Smartboard Training

At the beginning of the week both the ICT and modern languages electives were given training for the Smartboard.
I found this training extremely useful as the technology is designed for and frequently used in classrooms therefore all the skills we were learning could be directly transferred into classrooms.
We were learning the basic skills like moving the objects, resizing, writing in different colours etc which was necessary and needed but we also learned how to use tools which made lessons which could have previously been simple or boring into something a bit more exciting and engaging.
I really liked the idea of using different ways of revealing answers, methods such as erasing, dragging objects onto colours, sliding and linking question pages to the answers. This was all made possible by contrasting background colours with that of the written answers. All this could be done whilst pupils come up to the board and write over anything with a pen.
The technology makes the lesson engaging for the pupils and is easy to use for the teacher.
The possibilities are endless for any subject and pupils can really be involved in the activities!
The voting systems are a fantastic tool for the classroom as each pupil can type in their own ID and the teacher can see who is answering and record their answers from every vote ever made. Their assessment is automatically saved and easily accessible.
The voting systems can also be confidential so are similar to Poll4 in this respect but are better as they are already linked to the Smartboard and do not need each pupil to have a device linked to the internet.

Collaborative Task

In the most recent input Sharon assigned us a collaborative task in which we were to create a video in which we were to make a video using Animoto.
Our group created a Wordle using words from a collaborative wiki.
I liked the idea of a space where each person could input ideas at the same time. This would defiantly work in the classroom as it could be used in the same way as mind-mapping. Instead of calling out answers with the teacher recording, the document could be shown on the interactive whiteboard whilst pupils are typing in ideas. This benefits pupils who may not want to answer in class.
We also needed to use Zamzar to convert our picture files into JPEG format. We've used Zamzar before when converting music files for our animations and I think it a very valuable website for teachers as before I wouldn't have known how to do this and may have had to use another resource or no resource at all.
The collaborative document could be useful for homework as it could be accessed from home computers.
Another good use for a document like this is for pupils questions. If pupils are finding an  certain aspect of an activity difficult then it could highlight to the teacher that something specific was not properly explained during the introduction of their lesson. Instead of the teacher finding that the pupils are struggling by helping several pupils individually the teacher could see quickly that a task may be causing confusion or difficulty.
The collaborative document is similar to Poll4 which allows pupils to vote or comment on a particular question. This may or may not be anonymous which allows the same benefits for quiet pupils.