Podcast: Episode 35    (22:28 minutes)
Technology Focus: Teaching Models, Jing, VBDoodle, Yaw Cam, Google Forms
Curriculum Area: home-school connection, math, AB472, science

Sit back and enjoy a conversation with Tech Coach Mark Blanton from the Visalia Unified School District. Mark looks at technology integration from five perspectives:

Parents - Mark talks about Teaching Models that offer parents a clear quick understanding of math concepts taught in class. Parents are thus better able to help their child at home. Additionally, new school Websites (click for sample) have now incorporated a parent section to point parents to valuable resources that the they are one-click away from an answers. And check out the PTA blogs run completely by the PTA, low overhead, high PR value.

Teachers - Mark discusses the valuable work of AB472 connect great teaching pedagogy with math content. Mark discusses the power of Jing to visually show teachers quick tech-solutions they can watch on their own computer. VBDoodle is a free tool that makes the projector an interactive drawing tool.Teachers can write directly on the screen of anything like a movie, a photo, a website. This tool goes beyond the traditional drawing tools found in interactive board software.

Students - Mark finds the most joy working with the students. His guiding question is how can technology fit into their normal experience of learning, something that is used when it best serves the purpose, something that you don’t need to ask permission for. YawCam was used post a live video feed on the Internet of a trout fish hatchery in aquarium housed in the library. The fish once hatched were released in a local stream. The online aquarium was a wonderful way for students to follow the life-development process and comment about it.

Site Administrators - Google Forms allows principals to quickly collect information from their staff. Surveys, pacing, lesson idea can be easily gathered by the principals to assist with management decisions.

District Administrators - Lastly, Mark discusses the ways Google Forms have also been used to support district information.

 

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