Sign Language and SRS

I have just stumbled on to the work of Rick Morris, in particular his use of the one handed American sign language in his regular classroom.

To paraphrase, Rick gets his students to use the signs for "I" (for I have a question), "A" (For I have an answer), and "C" (for I have a comment), when they their hands. In a small group this lets him prioritise his dialogue with his students and helps with the flow of his lesson. He has added more sign language in his classroom to help with other management issues.

This has to be one of the most useful and practical teaching techniques I have seen in a long time and I'm keen to try it out next time I'm training a group.



How dose this relate to clickers?


One thing that many people forget is the "?" button on many Student/Audience Response Systems. On TurningPoint it silently but visually cues up people who would like to ask a question or make a comment - the teacher/trainer/lecturer at any time can pull up the list and see who is next to ask their question or to comment.
If you use Responseware, those questions can also be written by the participant so that in large groups they don't have to stand up and be heard (embarrassing for some and logistically difficult with AV and large rooms).

Word Talk

One of the most popular programs used in special education ans lower primary is "Clicker". I think I have already talked about EDword as a free replacement for it with the ability to make grids and change voices and controls.

One of the features of EDword and Clicker is that they highlight an speak the works on the page- giving students immediate feedback. You can now add this feature to plain old MS Word with WordTalk.

Word talk works as an add in and you can control what gets read and when - with controls for words, sentences, paragrams and selection. It even has a record funtion that records the speach into a MP3 or ogg file - good for getting people who don't like speaking doing a podcast.

Links to Universities using TurningPoint ARS

This comes from my colleague over in Sydney. Several universities are using TurningPoint extensively in their courses to get engagement from their students.

here is some more information about HOW they are using it

The following links have information about TurningPoint:

University of SA: Macromedia vodcast on preparation and use of TP Keypads in lectures:
http://breeze.unisa.edu.au/ars

University of Sydney: Faculty information on how to set up receivers on lecture room equipment. (out of date – TP 2006)
http://www.usyd.edu.au/ict/audiovisual/elearning/interactive_technology.shtml

Macquarie University: General interest site on TurningPoint (largely reference to US site)
http://www.mq.edu.au/learningandteachingcentre/blog/2008/10/03/turningpoint-student-respons
e-system/