TECHNOLOGY AT GUERIN CATHOLIC

Introducing SMART Boards into the Classroom
Do you remember when blackboards were black? Well, not anymore…Now they’re white, and smart! Guerin Catholic has continued to build to its technology platform by purchasing more SMART Boards for the classrooms this year.  

What is a SMART Board? It’s an interactive whiteboard that allows teachers to control their computers from the front of the class where their computer screens are being displayed. Teachers can also write on the screen with digital ink, and the notes become part of the computer presentation and can be saved for later use. SMART Boards engage the digital natives who are sitting in our classrooms.

Last year we were able to introduce the SMART Boards in five classrooms, and we have three more being installed in the coming weeks. There is now a waiting list of teachers who are requesting SMART Boards in their classrooms. They can see how this technology helps to keep the students connected to the lesson presentation and interested in the class.  

After attending a professional development workshop on August 28th to learn more details about how to incorporate the SMART Board technology into their curriculum, Mr. Lustig and Mrs. Reeves will serve as a resource for the rest of the faculty. Mrs. Reeves says of the workshop experience, “Having a SMART Board in my classroom affords me the opportunity to enhance my in-class presentations in literally dozens of ways. This day of training revealed the possibilities to me. I plan to apply these lessons over the next several months, and produce what I hope will be presentations that are (to a greater extent) interactive, visually and audibly appealing, and above all, conducive to learning.”

So, ask your student about the SMART Boards and how the teachers are using them in the classrooms.

Podcasting Arrives at Guerin Catholic High School
By now we all know what an ipod is, right? Those little colorful boxes that store and play music…Well, it’s becoming increasingly popular at the collegiate level for professors to make podcasts of their lectures for students to download and save in their ipods along with their music. This technology is now in the hands of the teachers at Guerin Catholic.
 
The school was able to purchase the equipment to allow our teachers to record their lectures and post them on ANGEL. Students will then have the ability to listen to the recordings from any computer any time of day, as well as be able to download the recordings to their ipods for their listening pleasure when away from their computers. 
 
The way podcasting works is the teacher records a lecture or discussion with an ipod and microphone. The teacher then uploads the recording to his or her course in ANGEL. With the help of iTunes version 4.9, students’ iTunes library will automatically subscribe to the podcasts for any course in which they are enrolled through ANGEL. So, all a student must do is go to iTunes and click on the title of the podcast.
 
Gardner Cambell expresses why educators would want to use this technology in his article “There’s Something in the Air: Podcasting in Education” from the November/December issue of Educause Review. “More and more students come to school with these [technology] skills. This is a language they not only understand but use, often on a daily basis. Some of them have been blogging, shooting and editing video, creating Flash animations, manipulating photographs, and recording digital audio for many years. These are the tools of their native expressiveness, and with the right guidance and assignments, they can use these tools to create powerful analytical and synthetic work.” It seems Cambell is saying that if the students are using these skills, the educators need to use the skills as well in order to keep the students engaged and to encourage creative thinking.
 
The teachers at Guerin Catholic are still in the learning phase of this technology, but you will see more about podcasting as the year continues. In the meantime, check out the free podcasts available at iTunes. You can download lessons from how to learn a foreign language to how to pick a guitar to the basics of economics to the fundamentals of organic chemistry. It’s all out there just waiting for you!