Student Charmer or Snake Charmer? Creating Quality Content with Your Interactive Lessons

Linda Ward, librarian at Niehardt Elementary of Millard Public Schools, shared this interesting picture with us last week.  WOW!

If you have any doubt that an interactive whiteboard (WHEN USED CORRECTLY) will charm your students, just take a peek at what the interactive whiteboard has seemingly done to this snake.

It appears to have been charmed right up the wall!

So, how do you begin using your interactive whiteboard technology “correctly?”

One of the ways to start implementing your interactive whiteboard more effectively is to stack each interactive lesson you create up against this Quality Content Checklist from Mimio.

✔︎ IS THE focus on student interactivity, not teacher interactivity?

✔︎ IS THE learning objective student-focused?

✔︎ IS THE learning objective observable and measurable?

✔︎ IS THE included assessment appropriate to the learning objective?

✔︎ DOES THE lesson offer many opportunities for student practice of the skills you are teaching?

✔︎ IS THE screen uncluttered?

✔︎ DO THE included animations serve a purpose?

✔︎ ARE THE lessons sequenced from easy to difficult and/or from few to many?

✔︎ IS THE screen free of cues that give away the correct answer?

Use these questions as a guide to determine the difference between quality content and “junk food” content.  Remember, junk food content is high in calories but doesn’t contain much nutrition!

To keep these questions handy as you create interactive content, download a PDF of the Quality Content Checklist.