21st Century Edu.World

Yes, that’s right, you heard correctly!  You can use those student response systems like the Votes and Expressions without being in possesion of a board.  I’ve found from many of my visits with teachers that there is a general misconception that they need a board in order to use these gadgets.  The reality is, if you have a projector connected to your computer and you have ActivSoftware (like ActivStudio 3 or the new and improved Inspire edition) loaded on it, you too can get instantaneous feedback in your classroom.  All you have to do is learn how to use the software and you will be asking yourself why you hadn’t been using this before.  Using response systems (RS) in the classroom will take your teaching and the student’s learning to a whole new level.  Just imagine that as any great lesson goes, you want to check for understanding periodically and identify if there are areas in the content that need more explanation or practice.  Students are often hesitant to reveal that they don’t understand something, but with an RS, you will be able to see that when the rest of the class cannot.  They provide meaningful feedback for you and the students and can really make lessons a lot more interactive with everyone’s input involved.  So get to it!  If your school has a set or two of these, get your hands on them and learn how to use the software - you will absolutely not be disappointed!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 at 10:39 pm and is filed under Instructional Strategies, Advice Column.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.