Teachers gain immediate feedback as students’ fingers fly on keyboards
Albert Gallatin High School is using text messaging – a popular way teenagers communicate – as a new method of class participation. A $25,000 grant from Scottdale Bank afforded the school 64 ActivExpression handsets, a wireless tool similar to a cell phone that interacts with the Promethean interactive whiteboard.
Using buttons on the handset, ninth- through twelfth-grade students are text messaging the answers to difficult math questions or responding to multiple-choice questions in the school’s math classes.
High school math teachers say they like the technology for its immediate feedback.
The tool provides a tally of students’ answers, which are displayed on the interactive whiteboard at the end of a question-and-answer session. The tally will show what percentage or number of students correctly and incorrectly answered the question.
Cindy Kopas, high school Algebra II and geometry teacher, said students love to use the handsets, especially because of its text messaging capabilities.
She added that the handsets’ “immediate feedback lets us see what mistakes students are making and remedy that before test day.”
Brandon Berkshire, Algebra I and II teacher, uses the tally to help determine if students understand the material.
If a significant number of students answered a question incorrectly, either “they didn’t get it or you didn’t teach it right,” said Berkshire, noting this could prompt teachers to review the material or provide students with extra, individual help.
And, students won’t get into trouble using this technology.
“There’s a saying that you unplug to come to school,” Berkshire said. “You unplug iPhones, cell phones… Any time you can take this comfort zone and put it into the classrooms, it enhances (students’) learning and level of comfort.”
Students began using the handsets at the start of the school year. School and district officials hope the technology not only enhances learning, but also helps students score well on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA).
Principal Joetta Britvich said the tools are being used in math classes since that subject is a primary concern at the high school as a result of PSSA scores.
Another advantage to the handsets is that self-conscious students who may be hesitant to raise their hand and give an answer in class are more willing to participate since they can simply text their answer, said Steve Sokol, core math 11, Algebra II and college Algebra teacher.
Sokol said the tool helps to gauge the number of students progressing toward better understanding of the material.
He pointed to a recent class, when, at the class’ start, 25 percent of his students correctly answered a math question, according to a tally on the screen. That percentage increased to 80 percent by the class’ end.
Eleventh grader Tricia Bechtol said the handsets are cool and fun to use.
“I really like it. It’s different from the teacher lecturing at the board. It makes me want to learn,” said Bechtol after using the device in Algebra class.
Scottdale Bank treasurer Larry Kiefer, who, along with Scottdale Bank President Don Kiefer and the bank’s director Lynn Andras, attended a recent demonstration of the handsets, said he was pleased with the technology and what the district is doing as a whole.
“It’s important for students to understand how to use this technology,” said Kiefer, noting a local college is also using the devices.
The handsets are a product of Promethean Inc. and joins other technology afforded through the Classrooms for the Future state, grant-funding program. Funding through that program was provided to the district in 2007 and 2008.
It allowed the purchase of Promethean interactive whiteboards, laptop computers for students and teachers, overhead projectors, a digital camera, a video camera and printer/scanners, all of which also are part of the school’s recent influx of technology.
Berkshire said the teachers have “just scratched the surface” of the handsets’ usage. The tool also allows students to text full sentences as well as in numbers, symbols, math equations, true/false and Likert scales.
The remaining amount of the money donated by Scottdale Bank was used to purchase a Promethean board, projector and an ELMO document camera for the school’s technology education or “shop” class to enhance the engineering aspect of the program as well as a sound system for each elementary school, according to Carol Ryan, the district’s director of federal programs. The sound systems will be used in elementary music classes and during evening events and performances, she said.