Interactive Whiteboards

I feel that interactive whiteboards are an amazing teaching tool. I would love to have one in my classroom. They add so much more dimension to a lesson. Students love the interaction they encourage and they just make the entire learning process more fun! For the teacher, whiteboards provide so many options for presenting a lesson. The possibilities are endless. Being able to hold students' interest for a longer period of time is an obvious advantage. The fact that audio and video can so easily be incorporated into even the simplest lesson is a reason to want to have one in the classroom for students and teachers, alike.

The ability to draw or write freehand is a nice, basic option, but all of the images that are available to get the point across are so helpful and interesting. To be able to present a flag, a portrait, a game, a map, etc. right at your fingertips is such an awesome power provided to the educator by the interactive whiteboard. The magnitude of this technology is huge. Getting students involved and holding their interest is the name of the game. I believe that interactive whiteboards have revolutionized the world of education!

Video Project

Carol and I came up with a great idea right away. We got together and created a scenario very easily. The ideas flowed and we worked very well together. I believe the message we are sending about teen pregnancy is an important one. The filming was fun and having a chance to be creative with a new medium was pretty exciting. I had never even touched a video camera before, so it was a completely new experience for me.

Putting it all together was kind of fun too, until our computer froze and we lost everything, but I won't get into that right now! Importing the video and sound into MovieMaker was fairly simple. Editing was fun and not very difficult, just a little time-consuming. I think we were creative and put together a really good video with a very important message.

This project has taught me a lot and with each project we do for class I feel a little more confident in my computer knowledge and skill level. It will be exciting for future students to have the opportunity to work on these types of projects and will add a whole new dimension to their educational experience.