Smartboards--One New Thing

On Tuesday, I helped an English student teacher use our Smartboard in the media lab to display and teach about the great features of our new library system, Destiny. The Smartboard allows you to circle or underline with a special pen on a screen that looks like a whiteboard, but is connected to the computer. I was able to show students how to navigate in the library catalog, and point out features as one would do on a blackboard. Some of the new features include the ability for each student to create a list of desired books and websites for further research. The websites embedded in this catalog have all been reviewed by teachers & librarians, so they come complete with the proper bibliographic information. This is one step students won't get on Wikipedia. The student teacher was impressed with the idea and ease of using the Smartboard, and said her students got a lot out of my presentation. I still am insecure about actually setting up the board; you have to calibrate it according to the computer's physical location every time you use it, and I'm still new at this. But it is a tool I see so many uses for all over our building. We have a couple in classrooms, and many students remarked about using the Smartboard--they've seen it before.

Thing 13-Subscription Databases

Last week, I started trying to find reliable resources on genocide as it relates to Native Americans. I also wanted to compare that with the Holocaust. This search is to find materials for the classroom assignments Jim & Eric are using this spring. I tried both Proquest & EBSCO, and was disappointed in the lack of easy hits. I will be experimenting with different search terms. Most of the articles I found were too academic or only on the WWII Holocaust. It is a great concept for the students, and should make for interesting research. This is the tip of the iceberg in terms of research, I hope. It would be great to be able to create a webquest for this assigment.

Thing 6 and 7

In early December, my student teacher & I introduced the RPC to Laura Lanik's Humanities classes as they began an assignment to complete an iMovie on a social issues topic. At the first session, I had the students register with their email. As they ended the semester, Mrs. Lanik had them write responses on their use of RPC for me. Out of 47 responses, only 14 students had actually used the RPC and about half of them seemed to appreciate the help. Most students already use a daily planner & felt that RPC just was a duplication of effort. In our school, all 9th & 10th graders are given a daily planner and many teachers use it a way of giving students passes, so I think in a school where that doesn't happen, I can see RPC used more.
My own impressions of RPC are somewhat lukewarm. One of the problems with it is that there is no way for a student to actually look at RPC without registering first. It would be nice if they could look at the system first to see if it could be useful to them. I really like the links attached to the reminder emails, but these students didn't seem to use them. The visuals in RPC could be updated as well. In the future, I think I would use it only for really long-term projects, like History Day. I can see it used more effectively for middle school students.