Well, today I had some more success, despite the multiple interruptions to the usual classroom routine over the past seven days (a third of the day gone three times isn’t always easy to work through).

The simple task involved using the Activstudio software that came with our interactive whiteboard to drop shapes onto the flipchart pages and use the line tools to mark the lines of symmetry.  Some other features of the software also got tested by the students – the bucket fill was used on shapes and backgrounds.   I intended in a way to be a simple diagnostic assessment to see if children could already identify axes of symmetry and how much work would be needed, if any (the recent interruptions have meant there’s less time to properly address our learning in 2D space).

So one maths group got the task done, and quite well.  Yet the mind was still ticking.  “Let’s get this up on the blog”, I thought.  “There must be some kind of export function.”  Sure enough, I found I could export the flipcharts to flash.  A bit more fiddling (needed to get a host for the flash files as they won’t upload to learnerblogs), and we’ve embedded the students’ work into posts on our class blog (post 1, post 2).

So, what have we achieved today?

  • We’ve integrated technology into our mathematics lesson
  • My students have used our interactive whiteboard for learning
  • We have work samples
  • We’ve been able to assess what the children know about axes of symmetry
  • Our parents can see what their children can do – simple reporting in less than 24 hours!

Now tomorrow, I’ll have to get some of the children to visit the principal to share their work with him and how they’ve used our new interactive whiteboard.  He’s just going to love it!