CBS Greensboro, NC visits Dudley High School to see how they are using Qwizdom classroom technology in preparation to compete against schools from 11 other states in the SMARTT EV (Electric Vehicle) Challenge.

KLTV stops by Pittsburg Elementary to see how teachers use technology to engage students and measure class participation. Educator Angela Brotherton shares some of the encouraging responses she receives from students who are using Qwizdom in the classroom.

TALLAHASSEE, FL (WFSU) - Students at Raa Middle School are making the jump from a traditional classroom, to one filled with new technology. As Lynn Hatter reports, gone are the days when just a paper, pencil and textbook were all that was needed.

In Carlos Fernandez’s 8th grade class, students are engaged in a race car game. But instead of physically driving the car, correct answers to the questions being posed to them move the cars along.

“Who was Hancock’s best friend? Louis Armisted’s best friend why is that important?”

Fernandez uses a digital classroom. His notes are all projected onto a board at the front of the class and students can download them from home. The students use hand-held clickers to answer questions. Fernandez says he’d like to see more classrooms go digital, but notes it isn’t for everyone.

“I think teachers need to stick to the way they think they’re most effective. And that might be electrostyle, it might be technology integrated. It’s whatever works for you. Not all the students learn the same way, so all teachers should not be teaching the same way.”

Many public schools are making the jump to more interactive learning. But traditional classrooms still dominate the learning environment.

Check out the radio broadcast here.

Last week, students all over Florida were preparing for their science FCAT exams. At Wolf Lake Middle School in Apopka it was no different, except these students were using a new high tech gadget to help boost their confidence and their scores. The students call them “clickers” but formally, they are known as student response systems.

Eighth grade science teacher Michael Cazin has been using this technology since the beginning of the school year. As students send in their answers, he knows in an instant who is grasping a concept and who isn’t before they move onto the next lesson. And, since only Cazin sees voice to the “wannabe” invisible students, resulting in much greater participation.

Made by a company called Qwizdom , these hand-held wireless remotes not only give students the ability to text their answers to questions providing a fun tool for the classroom, but also gives teachers feedback on student comprehension.

As soon as they are available, districts and schools will receive electronic access to student scores on the FCAT exams.

WEWAHITCHKA — Students at Wewahitchka Middle School have traded in their pencils and paper for laptops and interactive equipment to boost them into the new millennium.

Thanks to a sizable state Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) grant and the dedication of teachers and administration, the middle school has become transformed into high-tech classrooms.

Instead of chalkboards and paper handouts, students at Wewahitchka Middle are now using new technologies such as Smart Boards in every classroom, Qwizdom response systems, wireless tablets, teacher laptops and 100 student laptops to provide for lively project-based classrooms.

“As a teacher, this has helped me keep students actively engaged,” said Carla Dunn, a sixth- and eighth-grade teacher. “It’s not only a learning process, but they feel like they’re playing and they come in excited to learn and work.”

In Misty Woods’ eighth-grade math classroom, long gone are the typical teaching styles of math problems on a chalkboard and students dreaming of summer break.

The classroom is now filled with excited students, engaged and ready to compete with each other through the Qwizdom, a wireless response system that transforms math problems into an interactive game.

“I do better on Quizdom than I do on paper,” said eighth-grader Megan Thursbay. “You’re trying to go faster, so it makes your mind go faster.”

Thursbay also added that with Qwizdom, she is more apt to go home and study so she can better compete with her fellow classmates the next day.

With the wireless Qwizdom key pads and a Smart Board, students are able to compete against each other while solving math problems.

The faster they get the right answer, the faster their electronic racecar speeds along the classroom’s track.

These high-tech teaching tools also provide teachers with instant feedback on student progress and comprehension, transforming the way that teachers teach, Woods said.

During the game, if a student consistently misses a problem or a series of problems, feedback will come instantly back to Mrs. Woods and she is able to address the problem.

“It makes (the classroom) so much more interactive,” said Woods. “The kids are automatically engaged and because you get instant feedback, you know who knows the answer and who we need to work with.

Woods also added that when she introduces new concepts, all the students are already engaged in the game and ready to learn.

“With Qwizdom, you get to have fun while you’re learning,” said eighth-grader Haley Griffin.

Math is not the only subject that received a technological boost.

Griffin is also working on her science project through software on the new laptops.

In English class, using their laptops, students type essays and reports, e-mail them directly to their teacher while in class and receive instant feedback and comments.

Their teacher can then send them back to the student to make necessary corrections and thanks to the Smart Boards they can automatically post the essays and edit them together as a class.

This cutting-edge technology is a first for Wewahitchka and with the new high-tech tools students should be better prepared to enter into this ever-changing technological world, said principal Pam Lister.

View the original story here.

Chalkboards, paper handouts and pencils are being replaced by hand-held remotes, wireless tablets and laptops.

The Gulf county school district is paying for this classroom retrofitting at Wewahitchka Middle School with a government grant.

“Gulf County received the EETT grant which is a large technology grant to bring schools really into the 21st century as far as instruction,” said Principal of Wewahitchka Middle School, Pam Lister.

The school received 100 laptops, the Quizdom response systems and smart boards for every classroom.

“As a teacher, this has helped me keep students actively engaged. It’s not only a learning process but they feel like they’re playing and they come in excited every day to learn and work,” said 6th and 8th grade teacher, Carla Dunn.

Dunn’s classroom is equipped with Quizdom, an interactive learning system.

Ms. Wood’s 8th grade math students next door are reviewing for a test. At first glance is looks like the students are playing a home video game. When in reality, they’re learning math concepts like mean, median, range and mode.

“It has just heightened learning engagement like nothing I’ve seen. We had really student friendly classrooms, lots of cooperative learning, lots of hands on projects, nothing has caused students to want to come to school, be involved and be excited like the use of technology which is something they use every day. It’s the language they speak,” said Principal Lister.

This new technology has made its way into all of Gulf County’s schools.

Original story at NBC-Panama City.

These pictures show the Qwizdom hand-held student response devices and an innovation station in use.

students using the Qwidom handheld remotes

]]> http://qwizdomnews.com/2010/10/community-event-at-austin-isd/feed/ 0 http://qwizdomnews.com/2010/09/new-orleans-channel-6-checks-out-student-hand-held-remotes/ http://qwizdomnews.com/2010/09/new-orleans-channel-6-checks-out-student-hand-held-remotes/#comments Thu, 30 Sep 2010 09:06:29 +0000 admin http://qwizdomnews.com/?p=512 NBC New Orleans stopped by two local New Orleans schools to check out how they are using Qwizdom’s hand held remotes in the classroom to raise academic achievement.

“Today two New Orleans schools showed off new technology in their classroom… Parents and members of the community got a glimpse of how students are using hand held devices to make the grade.”

Isaiah Porter, 13, center, and Chris Chan, 13, right, feel the thrill of competition as they answer U.S. History questions using the Qwizdom Student Response System at school. The technology keeps kids engaged and encourages quiet students to participate at Los Alamitos School District schools.

LOS ALAMITOS–Oak Middle School has seen a significant jump in its state test scores since the introduction of a new learning technology that forces students to participate in classroom lessons and helps teachers better tailor their lectures, officials said.

Social Studies teacher Todd Schmidt acted as the guinea pig for the Los Alamitos Unified School District in using a hand-held, question-and-answer program called Qwizdom that he says helps students better learn and retain information.

“There’s this lofty goal that sounds unattainable, but (we can) actually achieve it: to get every student to answer every question, every time,” he said.

The technology allows the teacher to ask a question related to the lesson, then students plug in the answer on a hand-held remote. The teacher can see who has answered and who hasn’t.

Answers are projected onto a computer screen that uses kid-friendly graphs and games to keep students engaged.

Schmidt said Qwizdom specifically benefits students who are shy or not confident to answer questions out loud in the classroom because it allows them to participate anonymously.

“It is non-threatening,” he said. “I have proof that shows these kids are definitely getting it.”

And that proof comes in the form of better standardized state test scores, he said.

“We had a 20-point jump in Social Studies in theCalifornia State Test,” Schmidt said. “Los Alamitos is 75 percent proficient, which is three times the state average. Last year, we went up to 84 percent because we’ve been using these. I think next year our scores are going to be even higher.”

The program also lets teachers better mold their lesson plans because they can see what students are grasping or what concepts may need more attention.

“Now, I know exactly what to hit,” Schmidt said. “It has impacted my teaching so dramatically… because I know they’re understanding and retaining the material.”

The program started in Schmidt’s classroom last year and this spring the district has been incorporating the hand-held devices into more classrooms and a variety of subjects including math, language arts and science, he said.

Contact the writer: jfletcher@ocregister.com

Click here to read the original post.

New state-of-the-art technology makes learning easier and grading more reliable at Archimedes Academy for Math, Science, and Technology, its principal said.

The school is using new computerized technology that includes a hand-held device called “Quizdom” for the children in the charter middle and high school charter located at 456 White Plains Road.

The device, which looks like a television remote or a video-game control, allows students in the school to answer questions posed in a multiple-choice, short-answer, or numeric format into the Quizdom. The computer reads the results, and the teacher knows immediately which students answered correctly and which did not.

Through the use of computer technology, students can see what percentage of the class got the answer right, and a teacher can adjust his or her lesson to suit the needs of a particular classroom of young people.

Archimedes principal Miriam Lazar said that Quizdom technology is just one of the innovative approaches to learning that the new school, which will see its first graduating class in 2014, is experimenting with.

“With Quizdom technology we get 100% participation from every student every time a question is asked in class; the teacher will know instantly who answered correctly and who did not, or if a student did not answer,” Lazar said. “In a typical classroom, a teacher can ask a question and perhaps can call on one, two or three students to answer [or expand on an answer] to a question.” Lazar said that sometimes other students in the class can get left behind, or feel forgotten. This might hurt a child’s ability to learn.

The Quizdom, with its exciting visuals on computerized boards displaying questions and answers, is one way to keep young people actively engaged. It also provides teachers with easier grading for tests and exams by creating a computer file that can be imported into their digital grade books. All the students have I.D.s that they plug into the device at the start of the class, allowing for easy grading.

Students at the school said that Quizdom technology, which many of their teachers use in conjunction with traditional pen and paper instruction and tests, often helps them to learn the material better.

“Sometimes the Quizdom helps us to better remember what we are learning in math and science,” said Archimedes 6th grade student Terrence Ellis. “The reason they help is that we see [the material] on the screen in the classroom as we answer questions. Then we remember it better on tests.”

Ellis said they are tested frequently – every Thursday.

In addition to the computerized technology, which Lazar said has attracted many students to the school, it has also instituted a state-of-the-art robotics program. Students are building robotics and are ready to compete in statewide contests.