As schools return to in-person learning, technology plays a vital role in shaping the modern classroom. By spending less time troubleshooting and more time for collaborative learning, Hope Christian School (HCS) has adopted user-friendly technology to empower its staff and students. Despite the challenges of teaching both in-person and remote learners concurrently, HCS classrooms have found more ways to integrate tech with easy-to-use tools on Promethean ActivPanel displays.
“I brought in a bunch of teachers to learn more about the ActivPanel. The Promethean team let the teachers get on and actively use the panel. At the end of the meeting, the entire staff said, “If we can have an interactive board, I want this one.” – Danielle Eycke-Dixon, IT System Administrator.
With the ActivPanel installations completed in Summer 2020, HCS tech administrators began focusing on building a technology program that created a more cohesive learning environment. But when the pandemic forced schools into a crash course on remote education, they had to quickly transition to create a game plan that kept in-person learning safe and continuous.
To give students a more flexible learning experience at 25% capacity, HCS staff dedicated time over the summer to learn which tools to integrate on the panel to support hybrid learning. Eycke-Dixon and the HCS team began tangibly seeing how the panel hooked students’ attention by phasing in simple integrations, enhancing live communication.
“It was quite lovely to be able to bring all of what we’re learning through technology and allow students to be able to work remotely in groups using the breakout rooms, Google Slides, or making a website together,” added Johnson.
Crossing Boundaries with Technology
For Lisa Spangler, a high school Spanish and personal finance teacher at HCS, ActivPanel has increased her desire to integrate technology and culture into the classroom. Despite being used to bulb-based projectors for most of her career, the transition to ActivPanel has been seamless.
Spangler has continued unpacking ActivPanel features that prompt greater student engagement in a hybrid setting. For example, Spangler’s finance classes use Google Slides™ to analyze stock market trends. During a trading session, the Promethean Screen Share tool and MarketWatch™ app enable students (at home and in-person) to give real-time feedback on market-moving news. “The [ActivPanel] unlocks creative potential. They can now use technology as an analytical tool to create a sheet, display trend analysis, and dig deeper into course material,” said Spangler.
Despite the challenges of having students face-to-face and remote, EdTech has bridged a more culturally immersive experience for Spangler’s Spanish classes. As proof, Spangler has integrated ActivPanel to help her students grow confidence in real-world scenarios with native speakers. To gain confidence in their Spanish speaking skills, the panel connects a student in person and another at home to practice conversational dialogue. Spangler’s students apply high-frequency vocabulary through live-action role play to transform creative thinking.
Finding more ways to incorporate the panel into Spanish lessons, Spangler believes that each successive integration will continue to inspire active learning among her students.
“Compared to where we were last year without Promethean technology, ActivPanel has given us a tremendous advantage to develop language acquisition skills. The panel lets us do more with curriculum in ways that keep our kids engaged,” added Spangler.
As school administrators recently received the green light to reopen [face-to-face] fully, ActivPanel has inspired teachers to integrate tech and boost student confidence in the classroom. “The growth in this school with technology this year has been amazing due to the panels. Teachers were excited about tools that they could learn and easily use in the classroom,” added Eycke-Dixon.
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