June 9th

In Class Discussion:

               Prezi was really interesting. In a lot of ways, I like it more than PowerPoint. PowerPoint is such a standard that everyone uses it can feel stale as a student, so if a teacher is able to spice things up with Prezi that can be a welcome relief. The Elmo also looked really cool. It’s a great tool for using student example to direct other students instead of the tired top down approach.

Smartboard uses in an Elementary classroom:

It’s really cool to see kids interacting with technology at a young age. All of this were physical props when I was in elementary school. The more these kids interact with technology now the more efficient they will be with it in the future. These teachers are doing a great job at using it in different ways, all in all it seems very useful to break up the day and keep kids attention.

Interactive Uses of the Smartboard:

I see the Smartboard as a really cool technology if used right. Unfortunately, his New York example seems really forced. I don’t see this as being any better than asking the question and getting a verbal response, and it does not have enough student involvement with the technology to even say they are gaining any technical skill from it. The math problems felt the same way, kyou could have a student do this on a dry erase board.

Creating a lesion with Smartboard Notebook software:

I can see the value of the fill in the blank type uses now I see it in use in an elementary setting. It is really good for capturing younger student’s attention, but I fear secondary students may feel in patronizing and tedious. As far as the building of it goes it feels very similar to paint or PowerPoint so it seems like it would feel very familiar to work with. 

How I would implement these technologies:

For Prezi I would use it as a way to mix things up from PowerPoint, especially if its a shorter lesson that will be followed up with discussion. I found the map templates really useful for showing things that require a good geographic knowledge to understand, so I would utilize it for those lessons as well. I would use the smart board  for having the students show off their paper or having a student led discussion; apart from using it to write extra notes on my PowerPoint or Prezi.