[Yr7-10it] Tools for Interactivity (Was: Missed the boat?)

[Roland Gesthuizen]

Paul is right .. I never had  a problem 'interacting' with a blackboard or
whiteboard. Similarly I have doubts about using it to just watch some
students interact at the front of the class.

There are similar low tech tools that have a similar collaboration and
aggregation function if used correctly. I seen splendid lessons conducted by
student teachers using yellow post-it- pads and butchers paper (and perhaps
too many that just chalk and talk). When somebody mentioned something about
voting by touching an Interactive White Board (IWB) so I tossed my departing
senior class a traditional set of white-board markers and asked them to
scribble a 'vote' on the board as they left the room. (typical XY plot that
ranks boring <----> interesting, vs learned heaps <----> nothing). I then
photographed the result to reflect and posted into Moodle and even got all
my markers back.

I would suggest exploring the use of a couple of cheap bluetooth enabled
keyboards / waicom drawing pads. Without any new software they should work
natively with our iMacs and 2Touch IWB setup (even be adapted with a plain
old projector setup) and mean that groups of students scattered around the
classroom can share in the construction of a class mind map, contribute to a
Moodle wiki or online discussion. It is an interesting experiment I would
like to try out.

Any IWB initial positive gain that is observed probably comes from the
Hawthorne
effect <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect>. After spending all
that money, is anybody going to be brave enough to claim only an incremental
benefit?

For now I see that it is just a cool tool that we can use to teach well some
of the time but will is not guaranteed to automatically upgrade teachers to
version 2.0

Regards Roland

2009/3/11 Dr Paul Chandler <paul.chandler at une.edu.au>

> Folks,
>
> In contributing my 2c worth, I'll probably come away with a case of
> foot-in-mouth, but there's a couple of points which I think are worth
> picking up on.  I'm writing from the perspective of a classroom teacher
> (which I was until the end of last year), not from my present position of
> being a researcher.
>
> . to me, IWBs are glorified data projectors.  To accompany a
> data-projection, the operator (teacher or student) can do their
> song-and-dance act 'at' the point of projection rather than at the
> keyboard
> . in an effort to be 'converted' to the benefit of this, I have attend
> several conference presentations and workshops by teachers on IWBs.  I
> have been disappointed.
> . nevertheless, there are a few functions of some of the IWB software (not
> the board itself) which do allow for greater interactivity which is
> otherwise hard to replicate; a _few_ that I remember being impressed with,
> but can't remember the detail now.
> . there is _serious_ research into IWBs in the classroom (not by any team
> that I am involved with), and I know that there are documented cases where
> the teacher's interactive teaching has improved because of the technology
>
> In all, I think its a mixed bag of outcomes; just unfortunate that it's an
> expensive mixed bag.
>
> What I have a passion for, though, is being able to genuinely increase the
> interactivity in a classroom which might otherwise consist of students
> operating 'in their own space with their own PC/laptop'.  What I think is
> worth discussing is the software (and maybe hardware) and the
> teacher-tactics which can help vitalise teaching/learning from this
> perspective.  If tablet PCs or IWBs are on the list, so be it.  For
> myself, I would nominate:
> - vnc or other 'throw the student's screen onto the projector from where
> they are' technologies
> - moodle workshop
> - coword and copowerpoint (http://cooffice.ntu.edu.sg/coword/)
> - blogging (and related technologies)
> - creation of wikis
>
> Other suggested inclusions?  Or comments?
>
>
> --
> Dr Paul Chandler
> Research Fellow
> 'Multimedia grammatical design and authoring pedagogy' (Kahootz) project,
> School of Education, University of New England
>
> located at Australian Children's Television Foundation
> 145 Smith Street, Fitzroy, Melbourne, 3065
> e-mail: paul.chandler at une.edu.au
> Ph: (03) 9419 8800
> Fax: (03) 9419 0660
> Skype: paul.d.chandler
>
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-- 
Roland Gesthuizen - ICT Coordinator - Westall Secondary College
http://www.westallsc.vic.edu.au

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change
the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has." --Margaret Mead
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