whiteboards

2007-02-01 Thread Marielle Lange

Hi Ryno,

>A chat application PLUS a window in which, to start with, the various
> members of the chat can draw in black line and type in text, in
> turn or simultaneously

For this, you would probably better go for a standard lab situation.  
Whiteboards are really not practical for writing on them. You can pop  
a keyboard view on the screen, but this means typing a word letter by  
letter. Quite cumbersome.
If all kids are in the classroom, they you would get more  
interactivity by podcasting them and organizing mini-interviews.


They do this very nicely in this school :
<http://www.castlemanor.suffolk.sch.uk/stars/latest.php>

Two of the pupils were on the stand "Tomorrow's Learners Today". I  
discussed with them for an hour. What they do in this school is  
apparently very cool.


Given what you describe, you may want to check out these products:
<http://www.facetwoface.co.uk/> and <http://www.boxnewmedia.co.uk/ 
face2face/face2face_fact_sheet.pdf>
<http://rafi.ki/> -- Rafi.ki is a funky new online learning community  
with a difference:

it's just for secondary schools*, it's safe and it's a lot of fun!
<http://www.j2e.com/> -- create share learn
<http://www.pebblelearning.co.uk/> -- peeblepad. portfolio for life
<http://www.horizonwimba.com/> -- Horizon Wimba develops web-based  
collaboration software designed for online education, language  
learning and live interactive communications.


Then if you are into engaging teaching, you may want to also check  
out this.

<http://www.filmstreet.co.uk/default.aspa?flash=tt> Film street
<http://www.magicstudio.co.uk/> -- Access hundreds of digital  
resources and create personalised, interactive learning activities  
without the need for specialist ICT skills.

<http://www.createascape.org.uk/>



Marielle


Marielle Lange (PhD),  http://widged.com
Bite-size Applications for Education





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Re: whiteboards

2007-02-01 Thread Marielle Lange

Agreed, Stephen.

At the show, I couldn't even find any information about mac  
compatibility. That's very weird. Many schools have invested in macs  
as they have the reputation to encourage more creative activities.  
But all whiteboard applications were run on PCs. As if they expect  
the teacher to be fluent with both platforms.


That's quite interesting. All stands with plenty of pupils around or  
taking parts in various activities like creating podcasts on the  
show, or on the stand with the two kids I spoke with, they were all  
filled with Macs.


Then all these whiteboard applications where that's about a student  
listening and sometimes pressing on the key of a multibutton keypad,  
they were running on PCs.


Sure, these whiteboard applications are a lot more interactive than  
before. Sure, they allow students to better visualise some problems  
(there was a nice mathematical problem of transporting 50 pupils from  
one point to another in a tractor who could only hold 4 at a time,  
where you could put pupils in the tractor, get the tractor moving,  
drop down the pupils at the end and start again).


But it is possible to do *a lot* better than this. The idea of chat  
is good. Pity the absence of way to easily input text is a bit of a  
hurdle. But there are other teaching situations that you can imagine  
where students would collaboratively solve a problem, by manipulating  
objects on the screen. Revolution would be such a nice software to  
develop such applications.


Then there is something else that should be done with revolution. But  
this thing, I was told that if I was to do it, I would become  
millionaire. Who wants to share a million? What is your guess?


Marielle





One thing that ticks me off about software merchants that often in
their ignorance or arrogance, they NEVER mention WHAT PLATFORM their
software will run on, as if Windoze was the only game in town. Then
if one is possibly interested in the utility or app, one has to
laboriously plow through the advertising, web sites and pdfs to find
out.

It turns out that both of these links lead to products that have some
level of mac compatibility, but it took a bit of time to find out. At
Promethean, the only clue was an icon for Mac OS 9 (smiling mac)
which would indicate system 9. No MAC OS X logo was seen. For both
there was absolutely no Macintosh version information. You see what I
mean?

For such companies that seem to do this, I tend to want to go  
somewhere else.






Marielle Lange (PhD),  http://widged.com
Bite-size Applications for Education





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