Are they Smart...boards?

I love corny jokes, but I feel like that didn't even pass for a joke. Whoops. Anyways, this week's post involves the use of interactive whiteboards, mainly SmartBoards. During my stint at Teachers College, I have visited various classrooms and schools, and have been student teaching in differing settings. Public, private, D75, CTT/ICT, general education... most classrooms I have seen have and make some use of SmartBoards. In fact, the one classroom that I do not see with a SmartBoard is the (very expensive) private school in which I currently student teach. But then, I can see that they do not have much need for one and would not make efficient use of one. More on that later. To begin with, I'd like to consider the classrooms that I've seen which have SmartBoards, and how they were used by the teachers. 

For my mini case study, I will use my previous student teaching placement. This was a 1st-grade CTT/ICT classroom in NYC (UWS/Harlem). The students with IEPs had various levels of academic difficulties, but they were not far behind grade level content. This, however, was the case of the majority of the students in this class regardless of disability. With this class, the SmartBoard was used mainly as a substitute for an overhead projector/video display. That is, I didn't see much difference when my cooperating teachers planned to use the SmartBoard, but could not due to technical difficulties, and instead had to use other means (chart paper, the whiteboard, etc.) It definitely did serve as a motivational tool, which greatly supported some of the students in class that had trouble focusing. I just feel like with such an (expensive) expansive tool, the teachers could have done so much more. For example, it would have been great to see differentiated material within the lessons, and have the students come up in pairs and collaborate on an activity within the whole-group setting. I am definitely excited to bring out the honey badger in this assignment, as I really am not that experienced with this technology and appreciate the simple yet brilliant idea of putting a brain in a whiteboard.

As for my current placement, I student teach in a private ABA school and my classroom consists of 8 students with Autism Spectrum Disorders. There are 4 teachers in the room, excluding me, and most of the day is spent working in dyads with a teacher. In short, there isn't that much whole-group time spent in front of a board. Also, in line with the philosophy of ABA, it is important that whatever work the student produces is accounted for and graphed into a trajectory of that student's learning of what is being taught. This all renders the use of SmartBoard relatively unnecessary. However, throughout the week I will note to see where and how a SmartBoard can be used in the two periods of whole-group instruction - morning meeting and science, both 20 minutes - that will be instructive and assistive in student learning.

Web 2.0

As a learner, I've found that the best way for me to study - to understand and internalize - a concept was to organize all the important information in a manner that flowed naturally, all the while fitting together to support the main idea. I utilized study method in my undergraduate years, creating concept maps by hand that were color coded, succinctly labeled, and properly sequenced. This took a great deal of time, as I made mistakes through the learning process. Which made me wonder, if only there was a way to do this on the computer, where I can adjust the size of text boxes to appropriately fit all the ideas and information while creating something that visually supported my learning. Popplet is a web application (also available as an iOS app) that essentially performs this job. Popplet has an easy to use interface, which is appealing to users of all ages. I could see this being useful for students, especially students with learning disabilities, in analyzing and evaluating information, piecing together parts of a whole to support comprehension. Additionally, this tool allows... drumroll please... real-time collaboration so that students can support each other in creating concept maps. It would be really great to also print these maps out and use student-created classroom charts throughout units to further support their learning.

Finally, Stixy is another useful real-time collaborative tool, essentially serving as a bulletin board for projects. With this tool, students can post their ideas, support their ideas with uploaded images, documents, and to-do lists. Stixy can serve as a sounding board for ideas, as well as planning and managing next steps in creating a final product. Personally, it reminds me of my desk when I'm working on a final paper, where I can place notes, reading materials, to-do lists, etc., in strategic spots, but then it also has the potential as the ideas build to become a semi-organized mess. It would be important, especially when other people are collaborating on a Stixy board, to maintain some sort of order so that the bulletin board will make sense.

Ultimately, I adore tools that allow me to make sense of a complicated problem/concept. It breaks information down to it's pieces, all the while maintaining the bigger picture. The recent Showtime drama, Homeland, utilizes an amazing concept map, as depicted in the picture below.

Color-coded and everything. Organization is the key to success.

Accessible Instructional Media

After playing around with Kurzweil, I have decided that it is a pretty unique and definitely valuable tool. The Kurzweil file I created is both a specialized format as well as an alternate format, and a modification to the text. The student that I tutor has good sight reading skills, but has trouble focusing and maintaining attention, which does not help his poor reading comprehension. He also has trouble piecing together the main idea of the story, recalling important details, and sequencing events. I figured, with his following along with the read aloud, he wouldn't need to focus on reading the right words, but instead focus on what the story is mainly about and the important details. I created a sticky note to let him know what he will need to pay attention to, highlighted important details, and embedded comprehension questions within the text. I can't wait to see what he thinks of the program and how effective it can be. Kurzweil also has an iPad app (which we as a class do not have access to -insert sad face-) but I will just have to bring my laptop when I see him.