This is a good review of a few interactive screen options for educators. If you are just dipping your toe into the ocean of interactive screen choices, don't feel overwhelmed. Know that the decisions you make will focus on hardware as well as interactive digital content. The article below provides screen shots, a comparison chart, and information about interactive tabletops in addition to whiteboards.
TechLAB Shoutout: 5 Interactive Whiteboards Brian Nadel, Scholastic Tech Tools, 11/7/12 Note: Although I enjoy sharing news related to interactive technologies and applications, I often dig in deep, and include links to primary sources, research, and related scholarly articles when I can. I view my blog as a repository or archive. If you do a search on this blog, you will likely find yourself pleasantly surprised, even if the post was written a few months - or years ago.
I'll have to admit, I no longer consider myself an early adopter. I put off exploring the Google Chrome Web Store until.... today. Most of my recent explorations have centered on discovering great apps for my iDevices, but since I'm a cross-platform, cross-device, transmedia type of person, I could not neglect the world of interactive web apps!
Here is a screen shot of the educational web apps from the Google Chrome Web Store:
After you select a few web apps, you can access them from your Chrome browser by selecting a new tab or new window. The screen shot below shows the apps I've currently chosen to explore:
I have an HP TouchSmart, and I found that many of the web app worked out OK with touch interaction, even 3D "rotate and pan". My hunch is that many of the web apps will work fine on an interactive whiteboard.
I took a quick look at the MeeGenius! Children's Books interactive web app and was pleasantly surprised. This web app is a talking book that highlights each word as it is spoken. A human voice is used for the narration.
I'm looking forward to getting into work early on Monday to see what web apps work well on the SMARTboard!
Following a link from Nathan Yau's recent Flowing Data blog post, Our Changing World in Cartograms, I discovered that FedEx's "Our Changing World" website. It provides an interesting way to explore data about various countries by mousing over countries on a map.
I have an HP TouchSmart PC, and found that the touch-screen interaction offered by this website was better than using the mouse. I'm pretty sure that this website would be fun to use on a larger touch-enabled display, and in in the classroom, on interactive whiteboards.
To my surprise, I also discovered that the website offers a 3D augmented reality version of "Our Changing World": Experience the changing world in augmented reality
"See the world and the information that shapes it. Watch it come to life as a 3-D hologram..."
(I'll play with the AR hologram later today.)
Note:
The FedEx website provides links to additional resources for each topic area, as well as a link to the sources used for the data included in the information graphics. It is important to remember that graphics do not always accurately depict the numbers!
"At experience.fedex.com, visitors can interact through a world map with data and content provided by The Economist Intelligence Unit on eight world trends initially, including air travel, people in cities, entrepreneurs and success, paper trail, business growth, education, money and happiness, and research and development.Visitors also have an opportunity to analyze the data, share information, or participate in real-time, online polls....“At FedEx, we pride ourselves on our ability to offer great customer experiences,” said Malcolm Sullivan, vice president, Marketing, FedEx Express Asia Pacific. “Experience.fedex.com is an effective way for us to extend these experiences to the virtual world. By making visualizations of complex and important information available to people everywhere, FedEx makes it easy for anyone to learn about their world and share their discoveries with friends.”"
What is SepiaTown? "In a way, it's a time machine. SepiaTown lets you use your computer or mobile device to see what the very spot you're standing on looked like decades or centuries ago...SepiaTown lets you view and share thousands of mapped historical images from around the globe....The objective of SepiaTown is to map a virtual past by collecting and mapping a vast collection of historical and vintage photographs, prints, film, audio and other media. Please help this collection grow and share your history - contribute your own early photos, pieces of history, and other media from yesteryear"
This site would be great for history teachers and their students, especially in classrooms that have interactive whiteboards! Image: SepiaTown
via O'Reilly Radar, via Fresh + New(er) -"discussion of issues around digital media and museums" "Fresh+New is a blog primarily written by Seb Chan at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. The purpose of the site is to act as a repository and sounding board for discussions around digital media and its use in museums. It evolved from a team discussion tool into a sector resource."
I have collected lots of resources for interactive whiteboards and other touch-screens, such all-in-one Touch PC's such as the Dell and HP TouchSmart. Some are optimized for use on mobile devices such as the iPhone, iPad, and Droids.
I'd like to highlight a few online educational games on this blog from time-to-time.
The PhysicsGames site is full of games that can be embedded into a blog or web page, making it easy for teachers and parents to organize and arrange the games as they see fit. This feature also lets students do the same.
On the main page of the website, the games are arranged in alphabetical order, with picture icons for each game. The titles of the games and the pictures on the icons give you a quick idea of what each game is about. The games were created by a variety of developers, professionals, teachers, and if I'm not mistaken, tech-savvy students.
Below are links to the various categories of physics games found on the site. The games I explored all had music and sound effects, so make sure that the sound is turned on! (Note: The site is supported by sponsors, but the advertising is not annoying-in many cases, you can skip the ads.)
One of the schools I serve as a school psychologist has a number of students with severe autism. Over the past year or so, each classroom was outfitted with a new interactive white board (IWB). We've found that multimedia content displayed on these large screens is much more engaging than what is viewed on computers with much smaller displays.
The exciting news is that some of the students who have minimal interest in computers pay a great deal of attention to activities on the IWBs. Students who have self-stimulatory or repetitive behaviors that interfere with their ability to engage in traditional activities don't seem to exhibit these patterns nearly as much when the focus is on the IWB. In my opinion, IWBs are great tools for reaching and teaching young people who have autism spectrum disorders!
I'm in the process of creating a variety of short video clips that teachers can embed in learning activities that also provide a way for students to reduce their levels of anxiety, agitation, and/or repetitive behaviors.
The following videos are my first experiments, and are not as polished as I'd like. They are best viewed on a large-screen display or IWB, set to high definition. Although various students have viewed these videos a few times this week, they were a great hit. In some cases, we found it useful to loop the video, especially for students who require repetition of content.
The videos were shot using a small hand-held Panasonic HD camcorder, and quickly edited in iMovie. The music was either taken from the iMovie music library or created using riffs in Garage Band, an Apple iLife product.
Enjoy!
Lily Pond and Music
In this video, I used a few subtitles to direct the viewer to points of interest, such as the little grasshopper hiding in the pink lily and a dragonfly, which appears near the end of the video.
Butterflies and Flowers Set to Music
I set this version to piano music for a student who listens to piano music as a coping strategy. I plan to create another version with other genres of music. This particular score was created with piano riffs from Garage Band.
Up Close at the Charleston Aquarium - with relaxing music
Even the most inattentive students paid maximum to this video when it was looped! I think they liked the variety of sea life, especially the turtles. Tip: If you plan to capture video at an aquarium, plan to visit at a time where there are few visitors!
I can't wait to take my video camera to the Atlanta aquarium.
Minnows and Music
The minnows swimming around in the murky green tank are a little boring, but things get slightly more exciting when the bait-shop owner feeds them. The music makes up for what the video lacks. The students didn't mind at all.
Jellyfish at the Discovery Place Aquarium, Charlotte, NC - with music
I'd like to visit Discovery Place at a less-crowded time and re-capture the jellyfish in action from a better vantage point.
UPDATE
I'd like to see if there are similar videos set to music by William Orbit.
I found this video on YouTube of William Orbit's "Sea Green", set to video created by a fan:
Below is "Surfin", great for chilling - needs some video...
A lot is happening at one SMART Technologies, one of my favorite "interactive" companies. Not long ago, SMART Technologies, a company most known for interactive whiteboards found in classrooms and businesses, acquired one of my favorite interactive touch-screen display companies, NextWindow. (SMART Technologies' acquisition of NextWindow: A "smart window" to the world)
SMART Technologies is moving ahead into the world of augmented reality (AR) with a new document camera. The company's latest interactive whiteboard, the fourth generation 600i, is ready for stereoscopic 3D content, which is on the way via the Discovery Channel and other media companies. The SMARTTable looks like it will be provided with more content, at least in the UK, where Scholastic has partnered with SMART Technologies to provide multi-touch and multi-student interaction via the collaborative Story Stage application.
For those with money to invest, SMART Technologies has filed for a proposed initial IPO (Initial Public Offering).
New SMART Document Camera 330 is mixed reality ready: Document camera enables exploration of 2D, 3D, animated and audio-enriched content
"Mixed Reality Technology -Manipulate and explore 2D, 3D, text, animation and audio-enriched content on the SMART Board interactive whiteboard by placing a physical object bearing a digital marker under the SMART Document Camera lens"
SMART introduces next-generation SMART Board™ 600i: New projector lowers total cost of ownership and is 3D-ready "Available in both standard and widescreen formats, the latest generation of the 600i system features an improved and easy-to-use extended control panel (ECP) and a fully integrated short-throw projector that is 3D-ready and has a longer lamp life. The newly designed ECP is mounted to the interactive whiteboard bezel, not to the wall, making it aesthetically pleasing and easier to install."
SMART and Scholastic to develop multi-touch educational content: Story Stage application for SMART Table to encourage student creativity and collaboration "Story Stage is an easy-to-use resource designed to facilitate collaborative literacy work. The interactive activities use digital puppets to encourage pairs or groups of children to work together to create their own imaginative retellings of familiar stories."
SMART Classroom Suite 2010 enhances interactive learning: New version offers improved wireless performance and greater support for formative assessment "The software combines classroom management, assessment, lesson creation and assignment management tools in one offering."
Acquisition extends SMART’s presence into broader consumer market and strengthens IP portfolio
Calgary, AB (Vocus/PRWEB ) April 25, 2010 -- SMART Technologies, the world’s leading provider of interactive whiteboards, announces the acquisition of New Zealand-based NextWindow (Next Holdings Limited), a leading designer and manufacturer of optical touch technology for integration into all-in-one computers, computer displays and large-format screens. The acquisition reinforces SMART’s own investment in optical touch research and development, and combines the two companies’ significant optical touch patent portfolios. The NextWindow acquisition is expected to have minimal impact on both businesses’ day-to-day operations, offices and company structure. Both SMART and NextWindow are privately held companies.
NextWindow supplies optical touch components to manufacturers of PCs and other interactive displays. Its touch components are used in PCs and monitors sold by Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Medion, NEC, Samsung and Sony. The acquisition extends SMART’s current presence in the education, business and government sectors into the broader consumer market. SMART is also expanding its business in Asia, where NextWindow has already been active. In the past year, NextWindow has developed an Asian presence in Singapore, Taiwan and Korea.
“SMART serves a range of markets, and it is timely to diversify our revenue base beyond the sectors we already serve,” says Nancy Knowlton, SMART’s CEO. “NextWindow‘s core values, business model, patent portfolio and focus on the consumer market make it an attractive acquisition for us.” “We are combining two companies with complementary expertise and a remarkably similar culture focused on innovation and excellence,” says Al Monro, NextWindow’s CEO. “NextWindow’s development of optical touch technology complements SMART’s efforts, and I’m delighted that we are becoming part of SMART.”
In the transaction, RBC Capital Markets were financial advisors to SMART and Cowen and Company, LLC were financial advisors to NextWindow.
About NextWindow
Founded in 2001, NextWindow is a designer and manufacturer of optical touch screens for integration into all-in-one computers, computer displays and large-format screens. NextWindow is a leader in optical touch technology, enabling OEMs, ODMs and resellers to add touch-screen capability to their products. With offices in New Zealand, Taiwan, Singapore and the United States, the company provides cost-effective manufacturing for PCs as well as customized solutions for kiosks, digital signage and interactive education. www.nextwindow.com
About SMART
SMART Technologies, the global leader in interactive whiteboards, develops easy-to-use integrated products and services that can improve the way the world works and learns. For more than 20 years, innovation and commitment to excellence have been at the core of our business. We help educators achieve better results with technology products that support student-centered learning. We help businesses become more productive with easy-to-use collaboration solutions that enable better results. Our success is driven by our deep commitment to and engagement with both the education and business communities. www.smarttech.com
For more information, please contact:
Marina Geronazzo
Manager, Public Relations
SMART Technologies
Phone +1.403.407.5088
Cell +1.403.605.6607
Web www.smarttech.com
###
RELATED Calgary's Smart Technologies acquires high-tech rival.
Dan Healing, Calgary Herald, 4/26/10 SMART Technologies acquires NextWindow to move into the touch screen business
Dean Takahashi, VenureBeat 4/25/10 NextWindow, shunned by local investors, goes to offshore buyer
Chris Keall, 4/26/10, The National Business Review (NZ) [UPDATE: A spokeswoman for NextWindow told NBR the company's NZ office would be retained in the wake of the Smart Technology deal, and that there would be no change to staff.] "NextWindow revenue surged to $40 million last year (from the previous year's $6.5 million) as Microsoft’s Windows 7 software helped push its touchscreen technology toward the mainstream. The Auckland-based company sells its touchscreen panel to Dell, HP, Sony, NEC and other large computer companies. HP’s TouchSmart series (pictured above) is one line of PCs that features technology made by NextWindow."
If you work in education, you probably heard the term, "21st Century Schools". All teachers must become skillful integrators of technology and pedagogy, and this will be the solution to cure all of public education's ills, right?!
Many teachers DO embrace technology, but find that despite the technological revolution, there are many barriers to moving forward.
The link below is to a 2009 thesis written by Barbara J. Wismer, a teacher who devoted much of her her life, 24/7, as a Classroom for the Futureteacher while working on her Master of Education degree. Her classroom was provided with a set of laptops, an interactive whiteboard, an LCD projector, a video camera, a digital camera, and an assortment of applications. In her thesis, Ms. Wismer describes numerous barriers that she faced nearly every day during her study. These are barriers that hold true throughout many schools in the U.S. Ms. Wismer provides a personal description of her experiences, a breath of fresh air when compared with most academic papers that have crossed my path:
Here are a few examples from the "Problems and Shortcomings" section of the thesis (p. 89-96):
"The “right click” function is disabled (it is also disabled for teachers, too). This made the copying and pasting of pictures and information more difficult."
"Flash drives (USB saving devices) are the biggest gripe among teachers in my district. We are not allowed to insert a flash drive into a school computer; it can result in immediate dismissal. The technology department places such a restriction (the staff has all the same restrictions as students) on us out of fear that someone will bring in a virus or operating system that could compromise our school district’s system. It is frustrating to be treated like we are children. There is constant uproar in the district to treat the teachers like adults and respect the decisions we make – like not abusing the right to use a flash drive. Many of the saving issues that I brought up previously could be avoided with the permission to use a flash drive."
"Internet connection and network connection issues plagued us the entire semester. There were some days when half of the class would lose their connection and any unsaved work would be lost."
"By why is Google Images blocked? Why are all blogs (even educational ones) blocked? Why can I not download a video from United Streaming or a flipchart from Promethean Planet? We were told that if we wanted any of those things downloaded, we were to provide a list to the technology department. I did that and was told that I could download them myself at home and then save them to a CD-ROM and bring them in to use."
"The only complaint that I would have is that about half of the teachers that have the equipment actually use it. The other half just lets the equipment sit in a closet. I have found that those teachers only signed up to be part of the Classrooms for the Future program to have a laptop cart permanently in their room."
I had no idea that teachers could be restricted from access to the right-click functions of their mice at work, and could be fired for inserting a flash drive into a school's computer! Both restrictions had a negative impact on Ms. Wisner's ability to do her job with efficiency.
One of the schools I serve as a school psychologist will be getting a SMARTTable. We've decided to enter the SMART Table multi-touch application contest, which means that we'll have to put our ideas into action soon, July 1st, to be exact. (We will be working on this project after work hours.)
The purpose of this post is to provide a spot to keep videos related to the SMARTTable, as well as other multi-touch tables used with students, so team members watch the table in action. (I will move this content to a special website for this project when I get a moment!)
Our school recently received about 8 SMARTBoards, and since every classroom is geared for students with severe disabilities, including autism, I thought I'd share the following video first. The students have started to work cooperatively and have begun to develop more communication skills:
SMARTBOARD AND STUDENTS WITH SEVERE DISABILITIES
(The teacher in this video uses theZACH browser, designed for students with autism, to help them independently navigate to interactive websites. The Zac browser can be navigated with a Wii remote controller, too.)
SMARTTable- Engaged Students from Davie County
ALIVE OR NOT ALIVE
ANIMAL NEEDS:
ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION
1MORE, 1 LESS
"In this table activity 1 More, 1 Less students work on a series of touch exercises in the tables Multiple Choice, Hot Spaces and Hot Spots applications where they can practice simple addition and subtraction."
WHAT IS REAL ABOUT PLANTS AND ANIMALS?
ALPHABET
"In this table activity Alphabet students work on a series of touch exercises in the tables Multiple Choice and Hot Spots applications where they can learn about different letters of the alphabet."
HOW-TO VIDEOS FOR THE SMART TABLE
Adding background images from SMART Notebook using Windows XP
SMARTTable Toolkit: Adding background images from SMART Notebook using MAC OSX
I was looking for a drag-and-drop activity for students to use on interactive whiteboards (and also on my HP TouchSmart PC), and thought Mr. Potato head would be a good choice. My daughter linked me to something even better:Mr. Picasso Head, an on-line activity created by Ruder Finn Interactive, a few years ago.
"We are asking you to draw a small square image using software on our website. You don't need to be an artist or be able to draw - you can make patterns, write words, doodle - what-ever you want. Your image will be one of one million images that will make up the entire picture - The One Million Masterpiece.
You can choose to make your picture fit in with the surrounding pieces, or make it stand out, by using a preview feature that shows your image with the context of your neighbours. You can change your image at any time if you don't feel happy with it, and you can exchange messages with your fellow artists using our community pages."
If you join the One Million Masterpiece, you can a link to display a mini gallery of your favorite pictures that can be replayed on your Facebook profile.
Here's the plug: "SMART's new Touch Recognition feature allows the SMART Board to recognize your touch and switch modes automatically. You can write with a pen, erase with the palm and move objects around with your finger without having to access other tools, buttons or on-screen menus."
Steven Musil's recent article in CNET discusses Google Earth's 3-D view of ancient Rome. The project is an outgrowth of Rome Reborn, the effort of an interdisciplinary, international team of people, including computer scientists, artists, archaeologists, and historians from UCLA, the Politecnico di Milano (Italy), and the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
Visitors can explore inside the city's buildings, and obtain related historical information through pop-up windows. The 3-D interaction is great on the large screen or interactive whiteboard.
Apple MacBook laptop Digital classroom projector Digital camera 3D Navigation mouse $500 in gift cards to Target or Office Depot Engraved Google "Top Educator" plaque
"We're accepting curricula from all grade levels and K-12 subject areas including art history, math, social studies, physics, and philosophy, so whether you teach 5th grade art or high school engineering, there's glory and a nice prize package waiting for you."
Since I've been playing Spore and thinking about the the artificial life/genetic algorithm used to create the Black Shoals Stock Market Planetarium (see my previous post), I thought I'd visit the Philippe Rennard's interactive genetic algorithms website I first visited his site when I was taking a course in artificial intelligence for game design.
The first time I visited the site, I viewed it from a small laptop screen. This time, I expored the site on my 22-inch HP Touchsmart. What a difference! I can't wait until the school week to see how this looks on an interactive whiteboard.
Although the website was created several years ago, it still is fun site to visit, especially when you watch all of your little things morph according to the variables you choose.
Another website I recently revisited was the NERO website. NERO stands for Neuro-Evolving Robotic Operatives. The original NERO project was developed at the University of Austin a few years ago. The latest version can be found on the NERO 2.0 website.
If you have some time on your hands, visit the site and download the program. You use genetic algorithms to train up soldiers in using real-time neuro evolution. See what happens if you let them evolve overnight on your computer!
"Evolve your own robot army by tuning their artificial brains for challenging tasks, then pit them against your friends' teams in online competitions" Somewhat Related
While I was at Rennard's website, I linked to his page about a book he edited in 2006 that I want to run out and read ASAP. "Handbook of Research on Nature Inspired Computing for Economics and Management". I think this will help book might help me with my quest to better inform myself about the events surrounding the economic situation.
I'm sharing what I find on my Technology Supported Human-World Interaction blog using one of my recent posts to store my collection of pictures, media, quotes, articles, references, and links related to the quest. I hope to incorporate this, hopefully with the help of others, into a dynamic, interactive web-based time-line of the history we are living through right now. For now, here is the link to the "repository":
Take a look at my recent post on the TechPsych blog to learn more about the math activities created by Spencer Riley for use on interactive whiteboards, then visit his website. The activities are free!
Joe Rigby, from MellaniuM, focuses on the use of interactive virtual reality technology to create environments that support the learning of history. This concept is also known as "Digital Heritage". Applications are in the works that combine high-polygon modeling with scaled photo-realistic textures, incorporating multi-user avatar interaction within 3D archaeological visualizations.
MellaniuM will be presenting at VSMM' 08: Conference on Virtual Systems and Multimedia Dedicated to Digital Heritage. Instead of a PowerPoint presentation, participants will be provided with a walk-through of the Theatre of Pompeii.
A future workshop, sponsored by ADSIP, the Applied Digital Signal and Image Processing Research Centre, will feature an EONREALITY multi-wall immersive system to display the latest version of the Theatre of Pompeii district. Public VR and Anne Weis ,from the Department of Art History at the University of Pittsburgh, are collaborating on this project. The original Pompeii Project, was built at Carnegie Mellon's Studio for Creative Inquiry, during the mid-1990's. Links to the Virtual Theater District (VMRL) and 3D models can be found at http://artscool.cfa.cmu.edu:16080/~hemef/pompeii/project.html
If you have an interactive whiteboard, download the 3D models of Pompeii. You'll have to install a free VRML plug-in in order to view them on a web browser.
Wouldn't it be great if all students could learn about history via interactive virtual reality someday?
Lm3Labs focuses on interactive applications that harness the power of computer vision. Although much of what I've seen has been retail and market-related, they are also involved with innovative interactive museum displays: Lm3Labs: Interactive Museum Solutions featuring ubiq'window and Catchyoo
Wouldn't this sort of interactivity be fun in our schools? How about at the public library? It is a leap or two ahead of the interactive whiteboards.
Each of the Math Artist pages provides information about the artist that in my opinion, would be useful to teachers who aim to encourage students to consider pursuing STEM-related careers. (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math).
The content of the entire Virtual Math Museum website is impressive on a large display or interactive whiteboard!
The group in charge of the 3D-XplorMath software development project and the related Virtual Mathematics Museum website project is the 3DXM Consortium, an international volunteer group of mathematicians. The Consortium gratefully acknowledges ongoing support for these projects by The National Science Foundation (DUE Award #0514781) and is grateful to the Mathematics Department of The University of California at Irvine for hosting the 3D-XplorMath and Virtual Mathematical Museum websites."
According to Nik, SoundTransit "is a really wonderful formulation of an idea. It's not just a huge collection of Mp3 sound files from all over the world, but the sounds have been tagged by country and described and a visitor to the site can take a sound journey around the world."
From the SoundTransit website:
"SoundTransit is a collaborative, online community dedicated to field recording and phonography. In the “Book” section of this site, you can plan a sonic journey through various locations recorded around the world. And in the “Search” section, you can search the database for specific sounds by member artists from many different places. If you are a phonographer, you can also contribute your recordings for others to enjoy."
This would be a fun application to use in a social studies or music class! It also looks like a good application to use on an interactive whiteboard or display.
