Instructional+Technology+Tools

Resources for this activity are posted within Desire2Learn. Please view related content in this area. We will break up into four groups with each group investigating one of the four topics below. Each member of the group will assume one of these roles.


 * Group Responsibilities**
 * **Editor**: Your job is to document work that your group has created. You are going to prepare a record of your work in the way you feel is most appropriate to share your topic with the rest of the class.
 * **Task-Master**: It is your responsibility to ensure your group is using your time efficiently. Be sure that you are investigating the topics thoroughly without getting off track.
 * **Spokesperson**: You are the person that has been elected to be the primary spokesperson from your group. They will be responsible for sharing the work that your group has done with the rest of the class.
 * **Techno-Guru:** You are responsibility for helping troubleshoot any technical issues that arise in your investigation of this topic.


 * Interactive Whiteboard -** Go to your team page.

“Our school needs SmartBoards!” is a common request that is often shared at district technology advisory committee meetings, school board, and community members. Many teachers have demonstrated innovative ways of using interactive whiteboards to promote student learning and to change their teaching strategies.

Your team’s responsibility is to offer your district technology advisory committee, school board, and community members how you would plan to use your interactive whiteboard in a way that would be transform the classrooms in your school. What would be different in classrooms?


 * Classroom Instructional Technology** **-** Go to your team page.

There are a variety of technology tools that teacher have available to them in today’s classroom. This could include everything from a LCD projector, document camera, audio enhancement, wireless mice/keyboards, laptop computers, classroom controls, etc. Funding is always limited in schools especially for technology. You have a finite amount of funding with unliminated wants, choices have to be made at what is included in a classroom and what is not.

Your team is given a budget of $7500 to outfit one classroom with the technology you feel is most appropriate for school and class. Prepare a proposal on which technology you plan to include your classroom. Included in your plan should be a sketch of where you would place the technology and seating in your classroom.


 * Student Response Systems** **-** Go to your team page.

You had seen others using “clickers” in their courses to make your lectures more “engaging.” After reviewing of the literature on student response systems, you’ve discovered the wide gap that exists between teachers that use these to merely take attendance, while other teachers have leveraged this technology to provided questions that allow students to check their own understanding with immediate feedback. Still others prompt students with a contentious question where students are forced to take a position allowing for students to defend their position with evidence or their logos.

It is your team’s responsibility to develop specific examples of questions that could be used in conjunction with a student response system. Your examples should show examples of strong questions that promote knowledge construction while allowing students to defend and/or explain how they reached their answer.

Be ready to share at least 10 question examples with the group and describe what makes these questions strong. .


 * Presentation Software** **-** Go to your team page.

The use of presentation software has become ubiquitous within classrooms that the software program, Microsoft PowerPoint, has become known as a way to describe one’s teaching strategy. “They just PowerPoint at us,” or “We just PowerPointed today.” Let’s face it, we have all been //PowerPointed to Death// or been //Pointed at Powerfully//. Not anymore!

Your team is going to investigate some of the research on how learners process information and how we can prepare presentation materials to assist in effectively communication information to learners.

Prepare a presentation that you can share with your classmates that exemplifies how to craft an effective presentation.