Whiteboards Big and Small

ActivInspire

I am very excited about starting work on our ActivInspire projects. Promethean boards are a very common type of technology in classrooms. I believe this tool is an excellent resource for creating engaging presentations for classroom practice. There are a variety of resource packs that enable the presentation to become interactive, which is always a plus for students. When I was in high school, my classmates loved to have the opportunity to write or draw on the whiteboard. Promethean boards take traditional whiteboards to another, higher, level. With this tool, teachers are able to create pages in which students can interact with the material in many ways, including magic ink, move to reveal, and infinite cloner. I am very excited to create my project using these tools. I hope that I will have access to this great technology in my future classroom. 

On a separate note, a couple of years ago, I invested in an iPad. I love it! There are many things that I use it for daily from school assignments to games and TV. I have loved downloading long reading assignments instead of printing them, using the Blackboard app to check announcements, and, on the nonacademic side, catching up on TV shows and playing games. iPads have become very popular in education as well. There are many websites that provide information about the best apps for the classroom. In fact, one of the first things I researched about my iPad is how I can use in my classroom. One of the best uses I have found is recording examples and lectures for students in an app called, Educreations. In this app, teachers are presented with a virtual whiteboard on which they can record notes and examples while the app records voice narration. After a lesson is completed, teachers can upload it to their website. For students who miss a day of class this is a great way to help them catch up on the missed material. Additionally, teachers can post helpful suggestions for homework in a Kahn Academy style video. For these reasons, I definitely think that I want to incorporate this into my classroom.