Why I Need a Writing Tablet in My Classroom

Screencasts are a great way to teach students 21^st century skills. They require the students to move beyond the 3 Rs reading, writing, and arithmetic and incorporate the 3 Cs: creating, communicating and collaborating.

When producing screencasts, the students have to work in teams to plan, write and create the final product. They have to think of creative ways to capture the attention of their audience and have to explain new math concepts in their own words. In today’s world, it is no longer acceptable for students to acquire new knowledge and keep it to themselves. It is their responsibility to move beyond the walls of the classroom and share their knowledge with the world.

We want our students to become life long learners which doesn’t mean that they will sign up for class after class. It means that they will have the ability to find resources and educate themselves and teach others. Two years ago my principal and I saw Alan November speak at the MASS Cue conference. He talked about transferring the responsibility of learning to the learners through classroom jobs. I was going to copy the notes I made but I found Gail Desler’s blog and feel she explained it adequately. One of the classroom jobs mentioned by November was screencasting.

Last year I spent a lot of time working on the jobs in isolation: blogging, podcasting, screencasting and more. This year my goal is to put all the pieces of the puzzle together, so I can transfer the control of learning to my students.

I found that my students loved making and watching each other’s screencasts. As I’m sure you all know, students hate explaining their thinking when performing math problems, but because screencasting is an authentic experience, my students wrote eagerly. They got a lot out of the experience, but it was hard to manage and eventually I was forced to phase out screencasting.

The problem was that I had one group of students at a time working on screencasts. Students needed the SMART Board to write out the math problems. The rest of the class was suppose to be doing independent work while the group used the headset and SMART Board at the front of the room As you can imagine, nobody could take their eyes of the screen. It was very distracting to the other students. Although I thought the process of having my students work together to explain math concepts to their peers was amazing, I was forced to give up production until now…

The writing tablet is the perfect solution to my problem. Students will be able to create screencasts without disrupting the learning of the peers and the control of learning will shift to the students.

In the words of Karl Fisch, “Shift Happens.”

There's been a dramatic shift in the way in which I incorporate technology into my classroom.  In one of Alan November's handouts he asks, "Is technology being used as a $2000 pencil?  Pencils are cheap, but technology is not.  If all you are going to use technology for is to replace a pencil, don't bother.  Put the school's money elsewhere.  Effective uses of technology allow teachers and students to do things that would have been impossible five years ago.  We can easily make connection with people and resources around the world that will positively impact our students."

I feel that I've been able to shift the use of technology in my classroom.  My students and I are no longer use technology as a glorified pencil, but we're using it to interact with the world.

This year we collaborated with schools from around the world on project.  I posted the project on globalschoolnet.org in August and over ten schools signed up to participate. The project was called From Our Region To Yours.  We wrote about our region and students from other schools wrote about their region.  I found that my students’ writing improved when they had to write for an authentic audience.

To help each other learn, my students created screencasts which provided tutorials about challenging match concepts and posted them to our school’s website.  Students who struggled with homework, were able to access tutorials from their home computers.  In addition to helping struggling students, the screencasts helped us in an unforeseen way.  I don’t know about your students, but my students often resist writing about math and explaining their thinking.  This was the first time my students were excited to explain their thinking and anxious to get each step just right.

The most exciting technology endeavor was making podcasts.  My students were excited to write and read scripts that would be presented to the whole world.  They enjoyed reading comments that people left for them on itunes (Search for Studio 203) and watching their popularity rate increase.

I will continue to use technology to communicate and learn from the outside world.  I am interested in learning how you have used technology to expand the walls of your classroom.