Enlighten...The Monthly Newsletter of Engaging Technologies
August 2009
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eInstruction Does Content Conversion
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Does your district have content that needs to be converted to a format for teachers to use with CPS or ExamView?
eInstruction's Professional Services group can help!
Existing
digital or hardcopy questions are converted into ExamView, Response, or CPS format
for $2 per question.
Some examples of content to convert are:
- Previously Released State Assessments
- Hardcopy Quizzes and Tests for an Entire Year
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- - - - - CPS TIP - - - - -
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When using clickers during formative assessment, offer
"I don't know" as a standard answer choice.
This will hopefully deter students from guessing and provide a more accurate assessment result.
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Greetings!
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School is just around the corner and the hustle and bustle of fall will be in
the air shortly. Hope everyone has had a wonderful summer and is ready to get
back in the groove of the daily school routine.
Be sure to make CPS a
part of your daily routine early; you'll find that you will quickly grow accustomed to the many luxuries CPS
will allow you throughout the school year...a more attentive audience, better connection with your students, and less grading time! There's not a better way to
introduce CPS to your kids than to go over classroom procedures or introducing your class while using CPS!
We look
forward to another excellent year with everyone across the Kansas and Nebraska
areas. We're excited to have brought on board an additional consultant, Matisha Stanton, who can help us to be more places at once! Please pay close attention to our newsletter, our calendar, and your
local ESU training calendars to take advantage of eInstruction training in your area.
Have a great August, and we look forward to hearing from each and every one of you.
Sincerely,
Dustin Frank
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| Special DualBoard Price Through Sept. 30th
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Say HELLO to the New CPS Pulse |
eInstruction debuted the new CPS Pulse student
response system at NECC 2009 at the end of June, and it was a hit! This ergonomically-designed student response product builds
upon the success of our industry-leading CPS and PRS RF clicker systems and
includes the following features: 
- Advanced
numeric and text entry
- More question
formats: Multiple choice, multiple answer, ranking, short answer,
symbol/arithmetic formula
- Seamless
integration with the new eI Community as well as PowerPoint
- RF radio
frequency for easy and reliable connectivity
- Self-paced
and homework modes
Additionally, student responses from the CPS Pulse can
be displayed on the Interwrite Mobi's "Know-What-I-Know" (KWIK) LCD screen so
teachers can immediately see how well students understand a lesson.
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| Using Clickers on the First Day of School |
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Don't forget to check out our Introducing Clickers page for some great first day of school activities to use with CPS!
You'll find detailed explanations for all of these great First Day of School activities...
- Getting to Know Your Students Better
- First Day of School Syllabus or Procedure Quiz
- A Quiz About the Teacher
- What's My Name?
- Making Class Rules
- Big Whopper Liar Game (Two Truths & A Lie)
Have a creative idea using clickers, a whiteboard, or your wireless tablet on the first day of school? Share it with us and we'll pass it on!
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eInstruction K-12 Product Collection Catalog Now Available
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 You can now browse the eInstruction K-12 Product Collection Catalog online.
This catalog features
the new CPSPulse™ and vClicker™ MOBILE EDITION student response systems, the eI
Community™ web portal, and upcoming eI Cornerstone™ Education Suite. Also
included are our CPS™IR and INTERWRITECRICKET® response systems;
INTERWRITEMOBI™, DualBoard™, and INTERWRITEWORKSPACE®.
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CPS a Great Success at Nebraska Community Town Hall Meetings
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We recently donated CPS clickers for the use of the Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest, one of several nonprofit sponsors of a series of town hall meetings entitled, "Building the Good Life in Nebraska: Town Hall Discussions about Creating Opportunity for Nebraska Families and Workers." These town hall meetings were held in Scottsbluff, Kearney, Lincoln, and Omaha through June and July. Each meeting included presentations on workforce issues and a panel discussion with business leaders, state senators and community members. Issues included access to education and training for working people, quality jobs, and support for working families. These events were part of Nebraska's "Economic Opportunity Campaign," which promotes policy options that build opportunities for low-income Nebraskans. More and more communities are using clickers for town hall meeting settings, and they seemed to be very well-recieved by meeting organizers. We received this wonderful note from Kate Bolz, a community educator with the Nebraska Appleseed Center:
Dear Dustin -
I can't tell you how much having the "clickers" added to our
Town Hall events. They were the perfect way to gather input and foster
dialogue. I also really appreciated you taking the time to train me - it
really made me more comfortable at the events.
Engaging Technologies New Biggest Fan,
Kate Bolz
You can learn more about Nebraska Appleseed at their website, www.neappleseed.com. |
| ARTICLE: CPS Helps All Students Learn |
We had a very gracious submission to our website by Tracy Allison, a special education teacher and department head in a small rural school in Northeast Georgia. Tracy submitted an article that you will find below describing the success that she has had with clickers in her own classroom. She also shares her method for using clickers during class discussions to get the very most out of her students. Tracy also describes how teachers at her school benefit from using CPS with Study Island and MindPoint Quiz Show.
CPS Helps All Students Learn
by Tracy Allison
With the advent of No Child Left Behind (2001), teachers must know for
certain that ALL students are learning. How does a teacher know for
certain that all of the students are truly engaged and are learning?
Does the teacher ask students a question? Does the teacher give the
students a "ticket out the door?" Do the students raise their hand if
they think they know the answer to a question? Does the same student
consistently blurt out an answer? With all the many requirements of
teachers, when does the teacher finally get around to grading the
informal or formal assessment and finally figure out that everyone
doesn't definitely "get it?" Is it too late at that point to go back
and reteach what students did not get? Is there a better way of
teaching?
With the use of technology by eInstruction called a Classroom
Performance System (CPS), also known as "clickers" as well as by many
other names by different manufacturers, a teacher no longer must guess
if students know the answer to a question. CPS is an incredible
instructional tool for teachers and one of the best pieces of
technology ever invented! There is no more guesswork! Now a teacher can
be certain who knows what. More importantly than that, the teacher can
provide immediate feedback to students so that the students know
instantly if they are on track or not. The teacher can immediately
rectify that situation by instantly reteaching a topic, skill,
providing extra practice, etc. if needed. An added bonus is the time
saved for teachers due to the immediate grading of the questions. The
use of a CPS in the classroom is a win-win situation for both the
teacher and the student. A friend and coworker introduced me to the classroom performance system
a couple of years ago. I started using this technology consistently
during the past year in my eighth grade special education resource
classes for reading and social studies. My classes are comprised of
students from very diverse backgrounds and are typically from low
socioeconomic backgrounds as well. Once I started using this
technology, I've never wanted to teach without it. My students love it,
and they do not want me to teach without it either. With consistent use of CPS in my classroom, I have seen... read the entire article
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