High-tech lessons keep pupils active

'Voters' allow teachers to test and grade pupils in minutes.
& lt;a href=mailto:viviano@vindy.com & gt;By JoANNE VIVIANO & lt;/a & gt;
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- It's a catchy jingle.
"If the jackets belong to boys, that's s-apostrophe," the children's voices sing.
"If the jackets just belong to one, apostrophe-s is how it's done."
As the voices explain the tricky punctuation rule, fourth-grade teacher Diana Zidian stands at the front of her classroom and points to drawings that illustrate their words.
A tap of her pen and the boys and their jackets disappear and now she's pointing to girls and their hats. Song lyrics changes to match.
The multimedia lesson is just one way teachers use the new ACTIVboard technology at Eagle Heights Academy.
What it is
ACTIVboard -- essentially a computer screen the size of a chalkboard -- has been installed in 10 classrooms. Thursday, Zidian and other teachers demonstrated the new boards for Ohio Department of Education representatives.
Color, graphics and novelty enhance learning by 35 percent, Zidian said, as she stood in front of the white ACTIVboard, bordered by computer "tools" of every sort -- from colored pencils, highlighters and erasers to magnifiers and pointers.
The board attaches to a laptop computer that a teacher can take home to program. The computer's image is displayed on the board through the use of a projector mounted on the classroom ceiling. Teachers control the projector with a remote. They control the board images and sounds with a tap of a special pen.
"Isn't that absolutely fantastic?" said Eagle Heights Superintendent Alex Murphy, referring to the board's various uses. "Once you see it, it grabs hold of you and it isn't just a piece of technology."
Acquired through donation
The ACTIVboards, supplies and software were donated to Eagle Heights by Promethean, the United Kingdom-based company that created them, and other donors, Murphy said. Also, Zidian and principal Sandranette Sellers were flown to London, where they learned about ACTIVboard in classrooms there.
In return, Eagle Heights serves as a demonstration site.
The system can show videos; Zidian has one that shows a volcano spewing lava; eighth-grade reading teacher Jeff Novak uses clips of Bill Cosby and one of a moray eel.
A map of the United States or Ohio can be pulled up, moved and re-sized.
Teachers have gone online to find poems, music, sounds and photos that can also be placed on the board. Zidian asked her pupils what they were interested in and has found Disney's "Lizzie McGuire" and characters from Nickelodeon's "Wild Thornberrys."
A balloon helps Disney's Penny say, "Did you know that Mrs. Zidian has only one main class rule? Can you spell it with the letters below?"
Zidian taps the board again: And she shows how a pupil might unscramble the letters to spell "respect," as Aretha Franklin belts out "R-E-S-P-E-C-T."
Only limits
"You are limited with this ACTIVboard by your own creativity. Anything you want to do, you can do," she said.
Third-grade teacher Cyndi Martin likes to use the hand-held ACTIVslate feature, which allows her to control the board with her "pen" from the back of the room. This way, pupils approach the board and write or point to answers.
"They just have a blast," she said, explaining how photos of parrots, fish, flowers and snowy mountains can help teach geography. "It's so easy and they're just enthused and entertained forever."
'The best part'
But Zidian says "the best part of all is the voting."
Ostrich egg-shaped gray-and-orange "voters" are passed out to her "class."
Zidian taps and a multiple-choice question appears on screen: "How much time do you spend reading at home each night? A.10-15 minutes, B.15-30 minutes. C.30 minutes or more."
Those watching press their selections on the egg-shaped voters. The devices flash red and green. Zidian taps again and a bar graph shows her how participants answered.
This, she said, can be used for testing or review, and it lets teachers know which areas need more teaching.
"It's just so valuable and the kids just love it," she said.
Teachers love it, too
Cindi Boyer, who teaches second grades, said, "One of the great things is the calculator because I don't have enough calculators for all the kids in my classroom."
"They love being able to come up here and write on the board," she added. "They're sitting quiet as a mouse so they can come up here and have a turn."
Charts and graph paper are at her fingertips in moments and children can complete them without the messy marker splotches of dry-erase boards or over-head projectors, she said.
Christine Ulrich, who teaches fifth-grade language arts and social studies, said her pupils get to use the ACTIVboard as a reward for good behavior and compete to see who behaves the best. Some so much enjoy "books" read to them from an Internet site that they want to skip lunch period.
With the technology, it seems the chalkboard, not to mention that over-head projector and VCR, might go the way of the abacus and the slide rule.