How to set up a culture to connect and collaborate using technology ?
As I have shifted to a new school and referring to my previous blogs, trying to adapt into the new culture . So I wanted to explore the tech culture of the school and ways in which I could contribute.
To start off, I was just waiting to delve into the tech infrastructure and resources of the school in the last week. As I was so used to the use of smart boards and apps in my everyday class I could not just wait to see in what ways this school had something different and better to offer. After an initial round of survey I could finally gather a sufficient knowledge of the resources available and how easily was it available to a teacher .
Every class here is actually fitted with the state of the art interactive whiteboard called Promethean board which I had heard of but not used before. There is a projector in each of the rooms and the wiring has been done so efficiently that you just need your laptop, connect the VGA cable and the USB cable from the board and start using. Every teacher's laptop has the software Active Inspire installed and also gets a set of two interactive pens. So starting the class using the board is just a few minutes work. In my previous school the smart board software was installed in the fixed CPU s with the board and we could not connect the laptops. The process used here is much better as the teachers could actually go back and have everything in their laptop for further learning or work. So knowledge was not just not confined within the board on the wall of the classroom.
A quick exploration of the Promethean board exposed a wealth of stuff much greater than what I had used before. So I was quite happy with that.
Then next came was the survey of actually how was technology being integrated in the classroom. The students here, to my relief, do have access to laptops, but not a good idea of how actual learning can take place using the box and how the classroom can go flat. The first thing I wanted to ensure that the students of each of my classes had a virtual platform where they could connect and exchange of ideas could take place in the class and even when they are not in the class. I am an avid user of www.edmodo.com, and so I started by introducing this not only to my students but also in the Science teacher team so that effective connectivity and resource sharing remains.
The next part would have to be to orient the students to the benefits of the use of apps in the class. So in the next few weeks I would probably pave my way to introducing the series of Web 2.0 tools that would really benefit the students and engage them further. This would also be extended to the use of mobile phone as a multi tasker in a physics lab. So very soon would be blogging about the same.
As I have shifted to a new school and referring to my previous blogs, trying to adapt into the new culture . So I wanted to explore the tech culture of the school and ways in which I could contribute.
Every class here is actually fitted with the state of the art interactive whiteboard called Promethean board which I had heard of but not used before. There is a projector in each of the rooms and the wiring has been done so efficiently that you just need your laptop, connect the VGA cable and the USB cable from the board and start using. Every teacher's laptop has the software Active Inspire installed and also gets a set of two interactive pens. So starting the class using the board is just a few minutes work. In my previous school the smart board software was installed in the fixed CPU s with the board and we could not connect the laptops. The process used here is much better as the teachers could actually go back and have everything in their laptop for further learning or work. So knowledge was not just not confined within the board on the wall of the classroom.
A quick exploration of the Promethean board exposed a wealth of stuff much greater than what I had used before. So I was quite happy with that.
Then next came was the survey of actually how was technology being integrated in the classroom. The students here, to my relief, do have access to laptops, but not a good idea of how actual learning can take place using the box and how the classroom can go flat. The first thing I wanted to ensure that the students of each of my classes had a virtual platform where they could connect and exchange of ideas could take place in the class and even when they are not in the class. I am an avid user of www.edmodo.com, and so I started by introducing this not only to my students but also in the Science teacher team so that effective connectivity and resource sharing remains.
How effectively I am using edmodo as a connectivity tool in my class will come up in the upcoming blogs.
The next part would have to be to orient the students to the benefits of the use of apps in the class. So in the next few weeks I would probably pave my way to introducing the series of Web 2.0 tools that would really benefit the students and engage them further. This would also be extended to the use of mobile phone as a multi tasker in a physics lab. So very soon would be blogging about the same.
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