The reality is that teachers make a classroom great - not the technology placed in the classroom. But when good teachers have the right tools, the engagement and excitement in the classroom can be transformational - for both the students and the teacher.
Darren ("Mike") McGuire, a fifth-grade teacher at Granby Elementary School in Columbus, OH, tells us, "I believe the Mimio[Classroom] has made me a better teacher. But it also has made my students better 'teachers.' ...I see my position now as more of a facilitator, while my students have taken on the role of collaborating, coaching, and instructing each other."
Mike was given a MimioTeach™ interactive whiteboard for his classroom three years ago. Before that, he had four older computers in the classroom, and admits that he was not very tech-savvy.
Today, McGuire’s classroom is a technology port that includes his laptop computer and two MimioTeach bars with MimioStudio™ classroom software – one bar is installed on a large whiteboard at the front of the classroom, and a second is connected to a whiteboard that rotates on a table in the back of the room. He also has a MimioView™ document camera, a MimioPad™ wireless pen tablet, a MimioVote™ assessment system, and a MimioCapture™ ink recorder. His students sit together in groups of six at whiteboards turned into desktops. Each group also shares a 32-inch computer monitor, to help them work more effectively.
McGuire has between 25 and 30 different students come through his classroom every hour. He makes sure the MimioTeach bar at the front of the classroom is on and ready to go when the students walk in.
"I didn’t know what I was missing, but now I can’t imagine what teaching would be like minus Mimio," McGuire says.
Read how Mike has transformed his classroom to be a collaborative, student-centered workplace using MimioClassroom tools, and how this new teaching style is making an impact on student achievement.