already have – am also happy to post a hit of suggestions or talk to anyone about what we are trying to do.

I seem to remember discovering an online website that you could draw/write on and save your work quite some time ago – I’m sure there are plenty out there – but can’t find it again.

If anyone knows of a program etc that converts handwriting to text (I know this option is in Vista but we don’t have Vista) I would love to hear about it.

I replied with

I do a lot of IWB training in Hong Kong and the region and so try to keep up with what is going on in this fast changing world. I am surprised that you mention less expensive alternatives as an IWB here is almost cheaper than a laptop. All IWB companies have dropped their prices in an extremely competitive market. Be careful of just using Wacoms as the real benefit and ease of use comes with touching the objects you see on the screen. Your teachers and kids will not get such an effective experience using a tablet but having to look at the screen some distance away to see what effect their hand is having.

Subscribe to my bookmarks on Delicious http://del.icio.us/boomer11 I have 37 sites tagged under IWB.

I also try to update my blog regularly with ideas for IWBs. Check out http://xpatasia.edublogs.org/ and choose Appropriate Hardware for Education from the categories on the Left Hand Side.

I hope this helps.

The reply was:

Thanks Paul – will check out the links you suggested.

Your points are all very valid ones and issues that we considered very carefully – especially the touch/interactivity. Our ultimate is to get IWB’s BUT at this point in time IWB’s installed and set up ready to use in a classroom cost quite a bit more here than the price of a laptop. We can get projectors and tablets into three classrooms for what it would cost us to put an IWB in one room. So for an underfunded relatively small Victorian government primary school it becomes a very viable alternative until prices over here do come down to an affordable level.
Seems far better to me that we are spreading the word across a number of rooms and working together as a staff supporting each other as we trial & develop effective uses of interactivity in our classrooms.

I loved the way that this teacher is taking the time to think through the use of interactive technology in the classroom and support teachers on this journey. I wish every teacher and school did the same thing. YCIS Primary Section decided to do a staged rollout like this and it is the Hong Kong school that does more to promote EWB use with staff than any other I know of.

My reply again:

I couldn’t agree with you more Margot!

I worked with one school where we put in EWBs in a couple of rooms and in others we put projectors and wireless mice and keyboards. We worked with SMART to allow for the software to be put on all computers and then we asked teachers after 6 months to tell us what the board was going to do for them that the mouse and keyboard could not. It was far more effective than at a lot of schools I visit where they put a board in every room and keep complaining that teachers use them as expensive projection screens.

Another great alternative for cost effectiveness is the Onfinity CM2 Max. This is under AU$900 for something that you don’t have to install and still allows you to interact with visible objects up at the screen or any surface you project on. The unit can also be moved from room to room so it also allows you to “spread the word”. It breaks my heart to see some of the international schools here who have invested in an EWB in every room and most have retained a board surface. On my calculations I would say the average is board used 80% of time, EWB use 15% of time.

BTW, I try to use the Electronic Whiteboard (EWB) label for them and suggest that it is up to the teacher to decide if it is interactive J

Good luck with your pilot. Sounds to me like the school has a good leader to encourage some great classroom practice!

Filed under: Appropriate Hardware for Education, Electronic Whiteboards | Tagged: EWB, IWB, Rollout, Teacher readiness | No Comments »

I must confess that the first time I used a document camera in a classroom, it was not the most useful device I have ever had access to. This is a combination of the fact that the one I had was very small and limited in its functionality and the subject I was teaching was ICT where everything I wanted to show was already online and digitized anyway.

Now that I am spending a lot more time in cross curricular classrooms, I can think of very few other tools that deliver the bang for the buck of such a powerful device. These things are very cheap or at least they are here, around US$500-$700 for a good quality one, and yet allow you to put anything that you like on the screen to show the room.

This recent post from Ewan McIntosh where he asks people to send in their usage ideas for the classroom has proved to be a great source of ideas for classroom application.

In my opinion, the very best post is from Jaye Richards who makes the following comment in part of her list:

Having examples of student written work in jotters being shown and then edited/marked LIVE is one regular thing we did. The students (who agreed to let their efforts go forward) loved it as they got feedback there and then, not only from the teacher but also the rest of the class. Thus the feedback is relevant, accurate and timely. And collaborative!

I couldn’t agree more! I used to make up fictitious examination papers with wrong answers, copy and distribute them all and we would discuss as a group. How much time would I have saved with the visualizer!

Ewan also references the Visualiser Forum, and Dave Smith these are both good references for the use of a visualizer in a classroom.

Enjoy!

Paul

Filed under: Appropriate Hardware for Education, Electronic Whiteboards, Ideas for Great Lessons | Tagged: projection, tools, visualizer | 3 Comments »