NatalieMoore

Natalie Moore I choose the Promethean Board as my innovation for the use of the Career Discovery class. The Promethean Board incorporates a variety of interactive activities and skills the students can use. The board is also large enough to allow good visibility for the students. You can design lessons using technology and adequately explain the concept using this board. It has digital movement where you do not have to be in front of the board to write on it – you can write on it by standing beside it. Since a lot of students are technologically advanced it helps them to stay focused on the assignment. The other students who are not technologically advanced stay focused also because it is exciting to see and learn how to use new technology.

In Career Discovery we teach different skills and provide insights of careers. Students are constantly involved in the development of projects and hands on activities. Although the Promethean Board is costly, in the final analysis, it pays for itself because you have more productive students. While Blogging is the new buzz word, in my area we are striving to teach skills and get the attention of all students to advance the achievement level of the school. Blogging will enhance learning and can be incorporated into the class but the Promethean Board will give the buyer and consumer the results for student learning that you are looking for. In my other class we are learning how to blog so I will learn that concept in my class then I will be able to incorporate it into my classroom effectively. I also had Thinkfinity.org as an innovation because it is a great site to find student related resources as well as teacher resources that are free to the user. The technology active teacher would be glad to use this resource and build lessons from it to assist in teaching class from the lowest level learner to the highest level learner. This resource could also be used for enrichment activities for any learner. Overall, the Promethean Board is technological and that is what the Career Discovery class is about and with a new phase coming into existence, technology is what that new focus will be.

Being that diffusion is the process in which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system, (Rogers, 2003); using a Promethean Board will be an advantage of having technology an allow for a primary user of this devise to be the teacher for the other teachers. But with all new things there is resistance to learning like in the case of the British Navy. When it was known that citrus fruit could cure or prevent Scurvy it was slow for the sailors to adapt to the new innovation. It took over 150 years for this concept to catch on and become extended to other sailors. The Promethean Board will be the innovation for learning and it must be accepted within a timely manner. One good thing about the Promethean board is that it also has free resources that the teachers and students can utilize to provide ultimate learning. Once the concept becomes popular the Promethean Board will be seen more in the classroom.

Rogers, E. M. (2003). //Diffusion of Innovations// (5th ed.). New York: Free Press.