Our school is pretty tech-savvy. This year has forced me out of my comfort zone a bit and for that I'm glad. I'm on a technology learning team. Our fearless leader is great (ie. very patient with us!!) and I'm learning lots of new things. I now am the proud owner of a class website and this week I have an interactive whiteboard (smarboard) in my class for the week. We have 4 smartboards permanently installed and one on wheels that we can share.
So, today was day 1. There were some successes. My morning message worked very well and the kids were thrilled to "write" on the board. We did a cool interactive story and a math warmup which wasn't as interactive as I'd hoped, but it still allowed the kids to practise writing on the board.
The frustration with my laptop and projector being on a cart is that when it gets bumped....and it does with 23 7 year olds in the room, I have to recalibrate it. That only takes a minute or two, but still, it's frustrating. I am still learning the notebook software and I realize I need to spend more time with it to become faster. I hope to use it as more than a glorified projector. This will take some time, but I think it will be worth it.
My kids are for the most part, patient. They are so "digital" by nature that I never hesitate to listen to their ideas. More than once, they have taught me something. One of my boys "encouraged" me today with the statement that our teacher librarian is better at the smart board than I am. :) Kids are so honest.
I'm excited by the possibilites and I'm really curious to see if I can improve my lessons visually.
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