Block 1 begins on October 24th. I’m teaching a Grade 11 University/College History Course on Ancient Civilizations. Specifically, I’m responsible for the unit on Ancient Greece and I’m super excited because this is one of my favourite eras in history! I’ve had a couple observations days so far and it seems like my associate teacher uses the Smartboard (which is fixed to the wall with the projector attached) pretty much every day. So I guess that means I should incorporate this technology within my lessons as well. Zoe provided us with a condensed Smartboard training session which I found really useful. During that workshop, I was playing around with some of the features offered in the Smart Notebook Software and I tried to brainstorm how I could use this technology within the classroom. Of course I can display content, make timelines, post videos and images, and even save daily lessons and upload them to my course's website (which is under major construction!) for students to refer to. However, I think I’m having a hard time thinking outside of that proverbial box. Maybe I just haven’t had enough time to think about it, or maybe it’s because I’ve never experienced a Smartboard in my high school classrooms. Any suggestions on how to effectively use the Smartboard within a Grade 11 history classroom, without making it a glorified PowerPoint, would be greatly appreciated J.
