Summary: This blog entry outlines how instructors use interactive whiteboards in the Digital Language Lab’s studio classroom. Seven Language Center instructors, who have used SmartBoards in the Language Lab, answer two important questions.
1. How do integrate the SmartBoards in 280E into your teaching?
2. How do they enhance instruction in your language class?
Languages (clockwise from top left) Arabic, Hebrew, French, Amharic
The Digital Language Lab adopted the use of Smart Technology Interactive whiteboards in 2007 as part of a Language Center initiative to buttress advanced level language classes and to support the Stanford EFS program’s demand for frequent in-class video capture of student presentations. This blog entry describes the primary use cases for interactive whiteboards in the Language Lab and includes feedback from seven language instructors about their experience using smart boards in the Lab. SmartBoards enhance instruction in meaningful ways by improving the quality of classroom video capture, adding efficiency (freeing up time), and expanding modes of pedagogy and ways to create with language.
Smart Board Configuration in the Language Lab
Students doing writing activity in Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia.
Borrowing from foreign language teaching pilots in Wallenberg Hall, the Lab uses two smartboards mounted side by side. They are controlled by Dual Boot Language Lab iMacs running a special classroom image managed by the ACS Imaging team.
Primary Use Cases Seen in the Language Lab
The Language Lab did not transition to interactive whiteboards as an experiment but rather in order to accommodate the instructional need arising out of the curricular inevitabilities connected with the adoption of ACTFL writing proficiency standards and as part of Lab innovated workflows to support video capture of student presentational language. The Lab does use the boards in experimental ways, however, including to serve as greenscreens, as SWALLT Online Webinar portals, and in many other ways. The following outlines the primary use cases for SmartBoard use in the Lab and offers observations by instructors.
Ramzi Salti Ph.D. - Makes a grammatical point in colorful electronic ink.
Use Case 1 -Digital White Boards
Instructors use the boards as they would a regular whiteboard but with the ability to save and export their notes as PDFs, and with the ability to use the boards’ powerful Notebook software construct text objects, integrate media, etc. Student work at the boards can also be saved. The boards tie in quite seamlessly to CourseWork, Stanford’s Learning Management System. Instructors and students use CourseWork and the SmartBoards in concert to bring up course content and websites and to move data securely back and forth during class.
Use Case 2 – Video Capture of Student Presentations
Stanford’s EFS program requires in class video capture of student presentations and most foreign language classes have a student presentation component to them.
EFS Student Giving Demonstration Presentation on Break Dancing
The Lab uses Smartboards in concert with video capture carts to accommodate this need. Smartboards are useful in the following ways:
- SmartBoards allow presentation and presenter to fit in the camera’s field of view. This makes giving and receiving feedback on student work simpler.
- Students can annotate their slides as they present, resulting in a more dynamic presentation.
Presentation Capture with Traditional Projector. Note large distance required to capture slides and subject. Often the subject is in the dark so that slides can be seen.
SmartBoards allow for clear view of Student and Slides in Frame
Instructor Responses to SmartBoard Survey
Seven language instructors answered the following two questions about their use of SmartBoards and also provided sample activities for the languages they teach.
1. How do integrate the SmartBoards in 280E into your teaching?
2. How do they enhance instruction in your language class?
Instructor 1 – Emiko Yasumoto Magnani – Japanese
1. How do you integrate the SmartBoards in 280E into your teaching?
Emiko Yasumoto Magnani conducts kanji activity.
1) I let the students play some games such as cross words puzzles to identify some Chinese compound words.
2) I let the students expose to some authentic materials such as a Japanese newspapers and some CM video clips to watch.
3) I write down some notes while teaching them with the slides and uploaded those slides with the notes later on coursework.
2. How do they enhance instruction in your language class?
Obviously the students these days are more technology oriented, so it is easier for them to participate in and come in up front to write their answers on the smart board. (which sometimes they hesitate to do so with a regular blackboard.)
It’s a nice environment to have some handy technology to explore some authentic materials on the web when we want to.
Instructor 2 – Issayas Tesfamariam – Amharic
1. How do integrate the SmartBoards in 280E into your teaching?
2. How do they enhance instruction in your language class?
The SmartBoards enhance instruction in my language class tremendously.
Before I started using SmartBoards, it was difficult for the students to see how, for example, the verbs were conjugated. Or took them longer time to absorb the concept. However, with the SmartBoards, I use different colors to illustrate the “formula” for conjugating the verbs. To give you an example, to conjugate the present/future tense of the verb “to eat”/”meblat” using pronouns goes as follows:
1st person singular : Ene (I) e_____leu
2nd person singular : Ante (you/male) t_____ leh
Anchi (you/female) t______lesh
Ersow (you/polite ye_____lu
3rd person singular: Esu (he) ye_____l
Eswa (she) t______belalech
Esachew (he/she pol.)ye______lu
1st person plural: Egna (we) en_____len
2nd person plural: Enante (you/plu) te______lachu
3rd person plural: Enesu (they) e_______lu
Thus, all I have to do with SmartBoarads is to write “bela” in different colors and clone it ten times (the number of pronouns).
Then just plug each cloned “bela” into the spaces above. They see and understand it clearly. …what used to take me longer periods to cover conjugation of verbs is almost cut by half.
To answer your first question, I integrate SmartBoards in my teaching by having the students go on board and conjugate various verbs as indicated above. It helps them immensely.
To answer your first question, I integrate SmartBoards in my teaching by having
the students go on board and conjugate various verbs as indicated above. It helps them immensely.
Instructor 3 – Kiyomi Nakamura – Japanese
1. How do integrate the SmartBoards in 280E into your teaching?
I really enjoy the SmartBoards in the “Japanese through Films” class. Since this class is the film class, I do not use the SmartBoard as a blackboard. I use it as a viewing screen instead. Since there are two SmartBoards in the classroom, I use both at the same time. While projecting a film on one SmartBoard, I project the vocabulary sheet on the other. In this way, students are able to see immediately the vocabulary they do not know. This usage is very pleasing to the students.
2. How do they enhance instruction in your language class?
In a regular classroom there is only one screen in the room. Thus students concentrate more on their paper vocabulary sheets than on the movies. This means that students eyes are always looking down. By using the SmartBoard, students can focus more on the films, and as a result, their language abilities are improve more.
Instructor 4 – Ali Miano – Spanish
1. How do integrate the SmartBoards in 280E into your teaching?
The smart board allows me to display multiple websites and images, so that students can see, e.g., the class agenda or vocabulary lists on one board and our CourseWork Forum on the other, or compare Velázquez’s realist version of Las Meninas with Picasso’s various cubist versions.
2. How do they enhance instruction in your language class?
They create more possibilities and opportunities for interaction among students with course materials and with each other.
Instructor 5 -Ramzi Salti – Arabic
1. How do integrate the SmartBoards in 280E into your teaching?
2. How do they enhance instruction in your language class?
I loved using the smartboard for my Intermediate Arabic class last quarter. It was a great way of drilling new vocabulary with special attention to spelling. I would “reveal” the correct spelling with one touch after asking the students about the spelling. It saved me time and was visually interesting for them. I also liked coming in early and pre-preparing for class so that by touching a document it would open up and be color coordinated to help with conjugation, verb tenses etc. Finally, it was great to save the notes from the lecture and email them to students or make them available online for them to download at their convenience.
Instructor 6 – English as a Second Language – Seth Streichler
1. How do integrate the SmartBoards in 280E into your teaching?
2. How do they enhance instruction in your language class?
Perhaps the most desirable and distinctive characteristic of the SmartBoards is their versatility. For any type of presentation, the SmartBoards enable the instructor and the students to highlight, clarify, and elaborate upon the specific content of a presentation or projected document. Naturally, the electronic markers are useful for this purpose, as are various PowerPoint, MS Word, and Internet features. More specifically, the SmartBoards are especially useful for discussions of students’ written work, as elements of the text can be clearly highlighted, commented upon, and modified as needed. Another valuable feature is the ability is to use both boards simultaneously, displaying separate aspects about a single topic; this enables the instructor or student to transfer between projections as needed, thus reinforcing audience comprehension of presentation or lesson content. In light of these considerations, 280E can be immensely valuable not only for standard class meetings, but also for office hours (individual or small-group consultation sessions out of class).
Instructor 7 – Lyris Weideman – Portuguese
1. How do integrate the SmartBoards in 280E into your teaching?
I have used them mostly in my advanced class, in which the goal is to bring students’ competence to the Advanced level. The SmartBoards allow me to a) Project texts used for reading assignments and work in front of the class with linguistic structures, bringing to students’ attention points such as sentence/paragraph/text structures, different vocabulary and stylistic resources, etc. With SmartBoards, for instance, I can highlight various resources used by the author using different colors, ask different groups to mark with different colors different features etc. b) Watch in class short videos from the internet and make notes on the SmartBoard about what we are watching. c) Project my Kindle-edition textbook instantaneously and again, underline, highlight, etc. different points of the text using different colors. d) Instantaneously connect with a Portuguese-speaker via Skype and have everyone watch and listen to what that person has to say.
2. How do they enhance instruction in your language class?
They enhance instruction in my language class because I can do all of my Internet-related tasks (see above) without having to connect my computer using 3 different kinds of cables and wait for ne connection to be established. I seldom use my computer, actually, but rather put my material the CourseWork and access it very quickly through SmartBoards Time is not wasted with setting up and changing from one task to another is really seamless. SmartBoards also enhance enormously my students’ oral presentations. When using PowerPoint, they move effortlessly from one slide to the other by just touching the screen. Moreover, because the SmartBoards are so reliable, they concentrate more in their linguistic production than in the mechanical part of the presentation, which is much smoother than when they use a computer and a screen that is not touch-sensitive, like in traditional classrooms. In sum, Smart boards give one the best delivery with very little effort.
Blog Post Conclusion
Overall, with the support of the ACS Imaging Team and ACS Technical Services, SmartTechnology Smartboards have added great dimension, texture, and flexibility to language instruction in the Digital Language Lab. They are reliable and enhance engaged time in substantive ways.
Joseph Kautz – Head, Stanford Digital Language Lab