meL’s Word

I was on VSTE’s “Why Technology Rocks in Virginia” social network today and thought “Why not create one of these for the teachers in our district?”  It could be a place for teachers to commiserate, share lesson ideas and plans, and post resources.  We (the ITRTs) have a resource web site that has resources across the core subjects and grade levels (and some electives).  But this could be a different sort of site.  Members to the site (ning.com is not blocked….yet) each have a page of sorts on which to blog.  Groups could be set up by subject and/or grade level.  I know there are teachers who would never participate, but then, there are teachers who might find it a “nice place to visit”.

Wii Whiteboard

Okay, folks.  You asked for it, here it is – the video.  The first teacher in the video went and got a Wii remote last week, my husband made her a pen and voila! She is in business.  There are so many things to show in the video, but I wanted to keep it short and sweet.   

Showed the board to a teacher today and now she wants one of her own.  I told her if she got the Wii remote, we’d do the rest.  If all goes as she says, I’ll be setting her up next week.   

I love teachers who want to try new things, and this is one of them.  It took no persuasion on my part to get her to use an RCA Small Wonder video camera to document assessments for her VGLAs (thanks to the kind folks in Loudon County for providing the PowerPoint templates for submissions).  Every time I show her something new I can see the wheels spinning.  Her officemate is the opposite and thinks technology it the spawn of the devil!

A few weeks ago I read a post on Why Technology Rocks in Virginia about using a Wii remote to make an interactive whiteboard.  Needless to say, I was intrigued.  I sent the links on to my cohorts thinking they would also be intrigued – but no one said anything.  Then I went searching and found videos on YouTube (go figure) and downloaded a few (using KeepVid).  Happened to play one or two for my husband to see.  Took them to work (since this is all blocked at our schools) and showed them.  Okay, seeing the thing in use hooked them.  Meanwhile, unbeknown to me, my husband headed to Wally World and bought a Wii remote on clearance.  Then he scavenged an LED from an old remote and built the required pen – looked much like a pipe bomb, complete with red button.  They were waiting for me on the kitchen counter when I got home.  Took the two to work the next day and the “guys” are amazed my husband has done all this.  Of course, we have to try it – so I download and install the calibration software.  The first laptop (my “office” laptop) doesn’t want to connect the Wii remote, so I try another one (my “school” laptop).  Voila! We get a connection.  But we don’t get good success with the pen.  I call home, murf (my husband) comes to work and we begin working on the pen.  He does some rewiring -still isn’t great.  Then we read that LEDs from remotes don’t always provide good results.  Off to Radio Shack, get a new IR LED, back home to resolder.  This one works, quite well, actually.  We are all wowed by the fact we just created something that works as an interactive whiteboard on any surface – we even got it to work with the laptop connected to a TV.  The next day Murf reworks the pen design – I mean, you can’t take something that looks like a small pipe bomb into a school and not have someone panic.  The new pen is in a Crayola marker shell (our daughter kindly donated one of her many markers to the cause).

It is really amazing to think we have a portable interactive whiteboard for less than $50 – add another $30 for a Bluetooth adapter to carry with it and we are there for less than $100.  The calibration software is free, and I have found two whiteboard software products, also free.  No, it isn’t a Smart Board, or a Promethean board, or any of the other store-bought boards – but for less than $100, it is quite do-able.  If your district budget is anything like ours next year, this is way cool.