I promised in my last blog to add some more details on IDF and to post some pictures and videos of some of the classmate activities that our classmate PC kids were doing…well, here it is. Recently at IDF, I had the pleasure of seeing firsthand 8 fourth graders from a local elementary school chat with reporters; complete school lessons in math, science and art, take pictures and videos, and write and draw on the newest version of the Intel-powered convertible classmate PC.
What truly struck me was how interactive and engaging the learning process has become with technology incorporated into the classroom, and how kids are learning in brand new ways with the classmate PC by their side. The kids learned about polygons by taking pictures with the built-in classmate PC camera and then using ArtRage to identify various polygons they see in day-to-day life. What a great way to show how fun math can be. What was really cool was to watch them become little reporters and how they approached the other press reporters in the hall and actually interviewed them – so cool!
I want to share with you some classmate PC highlights, including photos and videos of them in action at IDF.
Students from a local elementary school interview journalists from Spain using the built in webcam on their classmate PC.
A fourth grader from a local elementary school uses the handwriting recognition to share at IDF 2010.
Fourth graders from a local elementary school use a Ken-a-Vision/Pasco Microscope to look at colors on a printed page to see what other colors make them look the way they do.
Using ArtRage and their classmate PCs students from a local elementary school showed their artistic side at IDF.
We used a classmate PC paired with a Pasco sensor to learn about graphing. Tools like this help to bring learning to life, making it interesting, fun and exciting. That is me with one of the students doing the “So You Think You Can Graph” game using software and sensors from PASCO scientific. The kids had a blast competing with each other while at the same time learning about graphing!
Here is the link to The Video.