Wii and iPods at home, Activboards at school

By Heather Smith 
Eden Daily News
August 14, 2007  

   

 

 

REIDSVILLE - Reidsville High School English teacher Wayne Knight stood before what looked like an ordinary white board. The board displayed a Web site.

"This is great. I can show the kids a video about D.H. Lawrence before I have them read Sons and Lovers," Knight said.

Using a special stylus, Knight tapped the board and picked a video about classic authors. He inserted the video into a presentation he was building, and he played it on the interactive Activboard.

Rockingham County schools received a grant to buy 130 Activboards for the 2007-08 school year. Each school got at least two of the boards, which have been installed this past summer. Reidsville High School received 17. Williamsburg Elementary School has an Activboard in each third- and fourth-grade classroom.

Marea Bridges, instructional technology specialist for the schools, has been teaching two-day workshops to prepare teachers to use Activboards this fall.

A teacher uses the stylus much like a computer mouse - to open and close applications, to scroll and to select. But the user can write directly on the desktop, much like football commentators do when analyzing play or formation.

Testing on material that has just been taught can be done immediately using Activote. The hand-held, half-egg-shaped pods operate on radio frequencies and are distributed to each student. With them, teachers can also take attendance and administer tests.

Multimedia lessons are designed with software called Activstudio. Video, pictures, animations and sounds can be incorporated into electronic lessons called flipcharts. The software can link to different types of documents, such as PowerPoint presentations, Word documents and Excel files.

Teachers can play a video about DNA, circling important words or drawing arrows to certain amino acids, then give a pop quiz to find which students understand the concept and which need to be retaught.