Mario Posted November 9, 2006 Posted November 9, 2006 What are your opinions on these 'teaching aids'? Personally, I hate them. Most of the teachers just use them as slow whiteboards, they just don't prepare lessons to take in their full potential. They don't teach the kids anything about IT, a waste of our budget that way. And the teachers just cannot use common sense to fix the dang pens and calibration themselves, the same teachers calling us up every few periods! They're more trouble than they're worth! Is there anyway I can get the proffesors to understand the damn things?!
Geoff Posted November 9, 2006 Posted November 9, 2006 Get younger teachers. Seriously, the newer ones coming into schools don't appear to be afraid to use the technology given to them properly.
Mario Posted November 9, 2006 Author Posted November 9, 2006 I wish we could upgrade the faculty like we do the kit. School recently gave out Acer Tablets out to many teachers (over $2000 worth retail each! Why can't Tech Support get that sort of kit?!) and the older staff forget them half the time, or get a whole class crowded round the laptop to watch a cheesy DVD everyonce in a while... but the new teachers coming in have every lesson planned and prepared, always have the thing by their side!!! (Though it does make them harder to "borrow", I'm still fixing one of the Math Professors "virus"... He never used the thing anyway.... )
djm968 Posted November 9, 2006 Posted November 9, 2006 Welcome to Edugeek Mario! I see you are from over the pond and I agree IWB's are a pain in the ass but like Geoff, I have found NQT's less technophobic although they are sometimes just plain lazy and would rather have a techie do it for them. I think I would rather be have a moan about IWB's in sunny Florida though, so its not all bad!
Amir Posted November 9, 2006 Posted November 9, 2006 Teachers here in London is liking them, but i thinks that the whiteboard can slow down a lesson as they have problems often and because teachers do not understand computers First post Mario that car in your avatar is very smart!
Mario Posted November 9, 2006 Author Posted November 9, 2006 Thankyou Amir, she is my baby, spent months on her, needs protecting from our sun. Sun isn't all it's cracked up to be djm! Try attempting to stop servers frying in this heat! And try hearing yourself think over the aircon in the server room!
webman Posted November 9, 2006 Posted November 9, 2006 NQTs are great and love technology. The older stick-in-the-mud's don't like change. For example, we had a young one started just in September and is using the whiteboard to its full potential and is working on podcasts. Aircon? What aircon? :?
Mario Posted November 9, 2006 Author Posted November 9, 2006 Yes, aircon... it's not a luxury here, it's a necessity! Our rusty old 70's box really struggles though... crunchy. I'm glad to see when people use them properly, but it's ALWAYS a bare minimum of the faculty. And we really need to invest in some software, is there any English software (whiteboard/eductation specific) worth having, as I've been asked to find some, but am struggling...
Norphy Posted November 9, 2006 Posted November 9, 2006 NQTs are great and love technology. Depends on the NQT. We have a couple here who hate it.
webman Posted November 9, 2006 Posted November 9, 2006 Just a quick note on English - avoid Qwizdom, it's a nightmare.
Mario Posted November 9, 2006 Author Posted November 9, 2006 Just a quick note on English - avoid Qwizdom, it's a nightmare. Thanks for the advice webman... Any positive advice from the masses? And I missed this earlier, thanks for the welcome djm!
Amir Posted November 9, 2006 Posted November 9, 2006 I would say welcome too but I'm kinda new too Am I thread hi-jacking now? OK i'll stop....
Grommit Posted November 9, 2006 Posted November 9, 2006 The problem with whiteboard is that the teachers are becoming very dependant on them and when the bulb blows or the PC has crashed they wet themselves with panic because suddenly thay can't teach.. plus getting calles everyday to calibrate the boards... Lost Projector Controls.. Yea.. whats it with these damn Orange Projectors.. no on off switch so when the remote goes AWOL everybodys stuffed... and we have 55 boards onsite.. Is there a cheap place to get Sanyo remotes?
Amir Posted November 9, 2006 Posted November 9, 2006 Like mario said getting called out to calibrate boards is infuriating especially when you know that some of the teachers can do it perfectly well themselves. And yeah, when they cant use their board their lesson is ruined because it was all planned on a powerpoint presentation or whatever
ITWombat Posted November 9, 2006 Posted November 9, 2006 I was wondering why the site was a bit slow today but after seeing the massive signature images I'm not surprised. Anyway welcome to EduGeek Amir and Mario. Hey Mario did you grow up or spend a lot of time in the UK. Your turn of phrase shows British influnces Anyway, IWB are not as quite important as projectors. Gaining enough experience to use a board as interactively takes too long and adds more to the lesson planning burden.
john Posted November 10, 2006 Posted November 10, 2006 yeah, I find IWBs are not often fully utilised, they are just used as large graphics tablets, which lets be honest, I could get some cheap graphics tablets for the teachers PCs to allow them to control the PC like they do. I would say that I can cound on one hand the number of staff that actually do use the board really interactively (and by that I mean prepare work with embedded text, pictuers, clips etc to move around like lables, timelines, info, sound bites etc, not just use it to click on the powerpoint, or draw over a map, as you can do those with the PC and or a standard whiteboard and a £300 projector. Grrrr. Teachers they want the £2K IWB solution but then don't use them correctly, offer them training and you get we dont have time and we know how to use them when they are far from getting the best use and value from them. As for NQT's they are getting better but every one of them has different ideas about what they do with them, one even refused a job when he was told his room wouldnt have an IWB in on arival at my last place as his college told him that he should expect to be given one or it to be fitted witin 3 weeks of him starting as all schools should be giving them to staff, he was also told a lot of other crap I think by his college....
alan-d Posted November 10, 2006 Posted November 10, 2006 ....we really need to invest in some software, is there any English software (whiteboard/eductation specific) worth having, as I've been asked to find some, but am struggling... Most use SmartBoard or Promethean
witch Posted November 10, 2006 Posted November 10, 2006 It is interesting to see how IWB's are used in your schools. I think that most of you work in high/senior schools, and the experience here seems to be that the local high schools don't really use their IWB's very well. (I have 3 children at one of the local comps) However, I work in a first and a middle school, and they seem to use the boards all the time, particularly the first school. Perhaps the board software is better for younger users? I quite agree about calibration issues, I am always being called out to the Prometheans as they arent interactive, or miscalibrated, or something. The Smarts at my other school, however, rarely go wrong and are a lot less hassle for me - what is your experience?
Domino Posted November 10, 2006 Posted November 10, 2006 I think he means content, rather than system software... The boardworks stuff is alright, bit pricy though, 900 squid per subject, but i think there's a mahooosive discount if you buy the whol curriculem set
Mario Posted November 10, 2006 Author Posted November 10, 2006 Thankyou Domino, yes it's the programs rather than utilities we're after, but thanks anyway. Will look into your advice Domino. And yeh, spent a while as a teen in the UK, but us Americans aren't that different to you Brits anyway, we still speak English!
john Posted November 11, 2006 Posted November 11, 2006 Primary use of them is amazing as there is loads of free resources for them and great software thats cheap and easy to use for the little ones. As they get older its getting more expensive software etc. But Smart Boards are making it easier with a lot more embedded stuff in them now for all ages.
sreiach Posted November 11, 2006 Posted November 11, 2006 Take a look a this video. It's and impressive way of using a whiteboard. Could it be done with a mouse? Probably, but I don't think it would have the same instructive effect.
john Posted November 12, 2006 Posted November 12, 2006 I have seen that and like the look of that software package, I should do some more investigating actually about it.
Mario Posted November 12, 2006 Author Posted November 12, 2006 Very smart, I like it. A lot. Wonder how long it would take the faculty to get used to it... And I wonder if it can handle masses and forces etc. for use in math? And John, what do you mean by primary use and as they get older? :s
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