Chris Betcher

I've just been watching a video online of someone doing an IWB demonstration at the recent ISTE event in Denver, and I have to say, I'm a little speechless. IWBs are certainly a controversial technology and cop a lot of flak for being a waste of money in classrooms, and although I hate to sound like an apologist, I too often find myself defending them.  I defend them because I believe that in the hands of a good teacher they can be valuable tools, and I get a bit tired of hearing the technology being attacked when it seems to me that all technologies are fairly inert until someone actually does something useful (or not) with them.  As a concept, IWBs sound like a good idea to me... here's a tool that can support all manner of digital resources and is connected to the wider world via the web, but still has that human element that brings the class members together to discuss ideas around a  shared, large-screen environment, sharing talking, making eye contact.  That al...

I think I just experienced one of those "Oh my God" moments when you see a new technology that takes a task you potentially do often and simplifies in a way that you never thought possible. The reason I say that you "potentially" do it often is that these tasks are usually either difficult or time consuming or just plain inconvenient because they involve too many steps, so you tend to avoid them where possible. An example would be sharing what you see on your screen with someone else across a network. Still images aren't too hard, but capturing an animated movie of what you are doing on your screen is tricky and usually requires special software, and then the task of sharing that movie over the Internet usually requires a few more steps, plus the issues of incompatable file formats, Mac/Windows issues, yaddah, yaddah... Too hard! So when I just downloaded and installed Jing from the Jing Project, I was blown away by just how much they have simplified this pr...

This link is pretty cool. I remember seeing it a while back, but a friend on a mailing list reminded me about it and suggested it could have some interesting uses in the classroom, getting kids to think about storytelling. Take a look at DFilm and see what you think. Love to hear your ideas...