Learning Community recap - engaging students using multimedia

Special Education teachers participating in the Interactive Whiteboard Learning Communities this year just completed session three - Engaging Students using Multimedia. At some of the sessions, including the intermediate Home School Program / Learning Disabilities Learning Community group, part of the LC session included a guided-reading lesson in order to highlight ways the document camera could support students.

A simple and engaging way to use the document camera is that any document such as textbook, picture book, or worksheet can be projected right onto the Interactive Whiteboard, which provides students with a large visual support during guided reading activities.

Along with a live view, the teachers also explored how student work can be captured and stored digitally onto an ActivInspire flipchart. This allows for editing and annotating - while the student's original work is left intact.

Capturing a page of a picture book using the document camera.

Int. HSP teacher, Stephen Scott from J.B. Tyrrell P.S. uses the document camera to produce a live image of his writing.

Along with still images, video can be captured using a document camera. The camera is on a movable arm, which can be pointed to face a student or teacher. Teachers can record prompts or instructions that can be reviewed by students as many times as is required. Students can also record their ideas which can be replayed and examined - supporting their oral communication of ideas as well as helping them to develop presentation skills.

Naomi Wyman, Intermediate HSP teacher at G.A. Brown, practices
using the document camera to record a video of herself asking questions.

During the session, teachers were given hands-on time to build a lesson around a literacy document they brought with them. The itinerant resource teacher helped to support the embedding of the technology to accommodate student learning needs. Following some reflection and discussion, the Intermediate LC came up with a list of a few ways they would immediately go and use the document camera in their classrooms including one teacher who commented: "The document camera can be used in all curriculum areas to engage the students and help model and differentiate instruction."

Other examples of teacher responses included:

• Teacher and student modelling, procedure, guided reading
• I am excited to try with a microscope.
• Hands on tech demo, art process demo
• Demonstrate math solutions with manipulatives
• Another way to share what they (students) have learned
• Presentation, show math solutions and reading language texts
• Animation

Intermediate HSP teacher Anita Ghosh used the document camera on the following week. Her students used
the document camera to share a comic strip they created during a Visual Literacy co-teaching session