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.

Bridges believes it is time for education to catch up with technology.
At home, the average student might have a stereo, television, cell phone, laptop, iPod, Wii, and other gadgets. Simple pencils and paper are what await them at school.

"Kids say they have to power down when they come to school," said Bridges.

"We don't want the kids sitting in their seats," Bridges said to the teachers in her class, "we want them to be up at the board working."

Bridges allowed the teachers to work on their own during last month's workshop, and the room was abuzz with teachers brainstorming techniques on designing lessons in Activstudio.

Determined to have Activboards for Rockingham County, Superintendent Dr. Rodney Shotwell had interested teachers apply for grants funded by state money as part of the Leandro lawsuit. In the application, teachers explained specific ways they would tailor their lessons to feature the Activboard. Shotwell said he received more than 200 applications.

This summer's trainings will be just the first in a series for teachers. Other sessions will be held in October and April.

Shotwell said he became impressed with Activboards while superintendent of Macon County schools. He pushed for them in schools in 2003 and did not have to wait long to see good results, he said.

"The immediate effect, I think, was that lesson designs changed," he said. "Teachers were reinvigorated. There was a participation in the classroom that wasn't there before the technology."