Interactive Classroom April 09

Volume 4 | Issue 2 | April 2009

Interactive Classroom Preparing today’s students for tomorrow’s world

education.smarttech.com

R EG I O N A L F O C U S

NEWS

Adapting to the global society

SMART adds Touch Recognition to interactive whiteboards

Technology for all schools in the Galicia region of Spain

Laura Elena Sánchez Piñón

was, until a recent election, Galicia’s regional minister of education. Her focus as minister was to prepare future generations of Galician citizens to compete on a global basis by “creating equality of opportunity and making a strong effort to increase the quality of learning.” The education system, she asserts, must adapt itself to an ever-shrinking world and make progress in learning and teaching activities by including, incorporating and integrating ICT. Galicia, an autonomous region on the northwest coast of Spain, is a pioneer in implementing interactive technology in classrooms. Piñón says, “We are the only region of 17 that has completed the distribution of

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interactive whiteboards to all the schools,” adding, “We are really very proud of this accomplishment. If we compare Galicia to other leading countries in new technologies, we are at the same level as the United Kingdom and Finland, having at least one interactive whiteboard in every school.” Galician classrooms fitted with an Internet connection, a SMART Board ™ interactive whiteboard, one computer for every five students and a well-trained teacher, says Piñón, are windows onto the greater world. The interactive whiteboard, she has found, is a tool of innovation for Galicia’s teachers, who number nearly 32,000. They’ve used it to enhance content by integrating new materials into existing lessons, to create and customize learning objects and to adapt their instruction to the needs of their students. “Moreover,” Piñón adds, “our teachers have discovered that interactive whiteboards allow learners to absorb information more easily, to participate in groups and to work collaboratively around a shared task or work area.” As the minister responsible, Piñón led the ICT cause with a mandate to increase the quality of education in Galicia, home to over 380,000 students. The past three years saw significant technology adoption and implementation in all of the region’s more than 1,200 state schools. In 2007 alone, the Galician government earmarked 11.2 million Euros for the purchase of technology equipment and multimedia materials, including SMART Board interactive whiteboards. “We are living in an open and global era, the era of the digital revolution,” Piñón says. “Since the last century, new technologies became part of our lives, and we are not able to imagine our daily life without them. Education can’t be excluded from this technological and scientific process.” ic

SMART has taken

ease of use a step further with the addition of Touch Recognition to SMART Board 600 series interactive whiteboards. The feature is the first to automatically detect the difference between a pen, finger and palm. Users can now use a pen to write or draw, a finger to manipulate words or pictures and a palm or fist to erase work – all without returning a pen to the Pen Tray, selecting a menu option or pressing a button. For current users of SMART Board 600 series interactive whiteboards, Touch Recognition is available with a controller upgrade from SMART distributors. ic

news

SMART strengthens EMEA team with three key players

researc h repor t

Interactive whiteboards support collaborative learning

As the demand for

SMART products continues to grow in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), SMART has created three new key positions to better serve these regions. Axel Rosiefsky is the director of sales operations and services, Frederic Arneodo is the director of sales, and Yvonne Biggins is the manager, education business development. Each of these key players brings the skills and background needed to support users in their adoption of SMART products. ic

SMART opens office in Paris, France The opening of SMART’s

second European office, a marketing, sales and customer support office in Paris, France, underscores SMART’s commitment to its growing number of customers in EMEA. The opening occurs as SMART experiences significant sales in the region, where in 2008 alone, 209,000 interactive whiteboards were sold. This was a 15 percent increase over 2007 according to Futuresource Consulting, a leading global research company that has tracked interactive whiteboard shipments for over eight years. When educators visit the Paris office, they can experience and evaluate SMART products while touring three technology-enabled classroom environments designed to meet whole-class, small-group and individual learning needs. SMART users can also access the Classroom Tour to explore three different approaches to learning, and see how SMART products work together to heighten students’ understanding. Following is contact information for the new Paris office: Telephone +33.1.4090.4444 E-mail [email protected] Web www.smarttech.fr ic

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Dialogue and collaboration, education researchers speculate, lead to higher levels of synthesis and understanding for students. University of Cambridge-based researchers set out to discover the role interactive whiteboards play in supporting dialogic classroom interactions and collaborative learning. At the SMART-sponsored Learning Matters seminar at BETT 2009, they presented their early findings from two projects in their ongoing, exhaustive research. The first project, “Interactive whiteboards and collaborative pupil learning in primary science,” focused on how 12 teachers in 6 UK primary schools use the interactive whiteboard to support collaboration and dialogue in science classes. The researchers observed that the interactive whiteboard worked as a collaborative tool in a number of instances, especially for brainstorming on ideas around topics. The board then became a “shared dialogic space,” they concluded. The interactive whiteboard was key in integrating web-based materials with discussion and learning. And because teachers saved their lessons, the board was often used to access content, notes and observations from prior lessons. With the visual nature of the interactive whiteboard, these retrieved lessons assisted students in remembering earlier content. The second project, “Exploiting the interactive whiteboard to enhance dialogic classroom interaction,” explored the potential of the interactive whiteboard to support productive dialogue in classes of students aged 11–14. Using dialogic learning principles, educators and

learners asked open-ended questions, reasoned, evaluated ideas and constructed new meanings through focused interaction, all with the help of the interactive whiteboard. In one case, a class studying the First World War used the interactive whiteboard to stimulate discussion and speculation as they spotlighted and underlined diary entries and poems, played audio clips and projected drawings, photos, diagrams, questions and video clips. This usage encouraged exploration, critical reflection, analogy, synthesis and evaluation. The researchers found that interactivity, as demonstrated by learners using the interactive whiteboard, supported deep reasoning and students’ ability to build on ideas. By using the board to publicly record, highlight, underline and circle on the interactive whiteboard, student work was given weight and significance. As students built on their peers’ ideas, teachers and researchers determined that a new communal view was constructed. Additionally, after each class, teachers saved observations and resources to scaffold student learning and dialogue in future lessons. One recommendation the researchers made is that teachers should have access to additional support and professional development to help them exploit the opportunities afforded by interactive whiteboard technology. The researchers also recognized that interactive whiteboards can play a definite role in building on the known, productive values of dialogic, collaborative and inquiry-based activities. ic

C ase St u dy

NEWS

Collaborative tools The SMART Board creates interactive classrooms in British−Peruvian school

SMART is the global leader in sales Futuresource Consulting

identifies SMART as the global leader in the interactive whiteboard product category, with a 53.2 percent share of sales in 2008 – up 6 percentage points over 2007. SMART was identified as the leader in all major geographies, including EMEA, Asia and the Americas. In 2008, SMART sold nearly 300,000 SMART Board interactive whiteboards worldwide, a record year for the company and more than double the sales of its nearest competitor. Futuresource also reports that SMART continues its clear lead in the United States, with a 59.4 percent product-category share. Futuresource Consulting is a leading global research company that has tracked interactive whiteboard shipments for over eight years. ic

SMART and Intel integrate solutions In the 77 years since its founding, Colegio San Jorge de Miraflores, or St. George’s College, has seen many education trends come and go. But ICT, say the staff of this private, Spanish–English bilingual school in Lima, Peru, is in their classrooms to stay. St. George’s ICT coordinator and lead science teacher, Gerardo Lazaro, says the reason for this assertion is that they have fully integrated classroom technology. This includes SMART Board interactive whiteboards, which have become important collaborative tools for the school’s 800 students, from the nursery to the eleventh grade. ICT permeates every aspect of instruction and learning in the school, explains Lazaro. “The incorporation of technology into our pedagogical methodology began in mid-2007, when teachers were trained in the creation and maintenance of blogs. These were used to share information about class and school activities, and also became a great way to communicate with students, parents and others, from all parts of the world.” He adds, “Now, ICT is a vital part of our approach to communication and collaboration, how we share and spread knowledge and how we create interactive classes, presentations and student activities.” The focus on Web 2.0-supported learning, with student-created and teacher-facilitated blogs, wikis and video conferences, has brought St. George’s into the 21st century, asserts Lazaro. When students work on real-time collaborative projects with peers from other countries via their wikis and video conferences,

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they rely heavily on the school’s 15 SMART Board interactive whiteboards. “The use of SMART Boards has had a great impact on our students and teachers. The boards have become windows to the global world of Web 2.0 resources and tools that can be implemented in and out of the classroom,” explains Lazaro. With an ICT plan that includes putting a SMART Board interactive whiteboard in every classroom along with the SMART Response (formerly Senteo™ interactive response system) and AirLiner™ wireless slates, Lazaro says that even more collaborative projects and student learning will benefit, especially with the school’s focus on teacher training. “All teachers were trained in the use of SMART Board interactive whiteboards, SMART Notebook software and how we can use SMART Boards as interactive tools and resources when it comes to the creation of our blogs and wikis,” explains Lazaro. The 2009–2010 school year will see all of St. George’s teachers and students working together to implement and build collaborative wikis. These wikis comprise files created in SMART Notebook software, clips and files from video conferences and student-written blogs, all showcasing the results of the students’ investigations into specific topics. “We have dedicated a great deal of time and effort into the use and implementation of ICT in our methodology,” explains Lazaro. “And we plan to continue leading the way in the use of these resources to benefit our students. ICT holds unlimited potential for our students.” ic

When Intel® Corporation

began shipping its Intel-powered convertible classmate PCs in April, 2009, they came complete with SMART Classroom Suite software installed as a purchaser option. The availability of SMART Classroom Suite on these classmate PCs is the latest development in a relationship between SMART and Intel spanning 17 years. It also marked the first time SMART education software solutions were available preinstalled on another company’s hardware. SMART Board interactive whiteboards, SMART Classroom Suite and the classmate PC will help to create learning environments in which students can ask questions, share ideas, brainstorm and manage assignments. The classmate PC laptop converts from a clamshell model to a writing tablet. SMART Classroom Suite includes SMART Notebook, SMART Notebook SE (Student Edition), SMART Sync classroom management software and SMART Response software. Contact a SMART distributor to learn more. ic

Stan dar d i z at ion

news

Exploring creative learning opportunities

New products from SMART

Edinburgh high school standardizes on SMART

These easy-to-use

and cost-effective technology products are designed to reach the next generation of learners and create extraordinary learning moments. The SMART Table is the first multitouch, multiuser table that encourages primary students to create, explore and discover together on its durable screen.

SMART Notebook SE (Student Edition)

St. Thomas of Aquin’s students explore creative learning opportunities with SMART Board interactive whiteboards in every classroom.

“It is hard to imagine

how we could deliver the same quality of learning and teaching without the use of our SMART Boards,” says Robert Burnett, deputy head teacher at St. Thomas of Aquin’s High School in Edinburgh, Scotland. And it was a specific focus on quality that led Burnett, responsible for ICT in the newly constructed school, to decide in 2002 to standardize on SMART Board interactive whiteboards. Now, 7 years later, each of the school’s 48 classrooms has an interactive whiteboard. The initial decision wasn’t made lightly. Burnett explains that he explored research into the technology tool, visited trade shows and met with various manufacturers. It was, he says, the functionality of SMART’s product that sold him and the rest of the school’s staff while road-testing a SMART Board interactive whiteboard in various classroom settings.

“Another crucial factor into our decision was the support partnership we entered into with SMART. This meant we had extremely good support and training at key stages of our implementation,” says Burnett. “The partnership has flourished due to the obvious desire of SMART to engage with end users in the development of SMART software products.” Burnett explains he has found that the presence of SMART Board interactive whiteboards and other ICT tools in the school encourages teachers to share lessons and ideas on how they use technology to enhance their teaching and their students’ learning. “SMART Board interactive whiteboards,” Burnett says, “have become embedded in our pedagogy and enable teachers and pupils to explore even more creative learning opportunities.” ic

SMART Technologies Corporate headquarters | Phone 1.403.245.0333 | Fax 1.403.228.2500 www.smarttech.com | www.education.smarttech.com | www.smarterkids.org © 2009 SMART Technologies ULC. All rights reserved. SMART Board, Senteo, AirLiner, smarttech, the SMART logo and all SMART taglines are trademarks or registered trademarks of SMART Technologies ULC in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other third-party product and company names are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners. Printed in Canada 05/2009. 11440-09.

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is inspired by SMART Notebook software, and is an interactive learning application that enables students to complete assignments, take notes, manage due dates and organize digital material. The UF 55 short-throw projector is now shipping. Designed to reduce shadows on the screen and prevent light from shining in users’ eyes, the UF 55 can also be purchased as an integrated system with a SMART Board 600 series interactive whiteboard (including our wide-format SB685 model). SMART Response, previously called the Senteo interactive response system, is an assessment tool that helps educators quickly gauge student understanding so specific learning needs can be targeted. Upgrading to the latest version allows educators to display performance and test results in pie charts and pie graphs. ic

SMART ease of use keeps getting easier

Since SMART products are designed to be at the center of dynamic learning environments, they are effective, versatile and easy to use. SMART Notebook software, the Pen Tray and our new Touch Recognition feature all help to make SMART Board interactive whiteboards intuitive. That’s the main reason educators have made the SMART Board the most widely used interactive whiteboard in the world. SMART makes it easy for you to be extraordinary in the classroom. Watch our new video to see how teachers are creating inspiring learning environments and achieving incredible results. Visit the education solutions section of SMART’s website for more information. ic