Visit the Digital Learning Environment to read Jim Hollis' blog about An Easy and Fun Way to Create Educational Content http://www.guide2digitallearning.com/blog_jim_hollis/easy_and_fun_way_create_educational_content. Read the instructions and watch the video clips. Did you find the blog useful? Do you think you will plan a lesson differently when using a SMART Board after reading the instructions and watching the video clips? Do you have some ideas you might try using Sketchcast? Share your thoughts and ideas with your classmates and fellow students!
25 comments:
The interactive white board or the smart board is an amazing tool to be used in the classroom. The author of this posts presented some great information. It was cool that he used the video to get the childrens attention and that is the most important thing. Once you hook them it is much easier to keep their attention. The sketchcast seemed like a great type of technology to be used in the classroom. Students love to do things and they learn better by doing. Therefore both the smart board and the sketchcast are great tools to be applied in the classroom. They worked for the author and I am sure they would work for teachers too.
I hear to often from many students History and English is boring to them. Reading this article An Easy and Fun Way to Create Educational Content gives me a creative way to hook them into the lesson. Trying have classroom mangement in the classroon because student are acting out because their bored can be a problem. By using the video and sketchcast I can get them to enjoy and learn in a creative way.
Robert D
I cannot believe how powerful technology effect in a classroom. It is a wonderful thing that teachers can use new technologies such as a smart board and a sketchcast in order to have students 'attentions. These new tools will help teachers have more interesting lesson plan for students. However, I think, as a teacher, it is very important that teachers keep an eye on what student are doing with all of these new technologies.
The ability to advance powerpoint slides with the touch of a finger on a SMARTboard had impressed me; the use and integration of SMART technology presented in this article nearly blew me away!
There will always be students who detest science (in which I am to be certified), but in providing a "hook," as Robert pointed out, such students may in fact not only learn the concepts of a given class, but also come to enjoy it.
The video capabilities struck me as particularly useful in the classroom, particularly for learners of varying degrees and with different learning styles.
This sketchcast is just an unbelievable tool that can be used in and out of the classroom. The teacher can teach the lesson and the student can actually reveiw the lesson at home for help with the homework. The teacher can also leave a prepared lesson for a substitute to upload for the class. The technology today is absolutely incredible and advancing each day.
Katie
I agree with the author that the SMART board does get the students attention in the classroom. I have seen it used in a foreign language classroom. Students can interact with technology and they feel they have control of their learning. This tool would work in all classrooms. The capability of recording audio is even a bonus when students can hear a native speaker or the teacher speak in the new language. Teachers can also use the sketchcast as a review of lessons when the teacher is absent. Learning can be more stimulating because the SMART board allows students to be multisensory.
I think the SMART board is a great tool for the classroom. Teachers can find creative ways to hook the students into the lesson by the many different uses of the SMARTboard. I never heard of the sketchcast but I think it is a great technology tool that should be utilized in the classroom. Students will love to learn while watching something that is cool and interesting. Some subjects may be difficult to get all the students attention, but the capabilities of a SMARTboard should allow all students to become interested in the topic.
I think patricia had great idea for uses with the smartboard. When teachers know they are going to be absent, they can video a lesson and then show it to the class. This however may be difficult because it will not have the teacher student interaction but I think it is a great idea to consider!
Katie completely took the words out of my mouth! Immediately upon viewing the sketchcast video, I thought it was a wonderful resource for students (and parents!) to view at home in order to reinforce a lesson.
I was recently tutoring a seventh grader, whose parents both said at the end of our session that they had trouble helping their child with homework, due to the "new-fangled" methods that teachers were using. They just didn't understand what their daughter was learning, so they could not help! Posting information that reiterates the the day's lesson in the teachers actual words helps everyone understand.
Has anyone ever read Ron Clark's "The Essential 55"? In it he discusses the different methods that have worked for him in the classroom (calling them his "rules"). There is one part that always struck me as interesting- when absent, Clark leaves a video of himself teaching the day's lesson for the students. As Patricia and Colleen mentioned, it just seems that this technology would make doing so quicker and easier for everyone.
I agree with Joanna, the smart board is a great "attention-grabbing" tool. It enables the class to enjoy the full benefit of many wonderful internet resources. I love surfing on youtube for interesting content-related clips, they can be an excellent motivations for lessons. Audio books and slide shows could also be adopted in the lesson to enhance students' understanding of the topic. Academic games could be a fun review tool for students to practice on the subject.
-Jenny Chen
I work in a school for physically disabled kids and I use the smart board very often because it is easily accessable for the students. Sketchcast sounds like another great tool for teachers to use to help engage the students. Technology is becoming more and more important in the classroom and these are two very effective tools.
-Erin C.
I have seen and used smartboards briefly before through things like powerpoint. As a teacher they are actually working on putting them in the classrooms in the school I work at which I am looking forward to. I can see how students would be very attentive to any activity on the smartboard. However, I have never heard of sketchcast before but it seems like an awesome tool for teachers. Perhaps teachers could do lessons in advance with the sketchcast, save them and have them for the future. If teachers could play their lesson with the sketchcast it may give them more free time to spend one on one with students as the lesson went on. I could also see how teachers could pause or play back parts of the lesson if students didn’t understand a specific part.
I didn't think about leaving recorded lessons for a substitute, that would be great for the kids that way they really won't fall behind. I definitely agree with everyone who discusses that learning can be more stimulating because the SMART board allows students to be multisensory. If students can get up during lessons and do something interactive the lesson will definitely be more successful!
The interactive white board and the smart board are an ingenious ideas. 1. It's easier for teachers to get the students' attention when using technology in the classroom. 2. This particular technology makes it possible for the teacher to record the lesson visually and audibly so that it may be played back and shown step by step. 3. It can be saved and posted to the web so that the students, as well as other teachers, can pull it up at anytime and use it as a review.
Brilliant! Why didn't I think of this?
~Shikema B.
I really like the idea of the Sketcast. It seems pretty easy to make a video of yourself for your students. I agree with Kristen who wrote about Ron Clark. I saw the movie and after reading this article, that's the first thing that came to mind. Ron Clark was absent from school for a few days because he was sick and instead of having a substitute teach his class, or have his students miss a few days before preparing for their exams, Ron Clark made a video of his lessons for his students to watch. This is a great way to keep track of all your lessons for many reasons. 1) so you as the teacher, can go back and view it to brush up on how you taught the lesson. 2) for your students to watch at home if they missed something in class or were absent, and 3) as a form of diferentiated instruction for your students with learning disabilities or specific impairments. As we all know, TIME is scarce as a teacher, but if you have the time, using Sketchcast as a tool in your career can be benefitial to you, your students, and the parents of your students.
- Alexandria
I found the blog very useful and informative. I am familiar with the smart board; however, I never realized how easy and interesting it is to use. I agree with the author that once you “hook” the students to lesson, they will pay more attention to the lesson. I loved that video he used to get their attention too. I thought it was amazing how one could download the Sketchcast and use it to write on the board without any tools. In my school we are getting smart board and now I am very interested in learning how to use it. I agree that the smart board is a tool that will get students to become engaged in a lesson, which will help them learn more. In the future I hope to use the smart board in my classroom.
angella s.
I agree with Patricia, that a smart board can be used in a Foreign Language Classroom. I also agree that it would be a great asset to a Foreign Language classroom because of the audio. Through the use of audio students would be able to actually listen to authentic speech, instead of only listening to me. I also agree that the sketchcast would be great to review a lesson but it can also be used to present new lesson or notes.
angella s
Malcolm, T
I absolutely love the Sketchpad. This is an intereserting way for your students to get your guidance even when you are apart. I would use the Sketchpad as a way to model the key ideas of my lessons. I would post them and list the links as a reference (maybe on a home work sheet) for my students should they need to slow down my process or repeat the steps. This can be used in all subject areas; in grammar you can write a sentence and identify parts or phrases. This is definitely a neat way to reinforce work.
I agree with Erin. I feel sketchcast would be a great addition in the classroom. Using it in a classroom with special education students would get them more involved and possibly make them feel at a greater advantage than those students who dont get to use it. Also sketchcast would make it easy to set up notes to hand out to the students on such things as projects. All your ideas get "written" down and then can easily be distributed to the students.
Mike F
These new technologies are great tools to use in the classroom. The teachers and kids love them because they are interactive and effective tools for instruction.They offer another means of communicating a lesson to students and it also gives the kids another outlet to express comprehension. I was very impressed with the uses for the sketchcast program. This is a great way for teachers to prepare for lesson prior to class beginning and having information to refer back to during a lesson. I have used a smartboard before but I have never used the sketchcast program, I hope to in the near future.
I agree with Robert that you can use sketchcast and videos to make social studies fun. It helps when it is interactive.
I agree with Erin in that these would be great tools to use in a special education classroom. I do not work in a special education classroom, although I can see how it would be a success in a special education classroom.
Colleen is correct in saying that teacher and student interaction needs to be constant. It would be nice to see if and how Sketchcast can be used in the language learning classroom. There a plenty of uses for technology in the classroom to make learning interesting however there are still teachers out there that don't even have an overhead projector. Teachers need to remember that using technology is a resource to present informaton but not a substitute for teaching.
I agree with everyone that the SMART board is cool. There's no doubt about it. However, I just don't see the efficiency in it. A projector hooked up to a computer and shining on a plain screen seems so much more efficient as well as cheaper. Based on our experiences as a class with the SMART boards, they seem slow and annoyingly insensitive to a user's touch. A mouse rather than the touch screen is something we're all used to and can maneuver much quicker. When time is of the essence in high content classes like biology, using the sketchcast the way it was used in the video seemed sluggish compared to what an "old school" projector and dry erase marker can do.
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