Teaching Languages with Web 2.0 Technology
Posts tagged interactive White Board
Interactive White Boards – An Intro
May 4th
This year I have organised a series of ICT and Web 2.0 training semninars for the Office of Foreign Languages and Bi-lingualism in Alto Adige (Italy.) They run 2 language libraries, the MediaTeca in Merano and the Multilanguage Centre in Bolzano. This is a short introduction to IWBs, or Interactive White Boards that I will be presenting today.
The presentation is in 4 parts; A quick look at research intro IWB use in language teaching; some Do’s and Don’ts when using IWBs, written by myself, a great film from www.teachers.tv plus, best of all, some practical ideas from my friends and colleagues on Twitter. The presentation also looks at websites suitable for IWB use, as well as pointing out some of the types of IWB software available for language teaching.
Hope that it can be useful to you too!
What Shall We Do With An IWB?
View more presentations from Seth Dickens.
Video Comparison – €3000+ IWB or €50- IWB?
Apr 15th
I stumbled across this handy, home-made video comparison of the €3000+ Smart Interactive White Board and the €50 or so Wiimote Whiteboard the other day. As it’s done from the perspective of teachers I think it’s findings, both positive and negative, about the Wiimote board are really interesting.
Best,
Seth
€50 Interactive White Board – Back In Action?
Apr 9th
Last summer I wrote a post about a n IWB that costs just €50 that the technology guru / geek Johnny Lee had invented using an infra-red pen and a Wii remote. I was really excited about it thinking that maybe this could help many more schools get IWB technology into the class.
I made myself the €50 IWB, I tried it out a few times last summer and I must admit the results were not all that encouraging. I didn’t think much more of it until recently when I “met” a guy called Chris Hill (thanks to my friend Enza via Twitter). Chris is a big evangelist of the Wii remote IWB. This started getting me interested again in the project. I’ve been looking again at my Wii console think “Should I drag you back to the classroom? The answer now, I think is, yes, I will.
My desire to try out the Wiimote IWB again is because Chris has written a handy and comprehensive FAQ on the Wii IWB drawing on his experiences and sharing solutions to the niggly little problems teachers might find when trying to set up their own Wii IWB. Here’s a quick snippet of his post:
How much does it cost? / Is it really only $50?
The controller for the Nintendo Wii is for sale throughout the United States for $40. [It costs about €50 in Europe - Seth] You can build an infrared pen for $5-6. The software is free to download. The cost of the computer, projector, and Bluetooth adapter (if your computer does not have built-in Bluetooth) are not included in the $50.I can’t make my own infrared pen. Can I buy one?
Absolutely. Do a Google search and you will find several options starting as low as $6.Do I have to modify the Wiimote? / Can I still use it with my Wii?
No / Yes. The Wiimote connects to the computer via Bluetooth, the same way it connects to the Wii. You don’t have to open the Wiimote, break it, or reprogram it. So, if you (or your kids) have a Wii, you can use the equipment you already have for both purposes.How do I get started?
Download the free software (Mac version or PC version), build an infrared pen (see my demo) or buy one online, connect to the Wiimote via Bluetooth (open your Bluetooth devices, push the 1 and 2 buttons on the Wiimote, add the device) , run the software, calibrate it (push the “calibrate button,” click on the targets), and you are done.
And Chris has loads of other great advice in his post as well as elsewhere in his blog. Definitely worth checking out if you’re interested in trying out the Wiimote white board!
All the best,
Seth
Wiimote Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/yerahg/551627536/
Milan IATEFL / British Council Conference ’09 (Part 1)
Mar 26th
This year’s British Council / IATEFL Conference in Milan was on the theme of CLIL and Learning Technologies. I was really pleased and privileged to give a workshop there, especially seeing as so many of my fellow presenters gave great presentations full of great ideas and useful hints and tips.
By far the biggest highlight of the conference for me was the opportunity to work with such an enthusiastic and participatory group of teachers in my workshop. It was a real privilege to be able to help such an experienced and knowledgeable group of teachers integrate technology into their CLIL teaching. We had great fun during the session, and there was a lot of great positive feedback about the work me and my colleagues at Martino Martini have been doing. There was some great debate too about the practical time constraints of integrating technology into CLIL. I think, all told, we agreed the results are worth the effort.
As I promised the teachers at the conference (cross my heart!) here is the PowerPoint presentation with details of all the ideas and tools we looked at during the workshop. If you are one of those great teachers who came along, I hope this helps you! If you would like try something out with your students and want to talk about it, or if you just fancy a bit of help or advice on something we looked at during the workshop, I’d love to hear from you! Leave me a comment (by clicking on that little box with a number on up there at the top left of this blog post – that will take you to the comments section.)
View more presentations from Seth Dickens.
Finally, be sure to check back again in a day or two and I’ll get the History, Science and Geography resources we looked at posted here as well as our fabulous videos!
All the best,
Seth.
UPDATE: For some crazy reason I think anyone who uses Internet Explorer will not have been able to read this post until now. 
If that includes you, I’m really sorry! I hope you’ll now be able to read this okay. As always, I look forward to reading any comments and would love to continue discussing the work we looked at in my IATEFL workshop with you all.
Seth.
Interactive Scoreboard for Smart Notebook 10
Mar 23rd
Inspired by the fantastic activities James Hollis talks about on the Teachers Love Smart Boards blog I decided to try out a “Error correction game” with my 4th year class recently.
I wanted to have some sort of scoreboard to keep track of how much each team had “won” by guessing which sentences were correct or not. I thought I’d use something like the excellent Powerpoint scorecards that Dave Foord has on his A6 training site (they’re great – check them out if you haven’t yet). Unfortunately it seems that there isn’t any equivalent for the Smart Notebook 10 software. Undeterred, I thought I’d try my hand at making one myself. I must say I’m quite pleased with the result.
Basically I used the “Flip Along Axis” animation to produce a scoreboard which students or teachers can use with any Smart interactive white board. If you have a look at James’ blog there is a good tutorial on how to do this.
This interactive scoreboard also contains “hyperlinks” so that you can insert a series of questions (up to 10 at the moment, but you can always add more) then you can jump straight to the question you want and jump back to the scoreboard again when your students have answered it.
I hope you enjoy using my lesson. Do let me know with a comment if you find this useful. If you have any questions about how to edit the lesson, again – get in touch with a comment.
Best,
Seth.
Interactive White Board for Under 50 Euros
Jun 2nd
Affordable interactive white board technology for every school sounds a bit Utopian, don’t you think? I recently found out that maybe it’s more realistic than you might have guessed! I know that pretty soon I’m going to have to tone down my enthusiastic introductions, but I literally applauded the computer screen (like a weirdo) when I saw this.
After recently having spent more than €4000 at our language school on a brand new Smart Board, you
can imagine that I was just a bit surprised when reading Joe Dale’s blog about a school in Ireland who had managed to make one for under €50. “Rubbish,” I thought to myself. I thought wrong. The Inver National school in Ireland even have a blog to show you the how-to-dos of the whole process.
From searching through the Inver National’s video of the whole process, I found out that it’s the brain-child of Johnny Lee, a veritable genius of affordable and accessible interactive technology. It was at this point that I started clapping 
Essentially it’s a very simple idea, which has been turned to good use. Simple ideas are always the best, don’t you think? The €50 IWB uses a Wiimote- the remote control from a Nintendo Wii, which costs €40 from my local supermarket, and an infra-red pen.
The Wiimote contains an infra-red sensor which can track the movement of an infra red light source. Johnny connected his Wiimote to a computer using Bluetooth and with a little bit of programming magic, he came up with some free IWB software to make it all work together. Incredible!
Here is his video on how to setup the IWB:
So I don’t think you need me to tell you how much this could benefit schools in countries where the economy is still developing, but from looking at this, I’d say that thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of schools worldwide have now got IWBs within their price range. That has got to be a good thing, don’t you reckon?
I’ll definitely be trying this out with our school and I’ll be sure to write about it here too. If you want to try it out, watch this space and I’ll let you know how I get on. Send me a comment if you fancy trying to work together on making a Wii IWB, Two minds are definitely better than one!
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