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Are the Days of Raising Your Hand in Class Over? Quite possibly! While I have not used any of Qwizdom’s hardware or software personally – I do find possible uses of this technology intriguing and would love to hear from anyone who has used it.
Qwizdom is a student response system that turns the everyday, run-of-the-mill powerpoint presentation into an interactive activity.
“Qwizdom’s Award Winning Technology is designed to engage everyone in the classroom, whether you are a student or the teacher. Watch as your students become inspired, engaged, and motivated while using Qwizdom’s Software, Data Collection Tools, and RF handheld remote systems.
The benefits of using Qwizdom equipment for interactive assessments and voting:
- Combines response system interactivity, customized presentations, formative assessments, and online reporting into one complete solution.
- Engage, motivate, and empower each individual student
- Choice of remote types; including rechargeable and ability for text input
- Each durable remote displays instant right/wrong feedback.
- Student can discreetly ask for assistance
- Engage through the use of Qwizdom’s interactive learning games “
Check it out at: http://www.qwizdom.com/education/index.php
In my attempts to stay on top of the current issues facing our public school systems I have found myself reading many articles that are focused on a similar theme, if we don’t reform our teaching instruction, the U.S. will fail. The reports, articles and firsthand accounts all speak to the need to help students garner the skills that they will need to enable them to remain competitive in a 21st-century workplace.
Michael King, vice president of IBM’s global education industry, states that in order to accomplish true individualized learning, schools have to move beyond textbooks… “and the PC as it stands today is the wrong model for that”. “King points to the complexity of having thousands of computers throughout a school district. Between administering patches and software upgrades, implementing security updates, manually installing new applications, and simply managing the upkeep of those computers, the IT staff hours can mount sky high.” One possible solution is software virtualization and virtual desktops.
Having recently received an Intuos 3 Tablet for my birthday, installing it and Corel Painter Essentials 4 on my laptop, and then having to spend upwards to 16 hours; installing service packs, upgrading drivers, uninstalling and reinstalling software, upgrading software, doubling the amount of RAM on my laptop, only to continue to have difficulties opening and using some of my software programs (Grrrrrr Vista!); I completely understand where King is coming from!
To read more about software virtualization and virtual desktops the article mentioned above can be found at: http://www.eschoolnews.com/media/files/May08SprRpt.pdf
And if anyone has some insight as to why I may be having problems running Corel Painter Essentials 4, on a 2 gig laptop, running Vista Home Premium, please drop me a line!
Updated 09/17/08 – Someone from Corel – PR – contacted me to say that someone else would contact me with the contact information of a technical person who could help me with this problem. While I never did hear from that someone else with the contact information for the technical person I did, however, manage to fix the problem.
Given that I: updated all my drivers and software, added additional RAM, cleaned my disks and registry, defragged my computer, and followed the advice of a poster in a forum discussing similar issues, I can’t say for sure how I solved the problem. It only took 24 hours or so but my computer is running better than ever and Corel opens in 10 seconds versus the 5 minutes it took to start up previously. Now imagine being the only technology support person in a school with hundreds of computers to manage. YIKES!
I discovered a wealth of information on Web 2.0 tools for teachers on the International Society for Technology in Education’s website. The link below contains information and additional links to websites that focus on technologies such as: Blogging, Wikis, Aggregators, Social Bookmarking, Photo and Drawing, Photo Sharing, Video, Web-based Word Processing, Web-based Spreadsheets, Presentation Tools, Search Tools, Task Management, Online Calendars, and Mapping. Check them out at:
The lives of today’s students outside of school are quite often immersed in a vast amount of innovative technologies. With video gaming, social networking, instant messaging, and the ever present MP3 player, students are communicating with and being bombarded by a constant stream of information. Many educators might say that the result of this trend is a generation of students who have a very short attention span and need instant gratification.
It is these two personality traits that are often blamed for the poor performance of students within the school environment. These same educators might say that the answer to this problem is to reduce if not eliminate these technologies from the lives of students. However, a growing population of researchers such as Bob McLaughlin, the founder of the National Institute for Community Innovations, suggest otherwise, “Technologies aren’t going to go away, they are in the external environment, we do need to learn how to master them in the internal environment in the school and in the classroom so that we can compete on a level playing field and get that engagement that is crucial to learning” (ISTE Cast Episode 1).
Unfortunately, the internal environment of many public schools and how we teach students is largely unchanged from when the first public schools began. Jack Welch, CEO of General Electric, once said: “When the rate of change inside an institution is less than the rate of change outside, the end is in sight” (Thornburg, D., 4/1997) As such, today’s school systems need to drastically change the way students are taught by integrating emerging technologies within them or they risk being left in the past.
