3rd Grade Brainstorming on a Tablet PC

I have led many brainstorming sessions with students - with topics ranging from what to name the new class pet to the best strategies for solving word problems. It is exciting when their hands are shooting up in the air, waiting to be called on to share an idea. Sometimes I can’t write fast enough to keep up with the flow of their ideas.

However, there were often obstacles to being able to save this shared information in any meaningful way. I have sometimes stopped calling on kids because I have run out of whiteboard space - not because they have run out of ideas. Or what about the times when I had to erase for the next lesson before I had time to copy down what was written? To counter against this, I have used chart paper for recording ideas, but then the large pieces of paper are hard to store long term.

Today I led a brainstorming session using Microsoft Journal, a smart cart, and my new Tablet PC. Now I could write their ideas down and click for a new page if I needed more space. I could project what I was writing on the board so they could all see it. Then I showed them how I could convert the writing into text so I could insert it into our Friday Newsletter, turn it into a poster for the room, or just to save for another day.

I was afraid that the technology would distract them from getting into the writing activity, but they had the same great ideas they would have had if I had written them on the board instead. Now I would be able to catalog their ideas in ways I couldn’t before.

But, to be perfectly honest, the best part was how excited the kids were about doing it this way. And who can blame them? Thank you to my school for getting me this great teaching toy . . . OOPS . . . I mean teaching tool.

Classroom 2.0, Teaching, education, elementary, tablet pc, teaching writing |