Touch Screen Gadget

Learning getting more interesting

Posted by admin | Category: Education

ORTONVILLE — Gabriel Salayon was not excited about his classes.

"I’d look at the board and get really bored because it was the same old thing," said Salayon, 17, a senior at Brandon High School.

That was before the Brandon School District became the first in the nation to use a new technology package, the R.M. Easiteach Secondary Content Pack, which uses touch-screen whiteboards — think an oversized iPhone — to complement the existing curriculum for grades eight through 12.

The teacher’s finger serves as a mouse and the screen itself is the computer, so the new program can be used to move words around, edit paragraphs and add and delete passages. Teachers and administrators report that students are paying closer attention in math, science and language classes that use the program’s preconstructed lessons. It will be added to all of the district’s classrooms by fall.

The program cost the district $1,000. Paul Spoor, the district’s director of technology, said it is well worth the money.

"It’s too soon to do any assessments in terms of how it compares to learning in a traditional classroom, but we can say that student attention levels are much better, and they’re grasping concepts quicker because students can become more involved in the lessons."

Salayon is no longer bored. "It makes things more interesting, and I feel like I’m learning more," he said.

For Shana DeVoe, one of the major benefits of the Easiteach software is the ease with which she now sees the board. "I have bad vision, so it is easier for me to see, and I don’t have to sit in a particular seat," said DeVoe, 17, a junior.

She also likes the features.

"You can change the colors, like if you’re writing a sentence, it will appear in black, and the editing will show up in red."

Both students are in Gwen Trahan’s creative writing class.

"There is much more interaction between students and teachers now," Trahan said. "For example, they may suggest how a certain sentence should look, and I can edit it right there in front of them. In the past, we’d have to bring up our computer screen on a television, which is much smaller than the whiteboard. Then I’d have to sit at my desk — I couldn’t move around the classroom — and I couldn’t take my finger and drag it to a certain point on the screen.

"It was not nearly as exciting or appealing."

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