Assignment #2

The activity that I will be presenting in class today is one on geography.  it meats the NETS for students   1 c. use models and simulations to explore complex systems and issues. and the NETS for teachers
1b. engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources.

The Features that I will be using, are that of an interactive globe to find coordinates and the Pen to write these coordinates on the board.

This activity used in a classroom gets the students up and around in a way that an overhead projector or even a regular white board never could.  In this lesson students can be actively learning about latitude and longitude, a subject that by all accounts is pretty boring.

Active Board

The Promethean Active Board sounds a lot like the Smart Board in what it can do as well as the impact that it has had on classrooms.  For instance in a Huston County high school they have installed quite a few of these active boards in their classrooms and according to the website the teachers have changed their style of teaching to a more active participation kind of model.  They have also gotten better at making sure their students are getting the information correct through these boards as they have a quiz feature that enables the students to answer questions from a hand held voting device.  Ultimately these boards have had a positive impact at least on the students of this high school.
The only real question is what makes it any better than a Smart board.

What I learned about the SMART Board

Through using the Notebook program to create a presentation I learned quite a bit about what you can do on this thing.  It really is an amazing tool.  For instance in my presentation, I use an interactive globe that students can move around and find different coordinates for cities anywhere in the world.  The program is fairly simple to understand and use in creating presentations.  From what I've seen and experienced there is a lot you can do with these boards.