Is this the world’s cheapest interactive whiteboard? May 28, 2010
Posted by loislindemann in : interactive whiteboard , add a comment
How much is an interactive whiteboard? How about £5? In fact, for that price, you can have an easily portable interactive whiteboard. Interested?
Actually, I’m cheating a little: I’m assuming that you already have a classroom with a projector and either a laptop or desktop computer (which is the case in almost every classroom in my school). If you have, then you just need to add one cheap and cheerful wireless mouse.
I bought a few mice to try out Mouse Mischief (which is brilliant – I’ll post about that later), but then I realized that even one wireless mouse could be a pretty useful teaching tool that allows students to interact with any program. I just pass the wireless mouse to a student and they can use it to interact with whatever is on the board: that could be selecting answers; completing drag and drop tasks; playing educational games or doing anything else that the touch surface on an interactive whiteboard would allow.
I’ve tried this with several classes and it’s worked brilliantly—students pass the mouse to one another with less disruption than when they come out to the whiteboard. Since the students aren’t standing in front of the whiteboard there are no issues with shadows or other class members being unable to see. Some students who are extremely reluctant to come out to the board will happily use the mouse from their seat.
Only one student can use the mouse at a time – but since most interactive whiteboards can only be used by student at a time, that’s not really a great disadvantage.
As a teacher, I can easily take back control at any time—all I have to do is unplug the receiver for the wireless mouse.
I’m sure I’m not the first person to think of this—in fact I can’t believe this idea has only just occurred to me—but it’s been a really effective way to involve students. I’m sure I’ll be doing this a lot in future. In fact I have a strong suspicion that I may have rendered my very expensive SMARTboard redundant. Mind you, there are no SMARTboards at the school where I’m working from September. I’ll just take my £5 mouse.
Photo: Cheesy Cat and Mouse Pic by fozzeee on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons Licence.
[Post originally published on my learning (b)log]
One for the Interactive Whiteboard: Jigsaw Planet October 10, 2009
Posted by loislindemann in : interactive whiteboard, teacher tools , add a commentJigsaw Planet is a site that allows you to upload images and create jigsaws from them. You can then challenge someone to complete the puzzle. It makes a really nice activity for the interactive whiteboard. Click on one of the images below to try an example:
Eiffel Tower
How to draw a pie chart The site is free (there are options to purchase software, but I haven’t tried this), but there are a couple of limitations: the images cannot be larger than 2048 x 2048 pixels and they must be in jpeg format.
The person completing the online jigsaw has the option to view the image, or use a ‘ghost’ – a faint copy of the image to help them.
Images don’t have to be restricted to pictures, I’ve created some examples that include text as well. The possibilities are endless, you can create jigsaws from photos, diagrams, maps, revision notes, mind maps, family trees, sequences of numbers or sequences of diagrams…
Since this activity involves asking students to look at an image in great detail, it could be used in a variety of ways, with or without the image and/or ghost options:
- as a lesson starter, with a follow up discussion about the image
- as an introduction to a topic
- as a revision tool
- to encourage students to look closely at the detail in a map
- to ask students to use what they know about a family (eg from history, or from a book, or from clues in a logic problem) to reconstruct a family tree
- as a way of asking students to think about patterns in sequences of numbers or diagrams
- if a symmetrical design is used, students can use the properties of the design to help them complete the puzzle
The jigsaws don’t have to be used on an interactive whiteboard, teachers can also provide links to allow students to complete these on a computer (perhaps as part of a web quest) or even embed them in a class web page. Alternatively, why not ask the students to create an image and make a puzzle of their own?
Any more ideas or suggestions? Feel free to leave a comment.
…and finally – a big thank you to Tom Barrett for sharing this idea.
One for the Interactive Whiteboard: Classtools Fruit Machine October 6, 2009
Posted by loislindemann in : interactive whiteboard , add a comment
The fruit machine is a fun way of picking students randomly.
It’s easy to set up: just go to the Classtools website and enter a list of names. You can copy the names from a list made on a word processor or spreadsheet—then you don’t have to keep typing them each time. As soon as you have entered the list, just click the button that says ‘Fruit Machine’ and kerching—up comes a name.
Once a student’s name has been selected, you have the option to remove them from the list, or you can leave them in for another chance to be chosen. This will definitely keep students on their toes!
This is great for selecting students to answer questions or present results in class. It could also be used to randomly select pairs or groups of students.
Alternatively, why not enter a list of keywords instead of names? Then use the fruitmachine to select one at random and ask students to explain what it means.
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