Re: more on whiteboards

[Robert Carlson <Raacc@AOL.COM>]

In a message dated 4/5/99 9:42:04 PM Central Daylight Time,
john@GASTINEAU.ORG writes:

>  >
>  >What I have really come to LOVE about whiteboards is this:
>  >
>  >I have a projector for my computer and the whiteboard works pretty nicely
>  >as a screen.  This means that we can dim the lights and project data or
>  >graphs on the board and then mark up the image with markers.  I find that
>  >more and more frequently I take data with a ULI, project it up on the
>  >board and ask a kid to answer questions or make notations.
>
>  I have done this too, and it works very, very well. Great discussion
starter.
>  Another thing you can do is project animations such as from Interactive
>  Physics, frame by frame. Mark an object's velocity vector (say) and then
> move
>  forward to a later time. Move the projector (or more simply, the window on
> the
>  computer screen) so the tail of the velocity vector coincides with the
tail
> of
>  your drawn vector; now you're ready to do the graphical vector subtraction
> on
>  the whiteboard. Classes say "oh, I get it!" when you do this. (I learned
> this
>  when I was teaching with Bob Beichner, NCSU. Thanks, Bob.)
>
>  I find it interesting that in the discussion of the health hazards of
> markers
>  that no one has wondered of the health hazards of chalk. Personally, chalk
>  sends me into a sneezing fit that has had me delay classes. I will not
teach
>  with chalk again, ever, for far worse than sneezing, chalk dust seems to
>  aggravate my asthma. Breathing is not optional.
>
>  JEG

This semester I've used little of whiteboards or blackboards.  I've been
using a VGA projection system and a pen/pad pointing device.  All my lectures
are saved to htm files with links to images of my lecture notes.  I then
place them on a web page for student access.  The pen pointing device takes
some getting used to, and my penmanship is not near the quality as on a
blackboard, but students don't seem to mind.  After two weeks of poor
penmanship, I gave my students the option of my using the VGA system and
posting the lectures, or going back to the blackboard.  There was no contest,
they wanted the lecture notes on the web site.  It also allows me to face
students, as suggested in an earlier post, plus it's easy to insert graphs
and figures into notes for discussion.

Bob Carlson