Comments (2)

By Jeff Pierce, 9 May 2011 12:46

SmartBoard Notebook software¹ turns my laptop into one big touchscreen. Minus the fact that it isn’t actually a touchscreen². Although it is a big part of my classroom, I don’t use the interactive nature very often. I plan my units on it, write out lesson plans on it, and use it for all sorts of interactive classroom tasks.

Unit Planning

I love it for planning units because it’s not hierarchical. When you type out a lesson sequence in Word, due to the nature of the software every new lesson idea automatically follows the next. In Notebook, after you type out the lesson plan title you can move them around, put them side by side, draw arrows on them to explain your thinking to colleagues, and rearrange quickly.

Here’s a screenshot of a unit plan on Notebook. Click for the full size image.

Unit Plan Snapshot

The really slick part is that the little paper clip icons represent links to attachments. So I can include the worksheets right in there, send it all to colleagues or to students.

Daily Lessons

I also love using the software to plan out my daily lessons. When students walk in to my class, they hear music and see the day’s overview, like this:

Daily Lesson Template

The consistent format – Warm Up, Laptops, Menu, Homework, Announcements – is good for the students. They come in and write their homework down, get started on a task, and have a heads up on what I’ve got planned for the day.

This doesn’t even tap into the interactive power of the software. I’ll mention that in a later post.

Now, it took me a while to get to this point. First, I was given to play during a professional development day, and I saw some colleagues using it in ways that challenged and intrigued me. But also, and more importantly, I put in time on each lesson to take risks and use it in front of the students. That’s how I learn new tools, and how I teach my students to learn new tools. You just have to press buttons and see what happens.

Comments (1)

By Jeff Pierce, 18 September 2009 14:47

I’m about halfway through yet another tech conference.

21C Learning Hong Kong, hosted by my school, HKIS, is happening this weekend. Big names from the blogosphere have been flown in, both in real life and in Second Life, and tech-savvy teachers and techevangelists from the Asia region have come to the city to swap ideas for tools and tricks to increase technology use and learning in classrooms.

I have gone to five of these now dating over the past two years. Two of them in Shanghai, and this is the third in Hong Kong. All of the conferences have been put on professionally and thoroughly. I am especially impressed with what my friend Justin has accomplished here in Hong Kong.

However, not to complain, but just to comment…I feel overloaded. Nothing sounds new. That is not to say that the speakers and ideas aren’t still inspiring at times! But what follows is an attempt to toss out some of these ideas…not a finished set of concepts below, but I would love feedback / pushback on what I think I’m thinking.

One pattern that I note is how easy it is to give lip service to the idea that “it’s all about how technology changes the learning” and yet spend the majority of the time in workshops looking at cool new tools. I know that I am as guilty as the next person about this, as I have given two presentations about wikis and blogs without much time spent talking about the transformative capabilities of these tools.

But it’s so hard. How do we have practical discussions about how to make drastic changes in the day to day experience inside of a school?  Surely the conversations need to be focused on something more than just the next cool Web2.0 tool. However is a classroom teacher in any position to implement anything radical? What I keep on hearing / coming back to myself is a frankly naive wish to simply “blow up” the current paradigm of education and start off afresh. I love the idea of a “Ten Man School” as Rob suggested today, take ten committed teachers and build the experience around student learning, with no concessions given for our preconceived notions of what a curriculum ought to be. I loved working at a new school for three years and feeling as if my energy could make a big difference in the way learning would happen for the students.

But what can I do now? Must I be testing out and tinkering with each new Web 2.0 tool? I’m supposed to be delivering Social Studies knowledge, concepts and skills, not teaching my students the next coolest slick looking online gadget like Prezi.