Follow Up

Using the SmartBoard during lessons definitely engages students. Today we discussed yesterday's introduction to the Solar System. The use of yesterday's slides provided visual cues that brought the discussion right to the point and allowed us to move forward very quickly. Without this technology I would be referring to something I wrote on the white board yesterday, but is now long gone.



I experimented with TuneTalk Stereo for the iPod. It is a microphone that plugs directly into the bottom of the iPod, records and saves the recording as a file on the iPod. When you sync, the file is uploaded to iTunes so you can edit it and use it as you like. The sound quality is surprisingly good. I carried the iPod around the room as I facilitated the review and one of my students was advancing slides on the SmartBoard. TuneTalk could be used to get student reactions during a field trip. It could also be used to measure fluency in primary students or for my fourth graders to record read alouds for our pre-school reading buddies. Student recordings could be burned on to a CD at the end of the year as a measure of progress or just a great keepsake. What other tools are teachers finding to make their instruction more engaging? Are there tools for the SmartBoard that you are using every day with your students?