Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Capture Tool Making Words

Hi -

I am here with Leslie and we are planning the August Smartboard 101 conference. Her session is on using the capture tool. Here is a movie she just made about making words.

Enjoy - we are going back to planning.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Mix Freeze Group

The teachers in the Concord School District amaze me. They had so many great ideas last week at the SMARTboard workshop.

We were discussing how to keep all kids engaged in the learning when using the SMARTboard.

Several teachers use the morning message as a time to get all kids involved. Teacher's pose a question like, "What month were you born in?" in the morning message they write to the kids. The kids then go up to the SMARTboard and move an icon onto the graph to represent themselves. This works well since it is just on of the many jobs they have to do when they first get into the classroom. The data can then be revisited later with the Kagan cooperative learning structure Mix, Freeze, Group. (This ties responsive classroom, SMARTboard and cooperative learning together.)

Another great idea that Lisa had to involve the SMARTboard was to have the students that did not get into a group to make a new group by adding "virtual students." Watch the video on Mix, Freeze, Group to see how this plays out.

Barbara and Kathy have made many morning message graphs that can be found in the smartboard conference in the discussions area of first class.


Numbered Heads Together

Hello!

This is my first attempt at using video from the video camera. Bear with me until I get better at this. At last weeks workshop we discussed how to keep all our students engaged. One way to do that - smartboard or not - is to use Kagan Cooperative Learning Structures. (To learn more get yourself to a Kagan workshop, if you work for CSD tell Dorinda you want a Kagan workshop.) We have also made a template for the gallery... look in the teacher's resources folder.

This video show us learning Numbered Heads Together. The smartboard version uses the interactive dice to choose the student. Another use of the smartboard would be to have the student defend their answer with a visual or graph.

Notice the teachers sit back after the discussion. This is a sign that all members in the group know the answer (and explanation) and are ready to be called on.

This structure is powerful because:
a. it engages all students
b. it holds all students accountable for the answer to the question
c. is a random way to choose a student to answer a question (or come to the smartboard)

Enjoy, L

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Teaching Multiplication Number Sense

Hello!

I have had the honor of working with the most amazing teachers this summer! Back in June teachers at the curriculum institute improved many of the lessons we had started during the year, and many who have never even touched a smartboard jumped in with both feet and did a terrific job. This week at the tech integration institute we tried to connect many of the district initiatives (Smartboard, Everyday Math, Cooperative Learning, and Responsive Classroom).

On Tuesday one of our students was playing the multiplication version of the online game Sum Sense. Several times her answers to the nine facts were very unreasonable. On Wednesday I taught a small group mini lesson with the big idea: When you multiply by nine the product should be a little less than when you multiply the same number by ten. I am happy to say the students seem to get the idea by the time we were done.

Three teachers, Kristen, Mary and SueAnn learned how to make smartboard movies at teh institute and practiced by making this movie of the lesson they watched on Tuesdsay afternoon.

Take care, Linda

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Self Assessment

Self assessment is a key component in making students aware of what they will be accountable for on their unit assessment. Just as it is important within a lesson to identify goals, to give students purpose and understanding; it is also important to clearly show students what will be expected of them prior to an assessment.

I have used the Smartboard and the Everyday math self assessment to turn this into a whole group activity. Students are able to identify the skill, see an example of the skill, and decide their level of mastery in that skill.

In using the Smartboard, my goal is to incorporate more opportunities for students to see visual representations of the skill that they are being held accountable for. Students who feel that they have reached the level where they can explain it to others, are invited to come up and teach the class the skill using visuals that are provided, or visuals that they choose to create with the gallery.

Reflections

My fourth grade friend, Paul, and I had a great conversation yesterday. We talked about how a line of symmetry and a line of reflection are similar and different. Again, these concepts became very clear with the Smartboard technology.

In the video below Paul explains how he uses the camera capture tool to take a picture of a pre-image. That image is then flipped, resized and made transparent. (All of this can be done by selecting an object and going to the drop down menu.)

This method allows Paul get feedback on his work. He was able to check to see if he drew the reflection correctly.

Perimeter

This video is a companion to the area video. Area and perimeter are often confused. Hopefully using the smartboard to teach these concepts will clear up any miscommunication.

How to do it.

1. Capture the problem with the capture tool or type it in with the diagram.
2. Lock it down.
3. Make another line and label the length.
4. Use the order feature to bring it to front.
5. Now it can be moved and turned to form a line. This line is the perimeter of the distance around a polygon.