Teacher here. Smartboards are like Apple computers. If you want to do exactly what they want you to do, they are great. If you want to tinker (let alone be actually creative with technology), you are using the wrong device.
Last year I switched to a LCD projector coupled to a tablet (Surface Pro 2) displayed on a dry erase whiteboard. Despite the MS hate, OneNote on a tablet is an absolutely killer app. My instruction has been forever changed for the better. I now write on my tablet at my desk rather than writing at the board, allowing students to view the information unobstructed by my body. Each lesson is saved in OneNote, so if I ever want to recall an earlier idea for review, it's just a matter of pulling up that lesson. Just yesterday, I pulled up a Geometer's Sketchpad animation seamlessly during my lesson by simply switching tabs. I frequently pull up a TI emulator so I can live demo keystrokes for the kids. In future lessons, I will be pulling up some Mathematica workbooks I made. Interacting with worksheets as a class is so much easier when I can simply display a Word document, directing my students' attention to key phrases, augment diagrams, etc.
Finally, with software such as Camtasia Studio, you can even record each lesson and post them online for students' later use. See vimeo.com/hillercalculus for some Calculus lessons demonstrating the aforementioned functionality.
Ditch the SmartBoard. They are about as useful in a classroom as an iPad - maybe better than nothing, but there are far superior solutions out there.
Off topic, but this is the same problem with firing all the bad teachers. Economic down spells aside, talented folk look elsewhere for careers. Both professions would benefit from some incentivization.
I really like your sheet analogy. But if matter and energy are the wrinkles on the blanket, what does the coffee represent? What does this information consist of if not matter and energy?
Maybe in the alternate world matter and energy are the stains from colored liquids on the sheet. But if that were the case, wouldn't the stains slowly fade back to white, in the same way the wrinkles get pulled out flat in this world?
Further, even if a stain survived the fading process, since it is neither matter nor energy, how would we perceive it? If we can't perceive it is it really there?
It is a nice twist of ideas, but I don't think the coffee part holds up as well as the wrinkles.
How can the summary possibly fail to mention the hottest current GWAP, foldit? I swear to god I couldn't sleep last night because I was thinking of freaking protein chains.
Fortunately, I soon after started thinking of freaking women, at which point I was able to create some protein chains of my own.
Bacteria love sponges... and it's impossible to clean them properly. Impossible? Aren't 99.9% of the bacteria removed by two minutes in the microwave (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/25/0321251)?
I hear the remaining.1% can be removed by scrubbing with a larger sponge.
This is fantastic! I need to free up some space on my hard drive, so I'll upload my copy of Vista I got from The Pirate Bay.
More seriously, does anyone actually trust them wrt privacy issues?
I can't wait to get my hands on one of these and over-asynch the hell out of it. Imagine running it under dry ice - I bet it could run up to 50% more clockless over its default clocklessnes.
Slashdot Mirror
Teacher here. Smartboards are like Apple computers. If you want to do exactly what they want you to do, they are great. If you want to tinker (let alone be actually creative with technology), you are using the wrong device.
Last year I switched to a LCD projector coupled to a tablet (Surface Pro 2) displayed on a dry erase whiteboard. Despite the MS hate, OneNote on a tablet is an absolutely killer app. My instruction has been forever changed for the better. I now write on my tablet at my desk rather than writing at the board, allowing students to view the information unobstructed by my body. Each lesson is saved in OneNote, so if I ever want to recall an earlier idea for review, it's just a matter of pulling up that lesson. Just yesterday, I pulled up a Geometer's Sketchpad animation seamlessly during my lesson by simply switching tabs. I frequently pull up a TI emulator so I can live demo keystrokes for the kids. In future lessons, I will be pulling up some Mathematica workbooks I made. Interacting with worksheets as a class is so much easier when I can simply display a Word document, directing my students' attention to key phrases, augment diagrams, etc.
Finally, with software such as Camtasia Studio, you can even record each lesson and post them online for students' later use. See vimeo.com/hillercalculus for some Calculus lessons demonstrating the aforementioned functionality.
Ditch the SmartBoard. They are about as useful in a classroom as an iPad - maybe better than nothing, but there are far superior solutions out there.
Some sort of force field?
Who would they hire as replacments?
Off topic, but this is the same problem with firing all the bad teachers. Economic down spells aside, talented folk look elsewhere for careers. Both professions would benefit from some incentivization.
I really like your sheet analogy. But if matter and energy are the wrinkles on the blanket, what does the coffee represent? What does this information consist of if not matter and energy? Maybe in the alternate world matter and energy are the stains from colored liquids on the sheet. But if that were the case, wouldn't the stains slowly fade back to white, in the same way the wrinkles get pulled out flat in this world? Further, even if a stain survived the fading process, since it is neither matter nor energy, how would we perceive it? If we can't perceive it is it really there? It is a nice twist of ideas, but I don't think the coffee part holds up as well as the wrinkles.
I missed the movie, and thus don't really get all this fuss. It must be good if people are still talking about it. I guess it's off to TPB for me.
Yes. But do it carefully or you'll pick up a hefty debt.
...thus finally explaining the presence of the integral on the body of a violin.
How can the summary possibly fail to mention the hottest current GWAP, foldit? I swear to god I couldn't sleep last night because I was thinking of freaking protein chains. Fortunately, I soon after started thinking of freaking women, at which point I was able to create some protein chains of my own.
if there was ever a time for "ridiculously informative" moderation, this would be it.
This is fantastic! I need to free up some space on my hard drive, so I'll upload my copy of Vista I got from The Pirate Bay. More seriously, does anyone actually trust them wrt privacy issues?
"If you were to dig down..." I think you are at the wrong website, buddy.
Doesn't catching a Night Court reference categorically exclude one from saying "mad props"?
I can't wait to get my hands on one of these and over-asynch the hell out of it. Imagine running it under dry ice - I bet it could run up to 50% more clockless over its default clocklessnes.