"My classroom is an 8th grade class which is located in middle school that services diverse students, many of which come from low-income families. The school that I teach at is very special in that it is a team based full inclusion setting. That means that all exceptional needs students, English la...
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"My classroom is an 8th grade class which is located in middle school that services diverse students, many of which come from low-income families. The school that I teach at is very special in that it is a team based full inclusion setting. That means that all exceptional needs students, English language learners, and regular students are in the same classroom with 3 teachers: 2 regular education teachers and a special education case manager. Students at my school do not go through the typical 7 period class rotation as most middle school students do. They spend large blocks of time with the team and between the 3 teachers, we teach all the core subjects and integrate as much as possible.
After having studied instructional technology for my master's degree, I came to the realization that there wasn't a lot of information on achievement gains when students created multimedia presentations. There were a lot of formal studies about students using multimedia, but nothing about when they created it themselves. After having taught American History for 3 years and seeing so many students "forget" about the heritage of our country, this year my students will be creating an interactive timeline for American History using HyperStudio software. This is a yearlong project that integrates social studies/history with language arts, technology, and science. However, the one aspect of this project that isn't available for students is the use of an interactive whiteboard so they can present their information to the team while not sitting at a computer.
Mimio Interactive is a tool that allows anyone to control the functions of a computer at a whiteboard without having to go back and forth to click the mouse. This tool is small and portable, mounting to existing surfaces such as whiteboards or walls. The stylus that comes with the sensor is the new mouse. Anyone can use the stylus to touch the surface by the Mimio to advance presentations, click on hyperlinks, and even create notes on the computer screen. This tool would be incredibly useful in the classroom for students to present their interactive timelines as a means for review, studying, and publishing material. While this is a fabulous tool that will be used for the timeline project, it can be used for ALL subjects, including math (for step-by-step equations), science (for showing the use of technical drawings), and language arts (for proofreading, modeling, and active reading strategies). Also, because it is portable and small, other teachers in the building can check out this tool to use with their students as there is not anything of this kind in the building.
Your generosity will make it possible for teachers to create exciting, interactive lessons, for students to use cutting edge technology, and for parents to understand what their child is doing in the classroom. By posting images on the team's website, parents can gain a better understanding of what their child is learning in the classroom.
My students need a Mimio Interactive.
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