eInstruction provides an area for teachers to share question banks they’ve authored in ExamView.
Even without installing ExamView, you can add these questions to your CPS database (Prepare Tab/Lessons and Assessments/highlight a folder/Click on the upside down triangle next to Add Files/Browse to the downloaded EV test and click Okay).
If you’ve authored questions in ExamView, take a moment to upload some!
Here is another option at Teachers Pay Teachers…an opportunity to gather some low-cost content and perhaps make some money on your own.
1. Update to version 7.6. (By clicking on the purple “I” icon, you can choose Check for Updates and it will automatically download and guide you through the installation.) 2. You now have a much easier interface for connecting. The 7.6 training manual is located here. An explanation of the new interface is on page 7.
3. With some of the older Ezurio Bluetooth sticks, a driver is needed. It is located on your C drive at: Program Files/Ezurio/BTSoftware/BIN/btwusb.
4. The InterWrite tech support people have been excellent and usually solve these issues very quickly: 1-800-856-0732 - option 3 then option 2. InterWrite Pad/Board Welcome Letter
Boise teachers, Jill Hanford and Amy Pinkerman were touted in a front page article in the Idaho Statesman on Friday, September 19th for effectively using CPSrf for classroom instruction.
Back to School Ideas with CPS Response Pads (clickers) and InterWrite WorkSpace for IW Pads and Boards
How might you use your CPS clickers, CPS Chalkboard or InterWrite pad to build a safe and collaborative community during the first week of school? Effective teachers know that taking a few minutes during this time to develop and teach routines and establish expectations. Doing so saves precious minutes of potentially wasted time down the road. Diverse students can come together in a learning community if they get to know and respect each others’ differences as well as common goals for the time spent in your classroom. Some of you might recognize some of these from an August 2007 blog entry:
Using your CPS Response Pads
1. Introducing yourself: create a 10 question Q & A about yourself (with images of your family, home, vacation, favorite things, pets, hobbies) allowing the students to guess. Add humorous alternatives, if possible! (Thanks to Mr. Kellogg at Lowell Scott Middle School in Meridian for reminding me of this idea!)
Q: When Mrs. Jones was a teenager, she worked at ____________.
a. McDonald’s
b. Disneyland
c. getting a tan at Newport Beach
Answer: B with C as a close 2nd!
2. Introduce the students. Allow the students to create a list of 2 truths and a lie. Using Verbal mode, use 5 or 6 student submissions per day to help students get to know each other.
Q: Choose Kyle’s lie.
a. Kyle has vacationed in Paris.
b. Kyle has a V shaped scar on his knee from skateboarding.
c. Kyle still has his 1000 Pokemon card collection in his closet.
Allow the students to guess A, B or C. I would imagine the results would depend on how well the students already know each other and how thoughtful the choices are.
3. More academic ideas include:
a. Do a learning styles inventory.
b. Do some diagnostic questions for attitudes about your subject matter or current knowledge level.
c. Develop teams, learning groups or peer editing circles around some common survey questions.
d. Practice the Student Paced Assessment mode with a quick 10-question FastGrade lesson. Students simply guess at the answers. In this safe, “even playing field” environment, teachers can show the kind of reporting available at the end of the quiz. Have a goofy prize available for the best guessers (check out the Instructor Summary under the Reports tab).
Using your InterWrite Pad or CPS Chalkboard
1. Create a table in WorkSpace or RMEasiteach with at least one box per student.
a.Add categories like: skis, loves to sing, has at least 3 pets, watches Myth Busters regularly, has read the Twilight series, etc. Use a variety of skills, interests and traits.
b.Print and copy papers for each student. In ten minutes (or so), students are instructed to walk around, visit with their classmates, get as many signatures as possible, limited to one classmate per box. When time is called, student with the most signatures wins.
c.Collaboratively, using the winning student’s paper, try to complete the displayed table with each student’s names. You may need to pick up your eraser tool (TIP – hold down the button closest to the tip of the InterWrite pen to access a small eraser.)
2. Introduce yourself, classroom procedures,
a.Using InterWrite Workspace or RMEasiteach, use the text tool to create a variety of text boxes. To introduce yourself, you might create some text boxes that include some things that are true about you, some of your future goals and some ideas that are not true. Using a graphic organizer (access the gallery in IW and the Multimedia files in RM), tell a few stories about yourself as you drag the text boxes to the correct places on the graphic organizer. Encourage students to guess which items are the “lies”.
b. Using the text tools, mix up a list of procedures (you could also use the handwriting recognition tool to allow for brainstorming here) common to your class. Pass the pad or chalkboard to a group of students to “organize” the list by dragging and dropping the items into a specific order. Spark discussion about why a certain flow works best in your class.
3.Use the dice or spinner to randomly select a number between 1 and 6. Each number can represent a scenario common in your classroom. Jump to a page in your WorkSpace or EasiTeach book to discuss each scenario and brainstorm possible outcomes. Post positive ideas in your classroom by printing the results or posting on the class website, wiki or blog. Scenarios may include:
a.Susie gets to school without her homework and her mom refuses to bring it to her.
b.Sam keeps texting under his desk. Raul is getting annoyed by it.
c.During the poster making activity, Lila insists her group use only using pink and purple pens. When the group tries to use other colors, she folds her arms and refuses to participate.
d.T.J. forgot his pencil. Pen is not allowed on the quiz.
e.Some students are frustrated when Mrs. Jones is continuing to go on with the lesson and they feel lost. They aren’t clear about what to do on the assignment.
Send additional ideas to Amy Jones and she’ll post them at here.
This information comes from my colleague, Debbie, in Ohio:
Here is a link to a presentation given at EduCause by UNO (University of Nebraska Omaha) this past year. They did a full study comparing all possible clickers, ultimately standardizing with eInstruction.
In the presentation you should find several statistics and valuable information that they share with folks all across the state and region.
For Windows users of CPS, Interwrite Workspace, or both, recent upgrades are now available with some exciting features. The update for CPS for PowerPoint is expected by mid-July.
What’s new? I’ve listed the new features below and provided links to some short online videos to illustrate how they work.
Is there any training available?eInstruction is providing free online webinars on the newest releases of CPS, Workspace and ExamView. If you have an hour to spare this summer, they would be well worth your time! You can register here. They also have sessions for people new to CPS and WorkSpace. Professional online videos will be available soon.
Still exploring interactive technology? For Idaho and Utah customers, feel free to email me for additional information to see if CPS or an InterWrite pad is right for you. I can also provide you with a quote or an evaluation program form.
CPS 5.4 includes these new features:
Verbal Questions and Automatic Charting: A new setting for “Auto Show Charting” for verbal Questions which allows the user to turn off the automatic charting for verbal questions. (Video: 1:04 minutes)
Snapshot Button: There is now a button on the Question Delivery screen which allows the user to take snapshots of the screen. The image is saved to the hard drive and is attached to the question for reports. So, use verbal questions with any software you like for displaying the question. Just take a snapshot of the screen and you have captured the question for your reports. (Video 0:58 minutes)
Question Response Data Export: New CSV export grouping the question and response stems of each question with response data from the students to facilitate building charts for the questions in MS Excel. (Video 1:12 minutes)
Integration with Workspace 7.6: You can now use your CPS response pads right inside the 7.6 version of the Workspace software from Interwrite. (Video 3:18 minutes)
Engage Attendance: You can now choose an Attendance tab within the Engage workflow tab. This will enable instructors to take attendance without starting a Teacher Managed engage session. (Video 1:21 minutes)
Window resizing improvements: Elements displayed in the Content Deliver window can now be resized to take advantage of screen resolutions greater than 800×600. (Video 0:41 minutes)
Improved SEARCH features: SEARCH is now eInstruction TownCenter. Educators can still find CPS content and can also now easily share their own CPS content with others. (Video 2:28 minutes)
State Standards now available in TownCenter: State Standards are now available via drag and drop in TownCenter. (Video 1:18 minutes)
Workspace 7.6 includes these new features:
CPS Integration – Seamlessly integrate the Interwrite Board and Pad with CPS for a powerful interactive classroom solution (Video 3:18 minutes)
Enhanced Tools – Create gradient backgrounds and snap to grid to make your Workspace pages colorful and aligned. Also, learn about the enhanced text box tool, free form fill and capture tools, stamper, picture pen, and right-click menus. (Video 4:53 minutes)
Gallery Interface – Drag and drop images to personalize your collection into customizable folders (Video 0:28 minutes)
David Warlick shared an interesting link and concept this week. For me, it resonates with the idea of involving students in the classroom dialogue and helping teachers provide feedback that is relevant and necessary. Many student response pad using teachers have happily discovered that this is what is happening when they consistently and efficiently ask ALL students to respond. Mr. Warlick isn’t talking about response pads here, but I think a compelling argument can be made. He’s referring to Clay Shirkey’s talk, Where Do People Find the Time (see below).
Here’s a line that evidently didn’t hit me when I read the transcript for the speech a couple of weeks ago. After telling the story of a four-year-old, who becomes discouraged when she can’t find the mouse on her family’s TV, he says,
Media that’s targeted at you but doesn’t include you may not be worth sitting still for.
Substitute Education for Media, and this is a huge statement that coincides with what a lot of educators and education reformers have been saying for a long time. I just love it when somebody comes up with a way of saying it all in one sentence!
In January 2003, I had the opportunity to attend the Questionmark users’ conference in Miami Beach. At that time, I was trying to work as a consultant for businesses using Questionmark to develop their certification programs. The keynote speaker was a researcher named Will Thalheimer who presented his white paper on asking questions through the learning process. In that presentation, he used eInstruction’s Classroom Performance System, our older model blue clickers, to very effectively make his point and by August 2003, I was regularly showing and selling, at that time, eInstruction’s only product, the CPSir.
Since then, Dr. Thalheimer has done a great deal of research on the role of questioning through the learning process and some of his focus has been on effective use of audience/student response pads.
He’s offering his latest paper on providing learners with feedback at no charge. He does a great job of boiling things down into easy-to-apply chunks. Visit his site, subscribe to his blog and download the paper!
