SMART Collaborative Classrooms Come to Canada!
- Ruth Bowman’s SMART Collaborative Classroom
Last week on Digital Learning Day, SMART announced our SMART Collaborative Classrooms on the blog. In honor of C21 Canada taking place this week, we are pleased to showcase the three Canadian classrooms that demonstrate thought leadership in education and a commitment to explore innovative learning models.
- Bench Elementary, Cowichan, British Columbia
- Gretna Green Elementary, Miramichi, New Brunswick
- Riverview High School, Riverview, New Brunswick
In these collaborative learning spaces, students work together with their peers and teachers to solve problems, making use of multi-user, multitouch, collaborative workspaces. Each classroom is designed to meet the specific and individual needs of the teacher, students, their grade level and curricular focus. Every room is different, but each SMART Collaborative Classroom features multiple interactive displays, complementary hardware and software – all tied together with SMART Notebook collaborative learning software.
The EDCompass blog will feature SMART Collaborative Classroom teachers and their stories on an ongoing basis. To kick things off, here is a great account by Sasha Zekulin (Education Consultant, Sharp’s Audio Visual) of the grand opening of Ruth Bowman’s classroom at Bench Elementary!
Collaboration at Its Finest – Bench Elementary School
By Sasha Zekulin, Education Consultant, Sharp’s Audio Visual
Today was an amazing day to be at Bench Elementary School, near Cowichan Bay on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Bench is already a SMART Showcase School, but now it is also the only school in BC with a SMART Collaborative Classroom too.
Ruth Bowman’s grade two students received an early Christmas present this year when she let them know that SMART would be providing their class with four SMART Board 800i interactive whiteboard systems, four SMART Document Cameras, SMART Response interactive response systems, SMART Audio classroom amplification system, and SMART Sync software to bring all those computers together.
- Group collaboration in Ruth’s class
Today they showed off their new classroom to some members of the media and, most importantly, their parents. The students showcased SMART Notebook lessons for addition and subtraction that they created in their Parent Association Council Mac computer lab. The learners demonstrated how they create movies together using both iPods and SMART Boards. They explained how they use 3D tools both on the SMART Board and with the SMART Document Camera. They distributed a SMART Response quiz with questions they wrote themselves. The quiz culminated the end of their iMovie projects about the life cycle of salmon.
This classroom has been working together on group projects for awhile now and has a good understanding of what collaborative learning should look like. The students have been able to take this wonderful sense of collaboration to a new level with a SMART Board available for each collaborative learning group in the class, as well as all of the other amazing tools these children will be able to integrate into their learning.
Congratulations to Ruth Bowman and her grade two class for receiving a SMART Collaborative Classroom and showing the true meaning of collaboration in the short time they have had to work with these tools.
And thank you, Sasha, for guest blogging for us!
Way to go Ruth! You have done amazing things with your students and been a great mentor to many teachers around the district with your amazing integration of technology in your classroom.
Congratulations Ruth! You have been a passionate advocate and user for many years now. I remember when I presented at one of your summer conferences and you were trying to fund-raise for SMART products by selling necklaces your students made. All the best!