A course I'm going to begin teaching later this week -- Introduction to Literary Studies -- is enrolled to capacity, which means I'll have ten or so more students in the room than I'm used to teaching. Even that little bit turns the course into the equivalent of two sections in one, and that means I'll have to employ more large classroom strategies and probably a bit more lecturing than I've done for awhile. I always worry that discussion will suffer in a large class, but I make up for it in group activities. And, luckily, the room they've moved me to has a great "smart podium" with an ELMO document projector in it, so my plan is to use this technology often.
Today I returned to a Pedablogue entry on Tickling the Elmo from way back in 2006. I'm reminded of how useful the document camera really is when teaching a large class and I hope to continue to use it in crafty ways. Last year I remember doing all sorts of fun things with it, from having my writing class interpret their textbook's cover graphics to working with graphic fiction as a writing prompt to projecting a student's laptop screen. My classes edited many of each other's essays on the screen, collaboratively workshopping and line editing the text. But even when it's use is somewhat frivolous, the ELMO can engage students. Turning to an illustration in a textbook and zooming in on a small detail can get students to look at things they take for granted more closely. One day I just put the contents of my pockets on display, as a placeholder (I often try to put something up on the wall as a "screen saver" so I'll have the projector on and ready for when I actually want to break out of an activity or lecture to project a document). A mini-discussion about the "germ killing" claims of my gum pack led to a conversation about "weasel words" -- which is something we later studied in the class. I also often had students use it to perform "show and tell" sorts of presentations. I fondly recall an activity in my Fiction Writing course, when I had workshop groups collaboratively choose the most descriptive passage from each other's stories, and then draw them on a sheet of paper. They then voted on the best, and the artist of it showed off their drawing while they read the passage. We analyzed them for how well they employed language to appeal to the reader's senses, and discussed whether the image in our minds matched what the artist had drawn.
Today I found eMints' collection of links, Teaching Tips: Classroom Use of ELMO Document Cameras and it led me to some good resources. One in particular, Tim Bedley's "Classroom Uses for a Document Camera: The Visual Learner in the Elementary School Classroom" lists all sorts of great ideas for teachers of young people that I hope to port into my new class this term. I like the notion of projecting a "backdrop" onto the screen that functions like a stage set (which students design)! There's also a tip for projecting blank ruled paper onto a whiteboard, to work as guidelines for students to practice blackboard penmanship. Interesting! What other ways could guidelines and backdrop shapes be used? I'll keep thinking about it.
Bedley also had the idea to use the projector as a giant timepiece:
Use the document camera to project a countdown timer. Sure you can buy an overhead timer for about $40. But when you have a document camera, the old kitchen timer works just fine. Use it to keep the kids focused on the task, knowing that the clock is ticking, and they will soon be out of time for that assignment.
I often have to set time limits on in-class writing, and brashly end up reciting the countdown ('ten. nine. eight...stop!'); this tip alone gave me a new way to approach the timing of activities. I'll likely set up the stopwatch on my PDA and zoom in on the spinning digits.
One plan on my syllabus that I'm looking forward to doing is asking students to make a "Literary Collage" -- a cut-and-paste exercise that I want them to use to encapsulate the field of English visually -- and have them present these using the ELMO. I might also bring the practice of mind-mapping back into my classroom on a more regular basis.
Mrs. Levin's Pre-K Pages has a number of tips for the early childhood classroom which might be modified to any classroom, with creativity. Her notion of "word walls" and projecting the "question of the day" are great ideas. Even just keeping a class outline on the screen while the hour passes is a good idea to help as a visual organizer for presentations and would prompt student notetaking.
See the entries tagged 'elmo' (below) for more on this topic, or share your own unique approaches in a comment.
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