Click here to download directions:  How to Upload Flipcharts to your DVES blog or website.

Our 4th grade class use of the Promethean Board, ActiVotes, and software continues to develop weekly. The “tech” format not only draws interest, but also maintains individual student involvement with lessons and projects. Students on task and learning have been the greatest improvement in our class. According to our student survey, students think they learn more by practicing on the ActiveBoard (49%). This compares to 7% on paper, 24% with a partner, and 20% out loud. Their favorite way to learn is within cooperative groups (40%) and Promethean lesson (38%). By integrating the two within learning stations, 78% of students’ preferred learning mode would be met!

         
Academically, students’ scored writing samples (using the state writing rubric) increased from an average of 2.6 (end of third grade) to an average of 3.6 (midway through 4^th grade). Class writing grades increased from an average of 66% for the first trimester, to 73% second trimester.

         
School and district support for learning and using the Promethean tools and other tech software was the reason for our success. I was given time, training, and support to explore, practice, and plan lessons. This included a collegial cohort, who shared and encouraged the use of tools and ideas, and the ITSC conference, which inspired and expressed the need to incorporate technology into student learning. Both were a driving force to explore and learn more. My teaching reflected my new knowledge and integrated technology to a greater extent. ActiVotes provided immediate feedback on learning and allowed lesson modification and/or skill grouping. As I learned, my students learned. Thus far, we have

·        researched, written, and presented science reports

·        written and recorded a social studies multimedia Voice Thread

·        written and illustrated poetry.

·        integrated video and internet links to lessons

·        and utilized multimedia instruction and practice

 
In addition, our class has learned to use the Promethean Board for daily skills and management. The tools make class review and demonstrations quick, easy and interactive. All students are able to participate, including physically challenged students.

This project has enabled us to meet students with instruction that fits their technology needs and interests – a must in today’s technology world.

 
Check out our Oregon Voice Threads: http://dves.hermiston.k12.or.us/leanne_gatlin_ruby

The Promethean Board applications implemented in my 1^st grade classroom enhanced the curriculum I taught, provided more interaction between my students and myself within lessons and increased the level of engagement in lessons throughout the diversity of my students. As a result, my students’ levels of achievement in math, reading and writing all increased as well.  I was amazed at the level of achievement that was made by my ELL students, my students who were below level in certain skills, grade level students, TAG students and all levels in between.  I really feel that the interactive technology touched all students’ learning in my classroom. Concepts or lesson objectives were taught in a variety of ways and supported learning across students with diverse learning needs.   

     
The use of the board in math allowed my students to work together with their peers contributing to the board and as a whole group discussing an activity or working through an activity to gain understanding.   Students stayed focused with multiple ways to interact within the lessons on Promethean Board, with the Activslate and Activotes, and through the use of the pen or wand.  The virtual manipulatives, the images from the resource library, the wide variety of tools for flipchart building and so much more impacted the level of instruction, the delivery of instruction, and the integration of technology in such a hands-on, interactive approach that my students’ excitement over learning was so evident to the many observers that came into our room. My students are becoming so comfortable with using the promethean board that they lead the lessons more than I do now.  They love being the teacher!!

    
I used the promethean board for entry tasks, whole group instruction, small group instruction and centers.    The promethean board and interactive software is so full of color. The virtual manipulatives are so colorful and realistic.  My young students responded to flipcharts where color was employed and marking was customized. The flipcharts from Promethean Planet, my own flipcharts and the flipcharts that I combined using the flipchart builder provided my students with a creative approach to learning their mathematical skills. I created flipcharts to match math curriculum standards, reading lesson objectives and curriculum standards, writing themes and other cross-curriculum themes and units.   Patterning, money, time, problem solving, measurement, attribute sorting, number concepts, number operations, data analysis, place value and many other mathematical concepts were ALL enriched by the use of the Promethean system.

 
I really enjoyed using the activotes within all curriculum areas.   The activotes provided continuous engagement, participation and feedback from my students.  The activotes helped my students to focus and build confidence in skill areas.  They allowed me to adapt lessons to students’ needs in a skill area.  The interactive eggs (ActiVotes) were so motivating to my students.  They got excited just seeing the case come into our room.  The Promethean Board and activote system allowed me to more of a facilitator of learning and as a result my students became the active participants.  When comparing my 1^st Trimester math assessments to my 2^nd Trimester results, my students made amazing gains.  The Promethean Board has also allowed me to enrich my students who have benchmarked with math concepts above their grade level also.  I can’t wait to see what last trimester testing will show.  I definitely feel the gains made reflect the positive impact the promethean board has had within my classroom. 

 
Here is some data to support the board’s impact in my classroom. (The Promethean Board was placed in my room full-time during 2^nd trimester.)

 K-1 Number Skills Assessment was administered at the beginning of the year, 1^st Trimester and 2^nd Trimester. This assessment covers colors, shapes, counting skills, skip counting skills, number recognition, number writing and etc.   Here are my class’s results:

Beginning of the Year                1^st Trimester                 2^nd Trimester

   26% benchmarked                 48% benchmarked         96% have benchmarked(YEAH!!)

                                                                       
Other assessments include money(value and name), money collections, telling time(o’clock, half past, and 5 minute intervals.  (87%) of my students know their coin names and values, (48%) add money collections and tell time to o’clock & half past, (43%) add money collections and tell time to o’clock, half past, and 5 minute intervals. Great improvement between 1^st and 2^nd trimester.

 
Lastly, 96% students in my class have made positive increases in addition fluency and 66% students in my class have made positive increases in subtraction fluency.

 
Our special multimedia project on problem solving was very rewarding.  All of my students solved addition and subtraction word problems using Sketchcast on the Promethean Board.  The student shows are now on our classroom website and I have received lots of positive feedback from parents. 

 
In conclusion, the promethean board has allowed me to grow so much in my teaching methods and in my integration of new technology within my classroom instruction.  I feel that its integration has allowed my students to grow as well as myself.   I participated in our Promethean Learning Cohort and attended workshops to increase my knowledge of technology applications. The Promethean Interactive Technology allows so much learning to occur.  There is no limit on what we can achieve and I know we will continue to grow and learn as we become more involved with all of its applications. 

 
Click here to see our Math Problem Solving Sketchcasts: http://dves.hermiston.k12.or.us/white

Being a part of the Promethean Board grant has been an amazing learning experience for everyone involved.  It is great to see my students excited about learning.  They loved all of the fun interactive writing activities that Promethean Planet had to offer.  My students even look forward to grammar activities.  I have noticed that several of my quiet students have really started to improve their public speaking skills.  I always have the student using the board explain what he/she is doing and why.  Every student wants to participate in the sharing activities with the board.  I have noticed this has carried over into other activities.  My quiet students get excited about sharing their writing now and their answers to math questions.  The Promethean Board has really affected every aspect of teaching and learning in my classroom.

I have learned so many new things by attending the monthly Promethean Cohort and the ITSC conference.  I had no idea how many kid friendly activities that you can do with Excel, PowerPoint, and Office.  The multimedia project that I completed in my classroom was something that every kid in my room was excited about and enjoyed completing.  The entire staff has become involved in learning about the Promethean Boards.  I have enjoyed helping others and learning from others.

My students completed an imaginative writing sample at the beginning of the year.  We just finished our final imaginative writing sample.  Each of the kids wrote a summary about their papers.  Writing a summary is another writing skill that I found my students were not very familiar with.  After finishing the summary we recorded them onto our Vokis.  I noticed that many of them had improved their reading skills.  They were reading with feeling in their voices.  They were pausing at periods and commas.  I am sure that this is partially because of all of the writing and grammar activities that we completed on the Promethean Board. 

I have noticed improvement in several academic areas this year.  It has been so much fun to use the promethean board and to learn about the multimedia projects.  Our entire staff is excited about the boards.  I hope that I can continue to help others learn about the boards and learn from my colleagues.  This has been a wonderful experience!

Student Comments
Julian liked choosing the clothes for his Voki and using the eggs (ActiVotes) with the promethean board because nobody can see your answer and he gets to know right away what his score is.

Trent liked making the Voki look like him and he loved watching all of the science experiments on the promethean board.

Myah liked seeing herself on the computer as a cartoon and she likes that you can color on the promethean board and just erase it completely.

Rileigh liked making the cartoon character that looked like her and looking at the interesting pictures on the board writing adjectives to describe them.

Cameo liked creating a very detailed cartoon of herself.  She also liked recording her summary and  writing on the promethean board.  She thinks it was fun to learn about so many things with the board.  She loved using the ActiVotes because she could see the green part of the pie chart and know how well the class answered the question. 

Check out our student Voki Summaries at:  http://dves.hermiston.k12.or.us/lisa_meunier

Some of these videos demonstrate lessons using the Primary Version of ActiveStudio, but you will know how to do the same thing in the regular ActiveStudio version that we have.

Adding Pace                              Brainstorming

Creating a Timeline                   Creating Variety

Desktop Notes                           Encouraging Students to Contribute

Engaging Students with Revealing   Exploring Adjectives

Focus Attention                          Handwriting Recognition

Involving All Learners                  Labels + Magic Spyglass              

Layers on Web Resources            Magic Writing - Math                 

Pics Showing Before + After        Retelling a Story                       

Students Independent Use

Students Working Things Out  for Themselves

Teaching Shape + Space             Using a Focus Circle

Using Video                               Using Weblinks

Visual Tools                               Working with Text

 Using ActiVotes:                            For 2 Pens:

Class Discussion w ActiVotes            Collaborative Working

Dealing with Data                Encouraging Students to Work Together

Making Q + A more Interesting

Making Lessons Really Interactive

Check out these educational examples of the latest 2.0 tools!  Can you think of any other ways to use these Multimedia projects in your classroom?  (Most of these will

You will soon be receiving 1 Promethean Board as a permanent addition to your classroom, 1 wand, 1 slate, 1 admission to the Oregon ITSC Conference in February, and a classroom set of ActiVotes to share with your students.  This grant was written

We received our 4 boards last school year in the spring.  Our parent club purchased 1 for our library, and our school purchased 3 boards on carts, (one for each wing of classrooms) to check out and use.  In addition we purchased 1 slate for check out, 4 w