Posts Tagged "Interactive Whiteboards"

Using an iPad as an alternative to an interactive whiteboard

Posted on May 4, 2012 in Interactive Whiteboards | 3 comments

With more and more schools (and teachers) getting iPads, I’m increasingly being asked how a teacher can hook up their iPad to their interactive whiteboard.

There are several ways to use your iPad. The first is as a way to control your computer, and the other two involve connecting your computer directly to the projector, removing the IWB from the equation.

None of these methods let you connect your iPad to your IWB. That’s not possible right now.

1. Control your PC with Splashtop Remote

I’ve written about Splashtop Remote in the past. By using it, you can’t control the IWB directly – but you can control the computer thats connected to the IWB. The app requires you to also download and install some client software on the PC that you want to control. Both device also need to be connected to the same network for this to work. You can set up a password to prevent anyone just connecting to your PC.

The way the Splashtop app works is that when you connect to the PC, the PC’s screen is mirrored on your iPad’s screen. Simply touch and click on the icons as if you now had a touchscreen PC. This can be a problem with software that wasn’t designed for fat figners and so has small icons. You might want to pre-open something like Smart Notebook before you take control on the iPad.

Control of the computer isn’t perfect. And I do find the system can run a little slow sometimes, which can be frustrating. But if you do have an iPad it does open up a new way of using your computer/IWB setup.

The Splashtop app is only £1.49 on the UK app store, and the client software is free, so it’s not an expensive gamble. Check it out

2. Using a VGA Cable

A simple way to display the contents of your iPad screen to a class is to buy a VGA adaptor and connect the iPad directly to a projector in exactly the same way you’d connect a laptop. This works pretty well, although you are tethered by the cable and sometimes the connector can work loose. Not every app will work in landscape mode, so you do get some flickering as the mode shifts.

This does work very well with note taking apps such as Notability = especially if you invest in a cheap stylus to make writing easier.YouTube videos, BBC iPlayer and any movie files on the iPad will play very well.

Here’s a great blogpost by Marc Faulder about using an iPad hooked up to a projector via a VGA cable.

3. Using Apple TV

The other way to connect your iPad to a display is to buy an Apple TV device and connect that to your projector. You can then connect your iPad to the Apple TV over a wireless network. The Apple TV connects to your projector via an HDMI cable. If your projector does not support HDMI then you’ll need a converter.

This gives you the advantage of being able to be anywhere in the classroom, and to share your screen with the class. Many apps support “Air-Play” and you can also turn on “mirroring” which does the same thing as the VGA cable and display your iPad screen.

Also see this guide by Brad Ratcliffe which explains how to set up Apple TV in your classroom.

Other Links

Here’s some great advice on using Apple TV and other methods from James Hollis.

Have you tried any of these? Got any other good links to share? Put them in the comments!

Update : Just as I published this, there has been an official announcement from Smart about their forthcoming Smart Notebook iPad app. Looks interesting. More here.

BETT Show 2012 Roundup Part 1

Posted on Jan 16, 2012 in Conferences, Interactive Whiteboards | 2 comments

So last week saw the annual trip to the BETT Show – one of the biggest educational technology shows in the world, for the last time at the Kensington Olympia venue. As always anyone who is anyone in the world of educational technology was here, showing off their latest products. You can see my photos from the show here.

Like last year I was slightly underwhelmed by some aspects of the show. There was very little that was totally new and there wasn’t much of a “wow” factor. I guess that’s the downside of attending every single year for the last few years. Everything was the same as last year, but slightly updated. There were lots of interactive whiteboards, interactive projectors, visualisers, voting systems, learning platforms, iPads on show, but all just slightly bigger/faster/shinier than they were at BETT 2011 (and 2010 to be honest). Many of the people I spoke to felt the same way.

In terms of interactive whiteboards the major players of SMART and Promethean were both there in force with massive stands while there were lots of other smaller players trying to get into the market.

Promethean had many products on show, the one that caught my eye was their new ActivProgress system which looks like a move into a coordinated platform for assessment and student tracking. It provides a web-based system that is linked up with their ActivExpression student voting handsets (as well as paper-based tests) to collect and collate test scores. It should also link to SIMs and other school management systems.

Promethean were also demonstrating their ActivTable, a 46″ interactive monitor with multitouch to allow 6 students to use it simultaneously. It looks nice. Time will tell how easy the development kit is to produce your own materials. I’m still not sure if the money would be better spent on 10 iPads.

SMART were demonstrating Smart Notebook 11 which did look very good. It’s due out “in the Spring” and the version on show still had a few bugs to iron out. The ability to embed whole webpages was interesting, although sadly it won’t do embed codes – although that could be covered by some of the new html5 widgets. Directly embedding a YouTube video for instance would be a handy feature. I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy when it’s released later this year.

Notebook 11 will be a free upgrade for existing users, and the rumour is that there will be an option to buy licences for the Notebook software separately to run on any system you wish – which if true is a big change in Smart’s approach.

I also spent some time on the Polyvision and eInstruction stands, being shown their latest IWB systems, both of which were interesting.

Polyvision were showing off their latest ēno whiteboard which has no need for additional speakers or amplifier. The board itself acts as a loudspeaker, which is quite a cool idea. The Polyvision board can also be written on with regular pens for those “plan B” moments when the technology fails. Polyvision boards use a magnetic strip with icons on it which control the features of the board. Polyvision don’t provide their own generic software, instead bundling the board with Easiteach or Wizteach software.

eInstruction were demonstrating their Insight 360 interactive whiteboard systems. The Mobi system incorporates a wireless slate that can be used to control the lesson and write/annotate on the PC. It also has its own touch screen for adding teacher notes or storing bookmarks and other links. It’s an interesting idea, and gives teachers the freedom to move around the classroom (and pass the slate around the class). It could also be used to control assessments using their voting systems, and store/view scores.

An interesting development is the Mobi360 for iPad which allows teachers to control their lesson via an iPad. They can write/annotate like they could on a slate, as well as interact with other devices such as the voting handsets. For those teachers who often ask if they can use their iPad like an IWB, this might be the solution for you! More info here.

 In part 2 I’ll move away from the interactive whiteboards and look at some of the other products that were on show.

Let me know what you thought of the BETT show in the comments below.

Interactive Whiteboards and Collaborative Pupil Learning in Primary Science

Posted on Jan 5, 2012 in Interactive Whiteboards, Useful Links | 0 comments

A quick link to a useful research project carried out by Neil Mercer and others at the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education.

They investigated what happened when a wall-mounted interactive whiteboard was used by groups of primary school children as they worked together on science activities. They were interested in what the IWB may offer as a distinctive classroom tool for children’s collaborative learning.

You can see the project materials here: http://iwbcollaboration.educ.cam.ac.uk/

IWB Research Materials Update

Posted on Dec 16, 2011 in Interactive Whiteboards | 0 comments

This is a set of updated links from the last time I collated these back in 2009. I’m using this post as a bit of a brain-dump to collate some research articles. I haven’t read all of them myself yet but I’m putting all the links into one place so I can find them again later.

Another list of articles can be found here by Miller, Glover and Averis at Keele University, and also some collated resources here.

 IWB’s and Raising Attainment : Marzano

Interactive Whiteboards and Collaborative Pupil Learning in Primary Science – Cambridge Uni - http://iwbcollaboration.educ.cam.ac.uk/

Mathematics and Digital Technologies: New Beginnings (2010), National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics http://bit.ly/ncetmdtreport

MILLER, D.J., GLOVER, D., & AVERIS, D. (2008). Enabling enhanced mathematics teaching with interactive whiteboards: Final Report for the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics. http://bit.ly/iwbreport

WILSON F. & MILLER, D. (2008). Enabling enhanced mathematics teaching with interactive whiteboards, National Teacher research Panel (Commissioned for the Teacher Research Conference 2008). http://bit.ly/wilsonmiller

The ICT Impact Report: A Review of Studies of ICT Impact on Schools in Europe.
http://insight.eun.org/shared/data/pdf/impact_study.pdf

MILLER, D.J., GLOVER, D., AVERIS, D., & DOOR, V. (2005). From technology to professional development: How can the use of an interactive whiteboard in initial teacher education change the nature of teaching and learning in secondary mathematics and modern languages? Training and Development agency, London. Report made to the Teacher Training Agency. Available at: http://bit.ly/iwbtdareport

MILLER, D.J., AVERIS, D., DOOR, V. & GLOVER, D., (2005). How can the use of an interactive whiteboard enhance the nature of teaching and learning in secondary mathematics and modern foreign languages? Report made to Becta. Available at: http://bit.ly/iwbmillerbecta

MILLER, D.J., GLOVER, D., & AVERIS D. (2005). Presentation and pedagogy: the effective use of interactive whiteboards in mathematics lessons. In Hewitt, D. & Noyes, A., Proceedings of the sixth British Congress of Mathematics Education, BSRLM proceedings, vol. 25 (1), pp. 105-112. London: British Society for Research into Learning Mathematics.
http://www.bsrlm.org.uk/IPs/ip25-1/BSRLM-IP-25-1-14.pdf

GLOVER, D., MILLER, D.J & AVERIS D. (2004) Panacea or prop: the role of the interactive whiteboard in improving teaching effectiveness, the Tenth International Congress of Mathematics Education, Copenhagen
http://www.icme-organisers.dk/tsg15/Glover_et_al.pdf

Delivering E-Learning Using Interactive Whiteboards: http://www.e-learningcentre.co.uk/eclipse/Resources/whiteboards.htm (E-Learning Centre, United Kingdom, 2004)

How is the Interactive Whiteboard Being Used in the Primary School and How Does This Affect Teachers and Teaching
http://www.activewhiteboards.co.uk/IFS_Interactive_whiteboards_in_the_primary_school.pdf Cogill, Julie. (Virtual Learning, 2002)

Interactive Whiteboards.http://www.peterli.com/spm/resources/articles/archive.php?article_id=1705 Kollie, Ellen. School Planning and Management; v47 n1 , p88-90 ; Jan 2008

Whiteboards Inc. Interactive Features Fuel Demand for Modern Chalkboards. http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2007/09/12/02board.h01.html Davis, Michelle R. Digital Directions; Sep 12, 2007

How Can You Use Research Evidence to Enhance your Mathematics Teaching? NCETM 2007 http://www.ncetm.org.uk/files/140592/NCETM+Evidence+Bulletin.pdf

MILLER, D. J. (2006). The magic box – enhancing interactivity, Mathematics Teaching, 197, pp. 28-31. http://www.atm.org.uk/mt/archive/mt197files/ATM-MT197-28-31.pdf (Login needed)

CMIS – Interactive Whiteboards Links http://www.det.wa.edu.au/education/cmis/eval/curriculum/ict/iwb/index.htm

Phonics Play – free interactive phonics games

Posted on Nov 30, 2011 in Interactive Whiteboards, Literacy Resources | 0 comments

Go take a look at : http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/

A Sense of Scale : Visualising the Big and the Small

Posted on Nov 27, 2011 in Games and interactives, Science Resources, Useful Links | 0 comments

Here are two great applications to use with students when trying to visualise a sense of scale. How much smaller are atoms compared to things that we can see like a grain of rice. How much bigger is our galaxy compared to our solar system etc.

I’ve blogged about both before, but was showing them to a PGCE group the other day so thought it would be good to share them on the blog again for those who missed it.

The Cell Size and Scale interactive from the Genetic Science Learning Centre, University of Utah, lets you zoom in from a coffee bean down to a carbon atom.

Simply drag the slider across the screen to zoom in and out and view cells, organlles, paramecium, viruses and molecules, ending with a carbon atom. It’s a brilliant, clear way to demonstrate  relative scales of objects.

Take a look at : http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/cells/scale/

A similar tool is The Scale of the Universe which lets you scroll from the size of a person and head out into space – viewing the solar system, galaxy and eventually the entire universe. Or zoom smaller and smaller down to sub atomic particles.

Take a look at : http://www.htwins.net/scale/

Both of these resources would work really well on an interactive whiteboard.

As an extra – this Powers of 10 video is a little old these days, but it’s still pretty good.

Let me know what you think of these resources in the comments below!

Update : also take a look at http://www.cellsalive.com/howbig.htm (thanks @jpscience)

Sankore – free open source IWB software

Posted on Nov 8, 2011 in Interactive Whiteboards, Software | 6 comments

Open-Sankore is free interactive whiteboard software that is compatible with all types of IWB. It’s based on what was previously called Uniboard software. It’s been in beta for a while, and from what I can see this is a recent release, although it still needs some work.

The basic tools that you would expect are here. You can write with a pen (4 colours only) and a pencil. There’s a rubber tool, lines and text. Annoyingly you can’t move anything written with the pens – they seem to be fixed once you’ve drawn them onto the page.

The sidebar gives access to shapes – but you can’t group shapes with text. So a speech bubble with a text box over the top will remain separate objects. You also can’t fix layers either – so if you click on the bubble it will pop over and hide the text.

The sidebar also gives access to different apps such as timers, protractors and rulers. There are folders for clip art and videos, but these seem blank right now.

You can choose from 4 different backgrounds – one plain, one dark and then a dark and light grid. The colours of the pens change automatically when you choose a dark background.

In terms of dealing with files – Open Sankore will let you export as it’s own ubz file type. I’m not sure anything else will open that. You can also export as pdf. It will apparently open .iwb files but the two I tried did not import very successfully – I only got text and none of the images or annotations.

I’m really hoping that eventually we’ll get a decent open-source alternative to the big two for users of other boards, interactive projectors,and for teachers who want to write platform-independent resources. We’re not there yet with Open Sankore, but maybe in the future it will get there. But for now it’s just too clunky and lacking in features. As an alternative to Smart or Promethean you’re still going to have so buy Easiteach for now.

You can check it out at http://open-sankore.org/ The download page is in French, but the software will work in English once downloaded.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

Triptico – an essential interactive whiteboard resource for teachers

Posted on Oct 31, 2011 in Activity Ideas, Games and interactives, Interactive Whiteboards, Promethean, Resources, SMARTboards, Subject Resources, Web Tools | 0 comments

I have written about Triptico a few years ago, but it’s worth mentioning again since the site, and their resources, has had quite a revamp since then. Triptico has changed from being a website of online resources to a downloadable application which runs locally. Triptico uses the Adobe Air platform, so as long as your school network allows you to install it then you’ll have no problems. You might need to have a word with your technician just in case….

The Triptico resource application currently contains 20 different interactive resources – all of which are easy to edit, adapt, save and share. You can access them all with one simple download… everything is completely free – and you will receive updates whenever new resources are added!

There are some great resources that teachers will find useful for their interactive whiteboard. Each one can be customised and saved – ready to use whenever you need it.

Here are just a few:

Word Magnets has lots of different uses. You can create drag and drop sentences, adding adjectives to create “better” sentences. Or create a quick Fridge Magnet Poetry activity.

Find 10 asks the students to select the 10 correct items from a grid of 15 different things. The grid can be customised with your own items. Would make a fun lesson starter activity.

There are countdown timers, student name pickers, Image and word spinners. There is even a resource you can use when running a class quiz – keeping track of each team’s score.

You can view a screencast of the various Triptico resources here.

David Riley at Triptico has done a fantastic job in creating all these resources. And the fact that they are free is even more impressive. For the latest updates to Triptico then it is well worth following David on  Twitter or go take a look at his blog.

I definitely think that Triptico is an essential download for anyone who has an interactive whiteboard, whatever brand you have. You can download your free version of Triptico here : http://www.triptico.co.uk/

Thanks to Jose Picardo, who reminded me about Triptico via his blog.

What do you think of Triptico? Let me know via the comments…

Access YouTube Videos Without the Clutter

Posted on Jul 15, 2011 in Digital Media, Interactive Whiteboards, Useful Links, Web Tools | 7 comments

One of the problems with using YouTube videos with a class (once you’ve got past the problem of getting your school to agree to give access to YouTube) is that invariably the clip will be accompanied by comments below it, many of which might be unsavory. There’s also links to other videos and banner advertisment, all of which may be distracting to the students.

There are several ways that you can access YouTube videos without all those distractions. Here are just a few:

QuieTube
QuieTube gives you a button which you can drag to your toolbar. When you see a YouTube video you want to use, click the button and you’ll get a URL which will let you watch just the video. Embed this link into your IWB page to go straight to the video page.

View Pure
Go to the View Pure website, enter the URL of a YouTube video and it strips out everything but the video. Very simple to use. You can even drag a button to your desktop which does the job. You can also then take the URL of the page you get, and hyperlink to that page.

Accessible YouTube
This is an interface to YouTube designed for people who access their computers via either 2 switches or a mouse. It allows the user to use two keys/switches or a mouse to navigate through a list of videos, and watch any or all of them. Currently the list of videos can be a playlist, the results of a video search, the related videos for a particular video, or YouTube’s most popular videos. For now, you must use Firefox in order for it to work.

Thanks to Shannon Smith (@brachsmith) for the Accessible YouTube link via Twitter.

YouTube XL

This is a modified version of YouTube designed to use on large-screen televisions, and so also on Interactive Whiteboards. The interface makes it simpler to use by cutting out a lot of the clutter on the page. Theres no way of hyperlinking to a specific video, but you can add any you like to your Favourites, which you can then access under the Favourites tab on the main YouTube XL screen.

Remember – None of these tools moderate the video content though, so you still have to use YouTube resources wisely.

You will also still need a YouTube connection at school though, these are not ways around filtered content. If you can’t access YouTube in school, these will not work.

If you have any other tools like this, add them to the comments.