A neat thing happened the other day during a math remediation session with my students.  We had the laptop cart and were working on some problems similar to those they struggled with on the first administration of the End of Grade Test.  (Sadly, they must take it again, all 5 or so hours of it, but that’s another post)

We have used the Smartboard daily in my classroom this year.  We are lucky to have both a mounted board and projector, so the kids are used to coming up and solving problems with the Smart Tools.  However, we had never used the Smart Tools with the laptops (DUH, Mrs. C.).

One of my wonderful students who struggles so  greatly with math decided she would just open her Smart Tools over her problem and be able to draw directly onto the online coordinate grid.  She also used the highlighter tool to highlight words in the problem.

I know this sounds simplistic, but I just had never thought of the kids individually using the overlay included in the Smart Tools!  She shared what she was doing, and what a difference it made to the others who struggle moving from pencil and paper to working out math problems on the computer screen.  I was so proud, I had to tell you about it!  Baby steps, but aren’t our students brilliant?

• Memiary, the weightless pocket diary

  Record up to five memories of your day and make them memorable forever. Memiary is the weightless pocket diary. Would be a great way for the kids to end their day!

  tags: web2.0, diary

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Dr. Scott McLeod at Dangerously Irrelevant provided a recent link to this heart-stopping post. Or at least I felt myself catching my breath while reading it. All the while shedding a tear for my own sons who would shout AMEN!

Please take a few minutes and read the inspiring words of this student.

Photo Credit via Flicker: Report Card 1944