Tuesday, February 28, 2012

SEA IWB Learning Communities support - mid-year examples

SEA Interactive Whiteboard Learning Communities Bring and Share update


On Tuesday, at Dunlace Public School this week, Ms. Berman hosted a number of her HSP Learning Community teachers for a Bring and Share session.

Ms. Berman

Ms. Berman, Ms. Flowerday, Ms. Pryor
and Ms. Jacobs. (left to right).
Teachers took turns showing how they have used the IWB software tools, Document Camera, other software such as Clicker 5 and Read and Write Gold in conjuction with the IWB, to enhance lessons and engage their students.

Teachers problem-solved, brainstormed and discussed ways to reinforce the use of the IWB in creating pre-made lessons or "on the fly" during teachable moments in the classroom.

Ms. Berman shared her use of the Screen recorder function of the document camera in her point of view lesson. After reading the story book, "Fly Away Home", students were asked to take the perspective of a character in the book, during a point of time in the story. The recorder allows both a visual and audio recording of the student's thoughts of what the bird might be thinking.










IWB-friendly sites
Ms. Flowerday shared some web sites with the group.

Response Systems sessions continue

The SEA team completed the second set of Learner Response sessions offered to SEA IWB Learning Community teachers this week. To review the use of Learner Responses for student participation and assessment in the classroom, see a previous blog post here: Response Systems.

The first Response Session set of training sessions were held in late January.

At North Bridlewood P.S., Junior MID teacher Ms. McGuire and an itinerant teacher co-created a lesson using the "clickers" or Response system with her students to reinforce two-dimension shapes in Geometry and Spacial Sense. To see Ms. McGuire in action, watch the video that was taken during the co-teaching session.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

RWG Flash - Pioneer Communities grade 3 lesson

In this lesson, students will use features of Read and Write Gold to research aspects of Pioneer Life in Upper Canada. They will go through the research process using the highlighter tools, and create sentences from extracted point form notes. The lesson outlines the option to use a graphic organizer software program, SMART ideas, as a scaffold to support students in organizing their research information.



Click Pioneer Roles and Jobs view and download the lesson.


Friday, February 17, 2012

EQAO pilot session 2 update

EQAO Pilot with Read and Write Gold session two

The Assistive Technology team's EQAO pilot session two is underway. Teachers and their group of grade 3, grade 6 (or groups of students from combination of grade 3 and 6), from 24 schools across the TDSB are taking part.

Parkdale P.S. HSP teacher Ms. Wurtz and trainer Ms. Bell.
During each half-day session, students and their teachers work with the Read and Write Gold trainer learning how to use the features of the software along with a word processing program. Students develop strategies to help them to demonstrate their thinking by responding to question types such as: multiple choice, short answer, and problem solving as well as creative writing.



Responding to Short Answer Questions
Session Two's focus is on responding to short short answer questions - regardless of the subject area of the text - by using features such as text-to-speech, word prediction and highlighting.

The trainer models the use of the split screen and RWG features in a whole group setting. On the student's left side of the screen is the text being read. On the right side of the screen is the working space, where the student will compose his/her short answers in response to questions about the text.
A student uses the Word Prediction feature to
assist writing a short answer to a question.
Assistive technology: Text-to-Speech feature of Read and Write Gold






Friday, February 10, 2012

Do, Bring and Share in-class session of SEA IWB Learning Communities

Do, Bring, Share
Between each of our SEA Interactive White Board (IWB) Group Claim Learning Communities we offer teachers an opportunity to see what is happening in other classrooms and how the IWB is being used through classroom visits and observation. 

During this current session the participants were offered the choice of a slightly different experience in which teachers come together to share their lessons and insights in a “Do, Bring, Share” session. A small group of teachers in the east attended the first of these sessions.
Each teacher showcased a number of IWB lessons or activities that they created and used with their students and spoke about how the students benefited from them. Questions were asked and strategies were discussed. 
The Itinerant Resource Teacher was also able to show some new approaches to the IWB as well. 

Teacher created page discussing Sequence of Events with an embedded video.

This group ‘co-planning’ session was well received and the teachers appreciated the opportunity to share and see new ideas in regards to the IWB. At the end, each teacher walked away with numerous files from all the participants that they could take back with them to their schools.


Mountain: Multiple Choice question using real photos.

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