Gwinnet Daily Post: Barrow Co. schools showcase new technology classrooms

By Heather Darenberg

WINDER – Eighth-graders at Westside Middle School watched as Greg Book, a senior research scientist at Georgia Tech, used an electron microscope to look at a bee’s stinger.

“That’s a nasty little dagger that bee has, isn’t it?” Book asked.

The students didn’t travel to the institution’s Microelectronics Research Center for the demonstration. Nor has the Barrow County school acquired the $1 million piece of equipment.

Instead, the demonstration took place via a video conference students watched on a high-definition TV in their Advanced Broadband Learning Environment (ABLE) classroom.

Barrow County Schools officials on Tuesday showcased the district’s Direct-to-Discovery Initiative within the ABLE classroom, created through the school system’s partnership with institutions and organizations such as Georgia Tech, Promethean and Safari Montage.

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Scholastic Interview with Mark Robinson

From Scholastic.com:

Mark Robinson–Promethean’s Global Education Head

Mark Robinson head of Promethean’s global head of education product strategy took some time out to speak with me and get The Royal Treatment before heading back to the U.K. He has been with Promethean about 5 years and and bridges the R & D and marketing departments. He travels a lot and gets to meet customers as well. Robinson was a U. K. primary grades teacher until about eight years ago, so his leadership fits right in with Promethean’s game plan to zero in on teachers, professional development, lessons and educator sharing. Mark still brags about his teacher Web site in Northern England and proud of his work in the area of Internet safety. “I’ve been in educational technology ever since I was a teacher,” says Robinson. “I think one of the big differentiators is that many—about 40 percent of Promethean’s staff have been teachers and it gives us sort of a conscience around what we are doing.” Robinson gives a lot of credit to founder and former chairman Tony Cann for this and the legacy he wants to leave. Cann started the company as Terminal Display Systems in the early 70s. “There’s a lot of feel good confidence when Promethean approaches the market.

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Decision 2008 on Promethean Planet

For the next two weeks, classes using Promethean’s Activote Student Response System can participate in “Cast Your Vote: Decision 2008.” This online activity lets classrooms from around the world choose the next US president. Each participating classroom has been assigned a US state. Teachers are provided with flipchart templates to use in their classroom (which can be found online). The class will then use Activotes to vote for the president.

[Read about it at Techlearning.com]

Tasting the Soup. – Is this really formative assessment?

From Promethean Planet…

A while back, I had read this quote from Paul Black (1998):

“When the cook tastes the soup, that’s formative assessment; when the customer tastes the soup, that’s summative assessment.”

That made sense to me then, but somehow I just can’t remember why. The analogy is now lost on me. Perhaps, because of the advances in technology, my opinion of what is (or could be) formative assessment has changed from being a way to more frequently assessment student understanding (and allowing this to shape teaching) to being a way for students to assess their own understanding based on the answers given and the discussions held.

Which is why we may want to avoid giving the answers too soon.

Imagine asking a question to the students and the students all “vote on the given choices” or “type in a response” on their keypads. (Obviously I’m referring to Activotes or Activexpression)

Once the input is given, the students immediately see if they got it right or got it wrong. Cool, huh?

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