Science Learning Centre East of England 22 nd November: Homerton College, Cambridge

Me James de Winter Physics teacher Occasional Head of Physics and Head of ICT Learning and Technology manager at SLC Associate Lecturer PGCE/Physics here Low level geek (or maybe nerd), human interface between technology and normal people (you)

You Getting to grips with IWB technology Shopping list: IWB – What is the point? Use the software you know first to good effect (Word, PowerPoint, Internet Explorer) The future: Onwards and upwards using software that comes with your IWB (if you want to)

Technology – Why bother? A million reasons (well at least 6) Teach them when they are not looking. They think that they are playing, you know that they are learning.

IWB – What’s the point Participation, interest and motivation Some things that won’t shine no matter how hard you polish them. Get the content right and then make it better. If you are not confident or happy with the technology then it won’t work. We all know that kids can tell when you are on dodgy ground. Spend time getting used to how it works at your own pace. Slow but forward is fine.

IWB – Lets start with the PWB The passive white board Not as terrible a start as it may sound. Build confidence and competence using the data projector and a computer to enhance what you are trying to teach. Power Point and web pages (if you have internet connection) are probably the most user friendly mechanisms to deliver this content Pictures Video Sound Animations Simulations

PWB  IWB Once you have collected these resources they then become the components (gallery items) for your IWB presentations

Interactive – get the students involved Other options to use with or instead of an IWB. Wireless mouse and keyboard: Relatively cheap Involvement without them moving about Choice/control of who interacts Can be used if you don’t have access to IWB (broken, different room)

Only write it if you cannot find it first Many of the really good resources are freely available and quite often they can be tailored to suit your needs

Finding files on the internet To find files of a certain type, you may need to search the internet in a slightly different way. Images: (jpg, gif, bmp) Many search engines have a dedicated image search More ‘intelligent’ searches can helpintelligent “interactive science resources” levitating+frog+video mandolin -captain

Sound: The world is awash with MP3 files, many freely available Free archive of sounds. If we all just uploaded one sound then … If you can, then try and get.mp3 files rather than.wav files. They are 10 times smaller

Video files: (avi, mpg, mov, real) AltaVista has a movie search but it can be a bit uneven with results This can also be used to search for audio and image files Video files will not play they are too large to put on website: Get them from

Highlighting (Example Notes)ExampleNotes Drag and drop (Example Notes)ExampleNotes Comment boxes (Example Notes)ExampleNotes Using forms, text entry and tick boxes (Example Notes)ExampleNotes Hyperlinks (Example Notes)ExampleNotes Things to do in Word

Animations Hyperlinks inside and out and action buttons (and another) Presentations that are non linear Things to do in Power Point

Find good animations and link to them or download themlink to them Write your own quizzes with Hot PotatoesHot Potatoes Things to do with webpages

Where to go and get resources Weblinks and sample materials are on course page. Log in to and click on the course area of this course me: If you find or write any good ones then please also them to me.

Onwards and upwards Course page – files and forum Contact me – Future courses – Advanced user, using the bundled software that comes with the IWB.