Archive for July, 2010

Interactive Whiteboard Review August 2010

July 31st, 2010 Simon
iwbsurvey2010

Love them or hate them, Interactive Whiteboards are the number one resource on most Irish teachers’ wish lists for the classroom.  Since starting my reviews of them over three years ago, the market has become completely saturated with different makes and models all competing to be the number one board in Ireland.

At a conservative estimate, I think that about 70% of Irish schools possess at least one IWB.  I would hazard a guess that 40-50% of classrooms now contain IWBs.  This compares to my guess of less than 10% last year.  I’m not quite sure where the money has come from to buy these boards but there must have been a lot of cake sales in the last year.  Perhaps some of the government grants for ICT hardware were also used.

Two out of three teachers on my summer course, this year, had an Interactive Whiteboard in their classroom.  The majority (40%) had eBeam derivatives, 30% had Smartboards or Promethean boards and the rest had a mish mash of the others.

With such a big increase in IWBs in classrooms, the focus of Interactive Whiteboard courses and seminars has shifted.  Whereas in previous years, the focus of courses was on purchasing IWBs and showing the basics of how to use them, this year teachers wanted to know what to do with the board in their room.  That is, they wanted to know how to use the software that came with the actual board in their classroom.

With so many different types of board, each coming with their own individual software,  it’s an impossible task.  When it’s all stripped down though,  every Interactive Whiteboard is only as good as the teacher who is using it.  Having said that, some Interactive Whiteboards make the job of the teacher easier. More than ever before, buying an Interactive Whiteboard is a similar experience to buying a car.

Many potential purchasers will be brand-loyal, some will want features that other boards don’t have, others will demand luxury “leather-seat style offerings” such as electronic height control and so on.  Some boards will have excellent software “built-in” and with others you’ll need to add it on.

With all this in mind, my review below is merely my own opinion of what I like in an IWB.  I’m not brand-loyal.  I need to interact with my finger. I like good value for money.  I insist on decent after-sales service.  Whatever your own thoughts, this review is complemented by my Interactive Whiteboard App, which is available on http://www.anseo.net/apps/chooseiwb/ and it might help you with your decision in buying your next board.

So without further ado, here’s the top 26!

1. (1) Genee Powerboard (from €2,850, Prim-Ed)

This board has taken all the good things from every board on the market and put them into one amazing model. Genee are a trusted name in the UK and have complete classroom solutions including visualisers and slates. It beats every other board by having pseudo-gesture control. You can pick up their eraser from the “Smartboard style” tray and use it without pressing any buttons. If you pick up the blue pen, you can write in blue. It also allows the user to write on it with dry wipe marker. This is the board Smartboard should be making. As of June 2010, all Geneeboards sold by Prim-Ed are now dry-wipeable.
2. (2) Teamboard (from €2,900, Sight and Sound)
This board allows users to interact with both finger and pen. It also allows the user to write with dry-wipe markers. Another cool feature is the ability to record annotations made by dry wipe markers on to a computer without the projector switched on, which keeps it high up the list.
3. (4) IQ Board PS (from €1,995 2,195, Mediascene)
Mediascene are a company who have been selling IT equipment for over 25 years. They have made links with several companies and resell lots of different boards. Their own focus is on the IQ Board, which ticks all the boxes. They’ve even broken the €2,000 barrier for touch-based IWBs for a limited time putting them in third place. Update September 2010: This offer has now finished but it’s still a great price!
4. (3) Intech Easyboard (IR) (from €2,295, Neux)
This board has just come on the market and fulfils all the criteria I have for a board.  It is touch-based and dry-wipe marker enabled.  The board is of excellent quality and worth a look.  Its price places it high up the list.
5. (8) Hitachi Starboard (from €2,800, Prim-Ed / Interactive Classroom Solutions)
Prim-Ed have chosen the Hitachi board as their replacement for Promethean boards so now there are two excellent companies selling these boards. I would consider the Hitachi Starboard to be of the highest quality in terms of robustness, accuracy and guarantee. It allows interaction from finger and pen. It allows two handed interaction like in the film, “Minority Report”. It allows up to nine people to use the board simultaneously. You can use dry wipe markers on the board. This board is always going to be slightly higher in price than the rest but Hitachi are a trusted brand and their service and guarantee can’t be beaten.
6. (-) Panaboard (from €2800, Prim-Ed)
This is the newest IWB on the market and is being sold by Prim-Ed.  It fulfils all criteria in that one can use dry-wipe markers and one’s finger on it.  A cool feature is that the board recognises “accidental” touches of the board and ignores them.  The software that comes with it is good too.  As it’s being sold by Prim-Ed, you can expect good after-sales service.
7. (5) Traceboard (from €2,495, Lennox Lab Supplies)
This board allows users to interact with both finger and pen. It also allows the user to write with dry-wipe markers. It is very accurate due to the mesh surface. Guarantee and service is excellent. Training is thorough. Double-clicking on the board can be a little tricky.
8. (9) Cleverboard Dual (from €2,400, Clever Products)
Exactly the same as the TouchIT below, this board is now being sold by a conglomerate of 4 companies under the name Clever Products.  They have reduced the price significantly and are providing a brilliant after sales service, including a web site with additional resources for the board.
9. (6) TouchIT (from €2,580, Resources 4 Learning)
This board allows users to interact with both finger and pen, using infrared beams to map the cursor position. It also allows the user to write with dry-wipe markers and has an enamel magnetic surface. Service is extremely helpful. The updated software has made the board even more accurate and user friendly than before. It has also lowered its price.
10. (7) IMEX Touch (from €2,795, IMEX)
IMEX Touch is a touch-based IWB which allows dry wipe markers to be used on it. IMEX have a 75% market share in Northern Ireland and are beginning to make their mark in the south. Their accompanying software is good too.
11. (10) Smartboard (from €3,500, Various Suppliers)
The most famous IWB of all allows users to interact with their finger or pen. However, be careful – it doesn’t allow you to use dry wipe markers on it. The software supplied is excellent but doesn’t have a primary school feel to it. Service and guarantee are good.
12. (11) Vosa iBoard Multi Touch (from ???, MRP)
I still can’t get in touch with the company who sell these boards despite several attempts. I’ll try again as I believe this could be potentially an excellent board.
13. (12) Vosa iBoard Touch (from ???, MRP)
I haven’t seen this board in action but it looks like it is similar to the Smartboard and I would imagine that it is a lot cheaper. It may get a higher rating when I am given a demo from the company.
14. (13) Epson Brightlite (from €1,800, Epson Ireland)
This is the first projector available in Ireland with inbuilt interactivity tools. Basically there’s an infrared device built into the projector which shoots beams onto any hard surface. Using a magic pen, much like the eBeam, (but smoother), it turns any surface into an IWB. Eventually all projectors might do this and it will surely end the life of Promethean and eBeam and all of their clones.
15. (14) Rainbow IWB (from €1,995, Rainbow Education)
These boards use the eBeam as their method of power. It now comes bundled with some excellent software. They become good value for money if you buy them in bulk, and were the first short throw solution to break the €2,000 mark in Ireland.
16. (18) Promethean (from €2,750, Clarity)
Clarity are the new distributors of the Promethean board. Its biggest selling feature is its excellent software because the board itself only allows interaction from a “magic” pen. A price-drop and the fact that its excellent software comes free with it edges it further up the list.
17. (-) Hitachi Pen-Based Starboard (from €2,400, Interactive Classroom Solutions)
A budget version of the far-superior Touch-based Hitachi Starboard, this IWB has been tailored for schools on a budget.  It comes with Hitachi’s excellent next day swap in swap out service and might be a suitable solution for schools who like a “lite-version” of the other Hitachi board.
18. (17) Interwrite  (from €2,600, Imex)
This board works very much like the Promethean board but much better quality. It allows for dual interaction and its native software is pretty good.
19. (15) Clasus (from €2,899, Maltec Solutions)
This board is another Promethean clone but must reduce its price now to compete.
20. (16) Cleverboard 3 (from €2,995, Shaw Scientific)
The Cleverboard came down in price dramatically. It is now almost at a competitive price with Promethean and IMEX.
21. (23) 3M board (from €3,000, 3M)
This board uses eBeam technology. It boasts a really good projector but that’s about it. Although it’s much cheaper than last time, it’s still overpriced.
22. (21) Mimio (from €1,900, Diskovery)
Mimio is similar to the eBeam, using the same technology. Again, it only accepts input from a battery-powered pen. Doesn’t seem to be used as much as the eBeam but is not a reflection on its effectiveness. It is slightly stronger than the eBeam due to its handwriting recognition.  A Mimioboard is due out soon, which should be interesting.
23. (20) EBeam (from €1,900, Resources 4 Learning)
The eBeam is a dongle that converts any flat surface into an Interactive Whiteboard. It’s at the centre of many IWBs on the market and uses infrared signals for input. Only accepts input from a a battery powered pen. I don’t think you can get this board installed so you’ll have to buy projector, etc. separately.
24. (19) Intech Portable IWB (from €1,595, Neux)
Using the same technology as the Epson Porjector and the Onfinity below, this is a much cheaper version of the same technology. The dongle itself costs only €295 and I’ve added €1,300 for short throw projector, speakers, whiteboard and instalation costs, which may even be an over-estimate.  However, I’m not sure how well it works with ultra-short throw projectors so may not be suitable for those purchasing them.
25. (22) Onfinity (from €2,200, Sligo Graph)
Just when I thought the Onfinity had disappeared from Ireland, I found out that there’s a company in Sligo selling these devices. They work by placing they beside the projector and it throws out infrared rays to a surface. Essentially it’s the technology the new Epson projector is using. I don’t think these guys install the device for you so this is an estimate. I’m also not sure how effective these are with ultra short throw projectors.
26. (24) Vosa iBoard (from ???, MRP)
This board allows users to interact with a battery-powered pen. It uses the same technology as eBeam. A feature that the salesman didn’t see as a big selling point is its height-adjustability, unique for this price-bracket. Disadvantage: No finger interaction and no way of knowing the price yet. As prices have changed so much, I’m not sure what the price of this will be.
Posted in Interactive Whiteboards Tags: , 1 Comment »

Saving Money for ICT

July 30th, 2010 Simon
money

I came across a great article from Open Source Schools, a British web site, that promotes using free software in schools.  The author, Miles Berry, a senior lecturer in the Roehampton University, gives his top ten tips for schools to save money on technology.  From an Irish perspective, I looked at some of his suggestions.

The first suggestion is a subject close to my heart.  It’s software.  Without software, every computer is useless.  You can’t work an IWB without software let alone a laptop or any device.  However, I hate having to pay for it, especially as educational software tends to be overpriced.  Luckily, I’m not alone in thinking this and there are hundreds of free software available that are great for educational use.  Instead of Microsoft Office, OpenOffice is a free alternative.  Instead of Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop, the GIMP is a great alternative (though it has an unfortunate name).  Instead of Paint, TuxPaint does the business.  In fact, there are very few programs out there that don’t have a free alternative.  Even MS Windows has a free alternative – Linux.  I use Linux at home on my computer since it started getting old and it now runs twice as fast as it ever did and I don’t miss any of my previous software.  As well as all this software, a lot of software is now being put “on the cloud”.  You’ve probably been using the cloud for years without knowing it was called the cloud.  If you used Hotmail, Eircom or Yahoo to check your email online, you’ve been using cloud computing.  Essentially, all it means is that rather than your data being stored on your computer, it is all stored on the Internet.  Software that is free and available online includes: Google Apps for Education, TES iBoard and many many others.

Berry continues with something else I have been talking about, especially since the Smart Schools Initiative.  With your ICT grant, you had to buy brand new computers, which cost €400 at a minimum.  While they may be shiny and new, they have more power than schools need.  A while ago, we reached a point where computers running Windows XP were good enough for schools.  This led to companies springing up selling refurbished computers, which I believe are good enough for schools.  They cost as little as €75 each and they work perfectly.  For a full desktop with flat screen monitor running Windows, you’ll easily pay €180 or thereabouts.  This gives you the ability to buy 3 computers for the same price as one computer using the framework and you’re supporting a greener environment.  Better yet is to ask for donations directly from businesses, colleges and even homes.  They come in at a more palatable price of free.

Finally, Berry mentions sharing.  Every school, despite what we think, has a large store of digital resources.  These could be in the form of PowerPoint presentations, IWB Flipcharts, Word Documents, PDFs, Data files from certain software, etc.  Why not upload it to the Internet for others to use?  Even if you don’t feel they’re very good, why not let someone take your effort, improve on it and put it back online for everyone.  This is how some of the best free software becomes available on the Internet, through community development.  There are also a handful of Irish teachers who have done just that.  David Kearney provides hundreds of flipcharts for IWBs on his site, cbiproject.net and Damien Quinn offers loads of printable resources on his popular site, Seomra Ranga.

All the above can cost absolutely nothing.  Berry suggests bringing volunteers into the equation.  With so many skilled people out of work or students looking for valuable work experience, there’s never been a better time to offer out opportunities for people to develop their skills or perform some feats of altruism.

As I’ve said before on this web site, I believe the focus of the Smart Schools Initiative is wrong.  The focus should not be solely on hardware as it is now.  We need to invest in services and support for these services.  The hardware should be cheap and as free as possible.  My school is in the middle stages of going down an interesting route with free technology and we’re hoping for it to be a great success.  With the right support and backing from the right people, I believe we will be able to offer our children the best ICT experience possible.

Posted in Opinion Tags: 3 Comments »

Wordle on the Whiteboard

July 28th, 2010 Simon
anseowordle

It’s great that there are so many UK and US created resources that Irish schools can “borrow” to use to support our curriculum. In the last number of articles, we’ve seen how our younger children can be exposed to brilliant literacy lessons from Literactive and iBoard.

At the senior end of things, children can be exposed to a number of resources that probably weren’t originally designed with them in mind, but they make excellent literacy learning tools. These web sites are common for the Bebo/MySpace generation -- essentially personalising text, graphics, etc. For example, a child can type in some words they wish to learn how to spell into a particular web site, and the words will come out all glittery and pink (if they wish). There are a number of these sites which make text more interesting to look at. However, most of them contain “teenage-oriented” advertising so they must be monitored before letting our little ones loose on them. A Google search for “Family friendly personalised text” might do the trick! However, as this is a very individual thing and not all children will like sparkly pink spellings, this kind of thing might not be suited to an Interactive Whiteboard.

What is brilliant for an Interactive Whiteboard (but probably equally good with just a projector) is Wordle.  For those of you who haven’t used Wordle, prepare to be amazed.  Like most really great ideas, Wordle is a very simple concept.  Grab some text, paste it into a box and Wordle makes a “word picture” out of it.  While that may not seem like such an amazing thing, think about other simple ideas -- like Twitter -- that have gone on to transform the way we communicate and share news.

Wordle can be used in loads of brilliant educational ways.  I’m going to show you an example of how we can use Wordle as a starter lesson on “Alice in Wonderland”.  After that I’ll show some screenshots of other Wordle ideas for the primary classroom.

Hopefully, you’re fairly impressed by this so far and you can see the educational benefits already.  Below is a screenshot of a Wordle with a recent news story.

From the bigger words, it’s fairly easy to see what this article was about.  Some schools copy the text from the front page of the newspaper, (e.g. the Irish Independent or the Irish Times), and make a Wordle from it.  When the children come into school, they look at the Wordle and jot down some notes about what they think the Wordle is about or simply have a discussion about the news of the day using the Wordle as a stimulus.

How else can we use Wordle?  Here’s a Wordle of a story that an inexperienced writer wrote about his day in school.  We haven’t removed common words so check the image below and see what the child might be able to learn the next time he drafts his story.

It’s easy enough to tell what word this child was using too much!

How about lists of words for phonics.  Below is list of words ending in “tion”.

Or how about some grammar on homophones?  This is great for an interactive whiteboard as children can match the homophones using the  pen tool.

And it doesn’t have to be limited to English.  Here’s a nice Wordle of Irish words.  Just be aware that some of Wordle’s fonts don’t show fadas.

Away from literacy a bit, but here’s a Wordle of children’s favourite football teams.  Children typed in their top three teams and created the Wordle.  The bigger the word, the more popular the team.  Notice that “two word” teams like Man Utd or Aston Villa get treated as separate words.

There’s loads of other ways a Wordle can be used and this proved very popular with participants on the course.  If you’ve any further ideas yourself, why not add them by commenting below?  Include an URL if you can too.

And if that wasn’t enough for you, check out this web site that shows 45 ways to use Wordle in the Classroom!

Posted in Interactive Whiteboards Tags: , , , , 1 Comment »

Great Videos for Interactive Whiteboard lessons

July 25th, 2010 Simon
seeinginthedark

Thanks to Russel Tarr (@russelltarr on Twitter) for sharing a link to over 100 videos from Teachers TV that give practical starting points for lessons using an Interactive Whiteboard. The videos themselves don’t show Interactive Whiteboard in action.  Rather they are stimuli for children to begin discussing a subject

For example, I looked at the video “Seeing in the Dark”, which looks into the science of light.  The video itself shows a man bringing his dog out for a walk at night.  Under the video are a number of links to web sites that can be used to support the concept being taught, for example, in this case there was links to the BBC’s school section on Key Stage 2 Science and the topic of light.

All videos seem to be short, around the three minute mark and are instantly engaging.  For those with poor Internet speeds, one can download the videos too.  The full set of videos are available on: http://www.teachers.tv/primarystarts

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Using an IWB with Literacy for infants

July 23rd, 2010 Simon
Literactive

The second day of my Interactive Whiteboard course was dedicated to literacy. In this article, I’m going to look at two great web sites, which help children learn literacy skills…and neither of them are Starfall.com. (However, for the very very few of you who haven’t heard of Starfall, check it out -- it’s great!)

Literactive

Literactive.com is a web site that helps children learn almost every early literacy strategy they need at infant level.  It contains a complete phonics programme, dozens of nursery rhymes, fairy tales and poems and hundreds of activities to support literacy skills such as reading, spelling and writing.  Although it was developed in America, almost all of its content is relevant to the Irish curriculum.  With so much in it, I told the participants that they could easily stick this on their IWB in their infant classroom and retire!  In order to use Literactive, one has to register an account with the site but after that it is free to use.  In fact, lots of the site is available to download if you work in an area with dismal broadband.

TES iBoard

The second web site that I showed was the TES iBoard.  The story behind the iBoard begins with an ex-teacher by the name of Ian Rawlins who designed a full Key Stage 1 curriculum for any Interactive Whiteboard.  In November 2009, it was acquired by the people behind the TES newspaper, (an English Teacher newspaper) and is now free for anyone to use.  Basically, the TES iBoard gives access to anyone who wants free Interactive Whiteboard content for every subject in the UK curriculum.  Like the Literactive stuff, most of it is applicable to the Irish curriculum.

In this article, I’m going to show a complete early phonics programme, similar to Jolly Phonics, but free.  I’m also going to go through a number of activities that could be used for literacy using the theme of a nursery rhyme.

So let’s get going!  I’m going to start off with the Literactive web site, which can be found on http://www.literactive.com. As I mentioned before, you need to register an account with this web site before you get going.  This is easily done.  Simply click on the register button (or any of the links on the front page) and you’ll meet the registration page.

Fill out the details and click on the register button and you’ll be sent your password to your email account.  The first thing I’m going to look at is the “Road to Reading” section.  Once you click, a new window pops up as the course loads up.

Although incomplete at time of writing this, there’s more than enough to keep a Junior Infant teacher busy for the whole year.  The screencast below should give you a feel of what to expect from some of the activities.

Literactive is also brilliant for nursery rhymes.  Below is a screencast of their take on Humpty Dumpty.

Whilst on the subject of Humpty Dumpty, I’m going to skip over to the TES iBoard, which also has a huge variety of nursery rhymes and activities.  There’s no need to register to use the iBoard so you can start by typing http://tes.iboard.co.uk into your Internet browser and begin.  The screencast below will show you a few activities relating to Humpty Dumpty for literacy.  I’ve also chosen to integrate the subject of music too so you can have a look at what I’ve done there.

As you can see from both the sites above, there are loads of other activities that can be done with an infant classroom for literacy.  In the next article, I’ll be moving on to using the Interactive Whiteboard for spellings, grammar and fairy tales.  I’ll be sticking with the TES iBoard for these topics so have a play around and we’ll see you there!

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Fáilte Romhat, iPad, go hÉireann

July 22nd, 2010 Simon
ipad

Today the iPad is being launched in Ireland. So while you are queuing outside your local Currys or PC World to get your hands on one, I thought I’d give you something to read!

I bought my iPad in America in April.  The 3G model wasn’t out at the time and I bought the cheapest model available – the 16GB version for $499.  In Ireland, it’s being sold for €499, slightly more.  Having looked at the price plans for the 3G version for O2 and Vodafone, I’m kinda glad I was so impulsive.

It seems it’s going to cost €19.90 per month for 5GB of bandwidth with O2 and €20 per month for the same with Vodafone.  I’m happy enough to pull out my iPhone for Internet access if my iPad isn’t in a wifi zone at those prices!

Anyway, if you feel that these prices are reasonable, the minimum price a 3G iPad will cost you is €599.  As storage doubles, add €100 for each step up to the maximum of 64GB.

So why would you want to part with almost 2 weeks wages for a giant iPod Touch, as it’s been dubbed by some?

For me, there’s a number of reasons all of which are completely unimportant but very cool.  Firstly it looks amazing.  The minute you see it, you’ll fall in love.  Secondly, it is really fast.  Apps load a hell of a lot quicker than they do on the iPhone.  Thirdly, everything looks so much nicer.  All my apps without exception look and feel better on the iPad. Fourthly, I have instant access to the web.  I don’t have to wait for 30 seconds while it boots up out of hibernation – it’s just always ready.  Fifthly, it’s got a great battery life.  I have used it for a week before needing to charge it.

What apps do I use? The ones I use most for my personal life are Tweetdeck, Facebook, YouTube, Mail, Flipboard, VNC Viewer, Amazon Kindle, iBooks and Boggle (the dice-cum-board game).  I adore Boggle.  I am on my third book on the iPad and, yes, it is really easy to read on the screen.  My iPhone seems fiddly to use in comparison.

For work, the iPad has essentially replaced my Filofax.  At a touch (or a swipe) I have complete access to every single piece of information in the school, including policies, documents, contacts, etc.  This is because I have access to the wifi in my school and therefore access to the cloud system we have in place.  I can check how many children are absent on any given day.  I can make appointments to meet people quickly.  I can set targets and agendas for meetings.  It is brilliant.

However, most of my work isn’t administrative.  The vast majority of my work involves teaching children and I have downloaded and used a number of apps to help children learn.  I’ll go through some of them here very briefly:

  • FlashToPass – this is a really simple app that tests children’s ability in their maths tables.  They have to answer 50 questions at a particular level in as quick a time as possible.
  • Toy Story – Mine and the children’s favourite app.  It’s essentially an interactive reading book.  Children can listen to and read the story.  They can record themselves reading the story.  There’s a couple of songs to learn, a few pages to colour in and some games to play.  Not bad for free and kids love it.
  • AlphabetRacing – A nice way to teach handwriting for letters of the alphabet and digits.  I used this with some Junior Infant children and it was great to see how they learned the direction of writing.  They used their finger to write, which added a different element to things.
  • Pollock – Basically a canvas to spill paint on, Jackson Pollock style.  Great for mess-free art though I prefer the real mess on paper!
  • Tweetdeck – We used this app during our Twitter experiments, which went really well.

There’s a number of apps I’d like to use in the coming year as they look great!

  • Stanza/iBooks/Kindle – for reading
  • CityMaps2Go – for geography
  • Google Earth – for satellite images of where we are
  • Maps – for direction and mapping
  • Skype – for voice calls – due to no front facing camera
  • Boggle/Scrabble – for fun and word building
  • MindFire – great puzzle game for older children to make 24 from any 4 numbers
  • JamPad – a virtual piano keyboard for music
  • Pet the Animals – nice for younger children to recognise the sounds animals make
  • Dictionary – fairly self explanatory

Well whatever you do with your new iPad, enjoy it.  I have no regrets.  I use it every day and every night.  It will be the best impulse buy you’ll ever make.  Now get back to the queue – it’s not long now!

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Press Release: New Camcorder from Liosdoire

July 21st, 2010 Simon
Press Release: New Camcorder from Liosdoire

Liosdoire will be selling the KODAK Playsport camcorder ideal for the Classroom and outdoors which can record in YouTube resolution for easy uploading without having to go through the hassle of a conversion process. Kodak’s upcoming PlaySport video camera will target the YouTube generation who lead active lifestyles, boasting an underwater capture mode of up to 10 feet, while featuring electronic image stabilization that allows you to shoot full HD resolution video in virtually any environment without missing a beat. Other features include a 2? color display, 5-megapixel still captures, face tracking technology, an SD/SDHC memory card slot and easy video uploading via USB.

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Film in schools – the red carpet comes out

July 20th, 2010 rozz
fis31

It’s over!

Our 5 month film making project is completed. We submitted our film online to the euro creator website and now, we wait!

The last month of school involved editing, editing and more editing! Some interesting things we noted were the use of lighting and how important it is for continuity. While, we were shooting the “dance scene”, I stupidly turned on the lights. This resulted in some part of the film being well lit and others not. I movie, on the Mac does resolve this issue slightly. You can click on a scene and enhance the colour, brightness and saturation. But, it doesn’t totally solve it. The editing team also decided that next year, it would be good to invest in a lighting kit, they suggested a HD camcorder for filming next time.
Once we had completed the film and were pleased with sound and the look of it, we submitted it onto the eurcreator and got to work on some other projects-the Fis film premiere of “School days-the film” had to be organised.
We are in a brand new and amazingly well resourced secondary school, namely the Athy College. We are also very lucky to have a brilliant principal, Richard Daly, who allows us to share in his school’s facilities. He has a cinema in the school! It’s a 60 seated with blu Ray and HD technology and stereo surround. He runs a monthly film club in Athy with his 5th year students.
The 5th and 6th class students designed an invitation and poster and we selected the best one. The girl who designed these worked on a guest list and kept a tally of who had RSVPed back to the school! She was great, she showed great initiative and came into me one morning showing me the revised list structure she had made at home, complete with tick boxes!

The Fis film premiere went really well, we showed the parents first and then other select VIP, students from the local schools came and enjoyed refreshments in the Parents’ room afterwards.

I presented the children with a DVD afterwards, their own 5 minute memory of a busy and fulfilling 5 months in school. And that’s just for me!

I could write a thesis on what has been learned.  True integration of the curriculum.  Problem solving skills. Team work. Patience. Technology with the MacBook.  Confidence. Digital storytelling. Scritpwriting. Storyboarding. Film appreciation. Visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learning.

Most of all, the learning that happens when you utilise the children’s own personal talents, talents that don’t show themselves in your average maths or gaeilge lesson. Yes, those subjects are important, of course but the skills I hope the children have taken with them are life skills. People skills and understanding how a project works. I hope it has made school exciting for them. I hope it leads them to think, to think about careers or interests they may not have thought about before. It might sound corny but I hope it makes them realise they can excel in anything they want to, if they put the work and enthusiasm in.

Thanks you, Fis!

Posted in Fís Tags: , , 1 Comment »

Ipad available in Ireland

July 19th, 2010 admin
Toy Story on the iPad

Toy Story on the iPad

The iPad will be launched on Friday in Ireland. I’ve written some articles about iPads in the classroom. Must have app for me: Toy Story – great for reading, recording, rewarding and lots of other words beginning with “re!”

Posted in News Tags: 1 Comment »

Teachers’ views on IWBs

July 18th, 2010 Simon
DSCF0138 (Small)

In the first installment of my Interactive Whiteboard course, I spoke about how I gave an introduction to what interactive whiteboards were and how teachers can use them. Although IWBs, when used well, can be an excellent tool for teaching and learning, I dissected them and found that they don’t transform a teacher, they simply compliment a good teacher. So what did the 32 teachers on the course think about the various IWBs on the market? What makes them tick? What gets them angry? What makes them put the magic pen down?

We had 15 different types of Interactive Whiteboard in the venue.  They were all very kindly donated by their various companies for the full week of the course.  So before I begin, I’d should thank the following companies for their time and assistance.

  • Cleverproducts.ie (Cleverboard Dual)
  • 3M (3M projector)
  • Lennox Lab Supplies (Traceboard and eBoard)
  • Resources 4 Learning (TouchIT)
  • Interactive Classroom Solutions (Hitachi Starboards)
  • Prim-Ed (Panaboard and Geneeboard)
  • Net Communcations (Promethean)
  • Epson (Epson Britelite)
  • IMEX (Interwrite)
  • Toomey AV (Smartboard)
  • Mediascene (IQ Board)
  • Sight and Sound (Teamboard)

The course participants were challenged to get to grips with each of the boards and whatever the companies had left on them.  I had anticipated that teachers would generally move towards the boards they were most comfortable with – at least that’s what happened the last time.  This year most of the participants had an eBeam (or equivalent) in their classroom and only the 3M projector had this software installed on it.  Unsurprisingly, the favourite board on Day 1 was the one with the 3M projector.

There were a number of things that teachers learned during the hour and a half where they got to use at least 4 different boards.  Their task was to try and use the native software on each board to perform the basic functions of any IWB – drawing and highlighting, creating shapes and lines, importing clipart and images and using the other tools the software offered.  The idea behind this was to give teachers the opportunity to utilise the many different types of software that come with IWBs and be confident no matter what board they got.

Overall, it proved frustrating for participants.  The software that generally comes with interactive whiteboards isn’t usually user friendly, feature-rich or fun.  There are a few exceptions to this – Promethean’s ActivInspire being the more famed software for its usability.  However, teachers found the software that comes with the IMEX Interwrite and the IQBoard to be of comparable quality.  The secret of good software according to the participants was ease of use and lots of resources.  Many of the boards on the course used BoardWiz, which I reviewed a while ago.  The teachers found the software difficult to use initially and they didn’t like the small “wheel” that controls all the tools.  Once I had set it up to look more like the Promethean software, (toolbars on the right and big white canvas), it proved a bit more popular.

Another huge frustration for teachers was projectors – specifically projectors on tables.  I think it is safe to say that the wall-mounted projector is the only option acceptable to teachers today.  I was also amused when a participant got confused when she couldn’t move an object across the screen.  She was pressing her finger down with more determination without success.  Even I got puzzled for a brief second before realising she was using the Interwrite IWB, which is pen-based only!  In fact, teachers expressed that having a touch-enabled board was much better than a pen-based board.

For me, I learned a few things.  Firstly, Interactive Whiteboards break down. Regularly.   I spent a large amount of time plugging USB cables in and out of sockets and restarting computers.  I also found that if an IWB stopped working for any reason, teachers do not have the confidence to try and fix them.  Which is fair enough.  The only boards out of the 15 that didn’t need any fixing throughout the week were: Smartboard, Teamboard, Starboard, IQBoard and Interwrite.  In these cases, it was switch on and go!

Overall the first day of the course went well.  Participants got to rate each of the boards and it was interesting to see what they made of them and the software that came with them.  Day two of the course was to focus on literacy and in the next articles, I’ll be giving some tutorials in Literactive.com, the TES iboard, Wordle and Literacy Activity Builder.

Posted in Interactive Whiteboards Tags: , , , 3 Comments »
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