Teaching Technology plus Technology IN Teaching

Well, just wanted to drop a quick line as January (and much of February) has just zoomed by. Things have been very busy at the Open Road, which is great.

Last month, among other things, we delivered an Adobe Acrobat class for H&R Block at their new Kansas City headquarters. Talk about an impressive building!

I've also been seeing more examples of education technology at use in training rooms and auditoriums... At the H&R Block facility, I incorporated a remote keyboard with built-in mouse to advance the exercises up on the screen while standing behind the students to monitor their progress. At the Metropolitan Community College's Business and Technology Campus this week, I made good use of their SmartBoards with touch sensors to demonstrate MS Office capabilities to Ford students without having to run back to my desk every few seconds.

It's exciting to see these developments because, if used properly, they not only improve the teaching experience... They improve the experience for the students by providing better interaction and teacher responsiveness. If I can see how the exercise is going for you while go through it, I can either change my instructions to keep you on track or keep the class going forward without having to move back and forth from the board and the seats. If I can touch the board to "mouseclick" forward, then I reduce the amount of time I am spending at my seat "running the example" and increase the time I'm coming around to help or standing at the projection and literally showing the next step. It's also easier for me to look at you from projection area and gauge how things are going than it is for me to stare at my computer monitor and push the exercise while simultaneously look at my students.

So kudos to the next step in teaching tech!

On the Road,
Eric J. Reid