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New and future Promethean board users met this evening at Fulton Elementary to learn more about how to use the board. Teachers taught each other how to apply the tools provided by ActivStudio. Future sessions will focus on the resources available for building flipcharts and how to create custom flipcharts.

If you weren’t able to attend the class, but are interested in learning more about using ActivStudio, here are some great resources that will guide you through everything you need to know about ActivStudio ( and more).

1. Notes from the class.
2. Resources from this website.

        1place.ppt               South Middle school was given a glimpse of One Place this afternoon. It will officially roll out soon :). Be patient. It is an incredible tool. One Place runs federated searches in district and non district Internet databases. It simultaneously searches through Discovery Science, Discovery Streaming, Discovery Education Network, Atomic Learning, Culture Grams, World Book Online, NetTrekker, Verizon/Thinkfinity (formerly Marco Polo), Britannia Online, and EBSCO. The interface is smooth and easy to navigate. It is the ideal tool for planning for instruction. You can easily come up with great teaching ideas, teaching content, examples of student work and even professional articles on teaching strategies that match your topic.

Take a moment to check out One Place. It will be worth your time. Here is the link to get started (log-in directions).

As the Department of Instructional Technology works with principals on school improvement plans, we are noticing a definite trend in which direction teachers and administration want to move. Schools are putting projectors and visualizers into the hands of teachers and students. Visualizers (document imaging cameras) are a fantastic tool for teacher’s instruction. They align perfectly with strategies that work. Three instructional strategies that are demonstrated optimally using a visualizer are:

• Identifying similarities and differences
• Using nonlinguistic representations
• Using questions, cues, and advance organizers

The visualizers lend themselves to all of the strategies, especially in regards to student work. Teachers can simply lay student work on the visualizer and there it is projected on a large screen for the class to see. What a great way to illustrate to students exactly what proficient and outstanding work looks like.

Here’s an example of a School Improvement Plan for Education Technology - Information Literacy (SIP: ET-IL).

If you are interested in seeing technology-enhanced experiences during writing demonstrations, stop by Crawford Elementary. Jenny is combining the use of the Promethean ActivBoard with the visualizer (document imaging camera) to engage students in the writing process and help them to be outstanding writers. Today she used the ActivBoard to share how to ensure that students are thoughtfully developing an ending to a story that is full of meaning. Afterwards the board was utilized to facilitate and keep track of students as they work through the writing process. Outstanding! After having time to write, Jenny used the visualizer to show student work. Students were able see examples of proficient and outstanding writing whereby students clearly connected the meaning of their story within their ending. Great things are happening at Crawford Elementary!

NETS for T-III: A. facilitate technology-enhanced experiences that address content standards and student technology standards.