At the risk of sounding like I work for SMART Technology (which no, I do not), I would like to take the time to talk about one of the greatest (and coolest) technologies I have been using in my classroom for about a year now: the SMART Response System.
The SMART Response System is made by the same company as SMART Board. However, you do not need a SMART Board to have a SMART Response System (SRS). The SRS is made up of an easy-to-use software set (called Teacher Tools) and anywhere from 5-40 SRS Clickers. They look like remote controls! The clickers, (shown left) are used to directly interacting with your students - before, during, or after a lesson. No more waiting until the test to see what they know... no more depending on oral discussion and the handful of students who respond to you.
The clickers work with a plug-n-play (easy-to-use) hub that connect via USB to the teacher computer. The clickers work by radio waves up to 100 feet.
The students get to sign in with personal login codes (which allows the software to record their numerical scores on quizzes). After the assessment is complete the teacher can spend time reviewing questions that students did poorly on, due to an instant pie chart of results that is generated (not to mention, skip reviewing the questions they did well on). There are so many potential uses for this in the classroom - I love my set so much, in fact, that I teach professional development workshops in the ETTC in my school for How-To get started with a SMART Response system.
I just thought it would be nice to throw this out here because it is almost time for all of us to build our classroom budgets for next year - could this be the next thing on your wish list? :)
That is awesome that you get to use these. Even better that you are willing to turnkey you knowledge for other teachers
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing this technology with us. This will allow other teachers to become knowledgeable of other technology resources.
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