My old high school, where my dad still works, has jumped straight into Project Based Learning (PBL) by adopting the New Technology High School model. Each time I come home, I make sure to get the latest scoop on how they're adapting to this vastly different teaching model. In PBL content and standards are learned by students as they are necessary to accomplish the project at hand. Teachers must design projects that will challenge and engage students as well as cover the subject matter necessary, but after the planning stages they spend less time as instructors and more time as advisors for student projects.
My educational background has been filled with the traditional lecture and exercise models where classtime is centered around topics, content, and discussion. In this environment, I feel that DyKnow Vision absolutely thrives providing features for collaborative note taking, quick assessments, backchannel discussions, and lecture capture. Work Groups encourages group exercises and provides tools for students to collaboratively work together, but this is still centered around the DyKnow panel which may not be appropriate for every project. So from my silo (and I encourage anyone who knows better to prove me wrong), DyKnow Vision can be somewhat of a clunky fit for PBL. Yes, even in PBL the lecture is not dead, and there are going to be many times where a replayable example or class discussion would benefit the students' project objectives, but it is definitely not the everyday class tool that I used in college.
But I think Monitor is coming into a unique situation. I've mentioned before that Monitor is not the favored son in my book, but many of the newer interactive features we have been and are currently adding to Monitor (including remote control, screen broadcast, and chat) are uniquely suited to providing this advisory role. By switching the chat mode to be to moderator only, students can be working in their groups and can quickly chat you a question that only you see. You can then send a quick reply back. If there are technology questions, you can view the student's screen and even take control to show them what to do. All of this can quickly and easily be done from your desk. This means that the easy problems can be fixed easily, so you'll have more time to focus on more complicated matters (the kinds of problems where you really need to walk over and talk things through).
My educational background has been filled with the traditional lecture and exercise models where classtime is centered around topics, content, and discussion. In this environment, I feel that DyKnow Vision absolutely thrives providing features for collaborative note taking, quick assessments, backchannel discussions, and lecture capture. Work Groups encourages group exercises and provides tools for students to collaboratively work together, but this is still centered around the DyKnow panel which may not be appropriate for every project. So from my silo (and I encourage anyone who knows better to prove me wrong), DyKnow Vision can be somewhat of a clunky fit for PBL. Yes, even in PBL the lecture is not dead, and there are going to be many times where a replayable example or class discussion would benefit the students' project objectives, but it is definitely not the everyday class tool that I used in college.
But I think Monitor is coming into a unique situation. I've mentioned before that Monitor is not the favored son in my book, but many of the newer interactive features we have been and are currently adding to Monitor (including remote control, screen broadcast, and chat) are uniquely suited to providing this advisory role. By switching the chat mode to be to moderator only, students can be working in their groups and can quickly chat you a question that only you see. You can then send a quick reply back. If there are technology questions, you can view the student's screen and even take control to show them what to do. All of this can quickly and easily be done from your desk. This means that the easy problems can be fixed easily, so you'll have more time to focus on more complicated matters (the kinds of problems where you really need to walk over and talk things through).
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