Technology for Instruction and Assessment

Craig OwensDirector of Technology

Montrose Area School Districtcowens@masd.info

Agenda

• Interactive Whiteboards and Presentation Technologies

• Student Response Systems• Web 2.0 - Great New Resources• Educational Use of Blogs• Learning Communities• Additional Resources

Interactive Whiteboards

• Display and interact with your computer desktop environment

• Robust software tools• Many flavors

– Touch board– LCD– Acoustic

Interactive Whiteboards

What do I need?– Computer $900– Interactive Whiteboard $1,500– Digital Projector $700

$3,100

Anything else?– Projector Mount $500– Signal Splitter $120– Controller $600

Interactive Whiteboards

• So what’s the big deal?– WOW factor means student engagement– Quickly access internet resources– Target student attention– Highly visual– Manipulative – Kinesthetic/Tactile – Saves time (eventually)– Complex modeling made easy

Interactive Whiteboards

• Some example activities:– Greater than or less than? – Billy Bug – If You Were the President  – Smart Notebook Activities

Student Response Systems

• Get instantaneous formative or summative assessment data.

• Can feed back to a gradebook• Great for quiz games / review activity• RF vs. IR• Handhelds can also be used

Student Response Systems

• CPS – Classroom Performance System– www.einstruction.com– Integrated gradebook and question

builder

• ActiVote– Integrates into Promethian whiteboards

Blogs

• Blogs are web-based journals that generally allow comments

• Web + Log = Weblog = Blog• Easy way to start blogging:

– www.blogger.com– www.wordpress.com– www.typepad.com – www.edublogs.org

Blogs

• Use a blog for:– Students respond to a writing prompt– Cooperative writing / writing chain– Discussion/debate on a prompt– Create a class webpage

• Linking to items related to curriculum

– Personal/Professional Enrichment

Blogs

• Tips for classroom use of blogs:– Don’t kill writing with over-assessment –

set tasks that allow for deviation and subversion

– Incorporate blogs as essential components of your course

– www.classblogmeister.com