Teaching Highschool Science

akeem — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 12:22:40 +0000

Hi all, just thought I’d post my new teaching experience.Preamble: a school in our district and many other teachers are starting to teach with PC tablets using OneNote. My wife is one of them. BUT refusing to go to the dark side (Windoze) I tried to pony up (pun intended) a mac solution.Materials:-Old TiBook, Powerbook G4 1Ghz, 1GB Ram-WACOM Graphire4 6×8 tablet-LCD projectorSoftware:-OSX 10.4 (with inkwell on)-NoteBook 2.0-inkBook 1.2-Various other helper apps (quicktime, powerpoint, keynote, etc).Lessons (I’m preparing lesson by lesson right now, just trying to keep up ... lessons are organized in NoteBook. Works brilliantly. With all the tabs closed, it makes for a really nice outline of what we’re doing today on the projector for the kids to preview.As I open the cells sometimes I reveal prepared notes, and I include a link to an inkBook file. (inkBook is really young software with almost NO features… BUT it lets you handwrite on the paper (I don’t want recognition… I just wanted to be able to write). (I’ll have prepasted Provincial Exam questions in the file and write on top of them to show the kids how to solve the problems.)(BTW: learning to write legibly took 3 days of practice… you have to write on the tablet while looking at the screen… suprisingly hard to do at first, surprisingly easy to do after a couple of days of practice (BUT I almost threw the tablet away on day 1 ;-)Double clicking the file inserted into Notebook launches the helper apps. I’ve used video (quicktime), flash files, powerpoint etc. I’ve just started doing this,... it’s going well right now but improvements needed are:-better resolution LCD projector: 800×600 right now, 1024×768 on order.-inkBook needs to get a lot better (can’t even resize a pasted image.) OR Notebook needs to incorporate this ability (preferable) ;-) Hints if you’re going to try this:-tape a piece of paper over the WACOM tablet. It has a nice feel, but more importantly it lets your wrist slide while you write (I finally figured out that’s why my writing is so bad… your wrist naturally slides along the paper when you normally write).-Have helper apps open ahead of time (avoids the app launch delay)-map the tablet button to “undo” -map the bottom pen button to “off” (I kept hitting it while writing)-map the top pen button to “menu” and have the calculator as an option. (it’s cool when you’re doing a math problem and you can quickly call up a calculator and show them the steps).seeya, ian

judithblair commented

judithblair — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 08:37:40 +0000

Ian,

wow! I'm impressed; good job (and excellent hints).

Judy

Schelbert commented

Schelbert — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 23:05:08 +0000

Hey All,

I just picked up a Wacom tablet after the release of Notebook 3.0 since it has integrated concept maps and ink abilities. I have a projector, my MacBook Pro, and 10 Macs in my Physics classroom. I also run Apple remote desktop to monitor the computers. This is the setup that I will try and use…

1) Use Notebook as my whiteboard
a. allows me to save info and forward to absent students
b. Accommodations for IEPs

2) Project the screen for all to see

3) Share my screen onto the the ten computers using ARD so students can see it close up as well.

I think this setup will work. If this goes well, I plan on posting my notebook online for student access. Version 3.0 has some great new features for teaching. Anyway, if anyone else is using a similar setup for has some ideas/suggestions, I’d love to hear about it.

Thanks

G. Schelbert

davepk13 commented

davepk13 — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:31:45 +0000

Hi,

I really like the idea of using Notebook as a whiteboard. I have the whiteboard and will try to set up my 3rd tri Physical Science classroom using Notebook.

DBerger