The following slides showcase some great examples of digital art created by Mr. McCauley’s digital art class at Frontier K8. Adobe Photoshop is the predominant tool used for creating these pieces. (All subjects in pictures have signed the district’s media release form.)

This post is a couple of observations I have made concerning the installation of new hardware and software in our schools.  Specifically, the hardware is Promthean’s ActivBoard (interactive whiteboard) and the software is their ActivStudio product. Personally, I feel that Promethean’s software for interactive whiteboards is the most useful for teachers compared to packages that are offered by Smart Technologies, Hitachi, and Mimio.  The reason for this is fourfold: 1) the software offers many resources in the library and many, many resources (almost 10,000) that are downloadable from Promethean Planet, 2) it has many users who share flipcharts so that teachers don’t have to “reinvent the wheel” - almost a quarter of a million registered users, 3) the software is robust - it has many tools and customization options for teachers to make the most of their teaching environment, and 4) there are many training/professional development opportunities for new users to make the most of the software at Promethean Learning. **DISCLAIMER** - I swear Promethean or any of it’s affiliates did not pay me to say any of this - no money, candy, cars, etc. Promise.  I am just speaking on experience, using the package in London, England when I taught there, and now helping teachers integrate it into their classrooms in Aurora, CO and experimenting with the other packages and what they have to offer.  Now on to the observations:

Logistical: “Be Prepared”
It seems that when new hardware and software is introduced into a school, all parties involved should be aware of what the new package is being added on to.  At one site, this new package is predominantly being added to older model PC’s that have the capacity to not run properly if they are not optimized before adding the new software.  We have found that many of the teacher’s computers are not running properly and leading to less than desirable effects such as running extremely slow and crashing.  This can most likely be alleviated by preparing the computers beforehand by re‑imaging them and setting them up for a scheduled bi‑weekly defragment.  Re‑imaging takes off all of the old and makes room for the new and will allow for better results when adding the new hardware and software.

Community Building and Sharing
It has been observed that the new implementation of the hardware and software has lead to the formation of user groups centered around using the software.  Whereas before teachers may “go it alone” in terms of their planning, now they have an opportunity to plan together by learning the software and creating products to be used in the classroom during these groups.  The groups have also fostered the sharing of best practices and teaching strategies centered around the delivery of content via the use of the hardware and software.  Now the teachers have the ability to create lessons together and divide up work in order to lessen the workload which frees up time to focus on preparing meaningful opportunities for students to engage, learn, and understand new content.

Though work being done to integrate this technology into our classrooms is mostly in its infancy, it’s great to see what is happening now with teachers literally having this technology anywhere between weeks to a couple months.  What is even more exciting is to imagine where this will take us into the future! Enjoy the vid!
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