Technology in the Classroom

The past three weeks, I've had a chance to teach in a classroom with a Smartboard. Love it! I am amazed by all of the possibilities. The students arrive each morning to find their names on the Smartboard. To choose their lunch, they simply touch their name and slide it into the appropriate box. Once lunch count and attendance have been taken, they are sent to the office via email. No more need to send a runner to the office. 


Smartboard has also helped add interest to my lessons. Typically, I would use the Smarboard to display dynamic PowerPoint presentations, but I also used it for simple things like video and displaying student work pages created on Word or directly on the Smartboard notebook. 


Beyond Smartboard, there were many other uses of technology represented in the classroom. Each student worked weekly with a program called Odyssey. Based on test scores, individual paths in language arts and mathematics were created for each child. Students had fun playing games and completing activities on the computer which helped support learning. Students also used a program called Pixie to create colorful cover pages for a social studies project. Pixie provides easy to insert clip art and fun font options.