Hi,
Gary here again on a bright and sunny New Hampshire morning,
The question of the week has been: How do you use interactive whiteboards with Elluminate? This could be a book length topic, but I will try and summarize, with examples and some vendor references.I would rather call this topic “Multi-user, multi-location collaborative drawing spaces and handwritten computer input” because ultimately, that’s what we are talking about. (But then it would have to be a peer-reviewed journal article, so I’ll just stick to “Interactive whiteboards and webconferencing.”)
What are they: Sometimes it is really important to interact with and manage a Windows or Mac desktop, its applications, specialized drawing applications, and handwriting from the front of a room on a large surface. An interactive whiteboard allows you to do this. Some of them have built-in projectors, some of them use standard presentation projectors, and some of them are “overlays” for a plasma screen. But the bottom line is that a number of vendors supply the ability to use a variety of computer applications on an interactive surface with pen-style input and control devices. At the end of the day, think of an interactive whiteboard as a humongous touch screen or pen-input computer monitor at the front of the room.
How do you set them up with Elluminate: To utilize an interactive whiteboard with Elluminate, you follow the manufacturer’s instructions to get your PC or Mac connected (wired or wirelessly) to the whiteboard. Each vendor has pages where you can learn more about planning for and actually connecting and setting up their products.
The whole is greater than the sum of the parts: Once you get an interactive whiteboard up and running and enter an Elluminate session, the possibilities are far more rich than just “projecting” your desktop to participants in a remote location. Think interaction, collaboration, visual and auditory learning, think kinesthetic learning, and think of things that were not physically possible prior to the melding of interactive whiteboards and Elluminate.
Here are a few examples you can try and expand upon in an Elluminate session using an interactive whiteboard:
Teach the pythagorean theorem. Create breakout rooms and have some of the students research the various proofs while others are working on the “graphical” portion of the activity. Have a student in one location draw a 3-4-5 right triangle on a grid. Have another use tools to measure the angles. Discuss the theorem and its proofs. Copy and paste the “3″ side of the triangle to square it to make it length “9″; Do the same with the “4″ side to make it length 16. Rotate and move these lines end to end (or use the ruler tool) to show they add up to 25. Ensure that different locations have different activities in the assignment. Reconvene and have the graphics team show their results and the “proof research team” show some alternate proofs they found. This could have been done without Elluminate, but with it you get multiple teams working on different parts of the problem at the same time, you have students as co-teachers, and there is a level of interaction that will make the lesson more realistic and memorable to many of the students. What would you do to make this a better exercise?
With a student who has handwriting issues, have a local instructor or remote instructor (or even a parent at work!) join a session on a tablet PC or another interactive whiteboard. The remote student or parent will be providing verbal encouragement as well as the ability to have the local student watch handwritten letters “form” in front of them. The writer who is modeling the handwriting will use a thicker font in black. The student will then trace the letter in a lighter color with a thinner line, alone, or hand over hand with the local instructor. When finished, the instructor “moves” the black ink out of the way, and the student’s writing remains. This can be printed for the student’s portfolio, for later use in a paper-only exercises, and even recorded for future review by the student in class or at home with the parents. This lesson could have been done on paper only, but with an interactive whiteboard and Elluminate, you get peer modeling, a real-time visual “view” of the construction of handwritten letters, as well as a recordable and printable record of student work for self-review and review with parents. What would you do to make this a better exercise?
In the “geography game show” multiple sites alternate as the host and the contestants. This can build public speaking and social skills as the classes act as host in addition to the geography skills. The host team points to a location on the map. The first contestant site to type in the correct answer wins a point for that round. Additional exercises can be things such as: breakout rooms where small groups research and write short paragraphs about their favorite location discussed today; bonus points in a poll for the “best host”; and bringing in a “guest speaker” from a featured location reviewed in the lesson. This activity could have been performed “in class” but the addition of Elluminate brings in numerous student interactions and educational possibilities. What would you do to make this a better exercise?
I hope that this post shed some light on some of the the possibility. There are many sites on the web and content vendors that specialize in activities for interactive whiteboards. Why don’t we, together, show them how to extend these exercises and the learning opportunties they present into the world of Elluminate real-time collaboration?Best regards to all, and keep onlinin’
Gary
