DOI: 10.29302/Pangeea 18.25

OFFICE SWAY AND INTERACTIVE WHITEBOARD IN THEGEOGRAPHY LESSON

Prof. GEANINA-MARIA VANCEA, No. 2 Secondary School, Sebeş, Romania

ABSTRACT: Using the interactive whiteboard with Microsoft Sway presentations makesthe geography lesson more attractive for students sensitive to any gadget. Although Sway haslimited design options over PowerPoint, it becomes very useful when the presentation ishighly dependent on online content. The application works with configurable panels wheretext, images, video and audio files can be inserted, links to Internet sources can be created,or YouTube, Vimeo, etc. can be embedded. Grouping information can be done in differentways. Students can interact with the Sway content using the interactive whiteboard pen, suchas the Settera online geographic game. Even if the existence of an interactive whiteboard isa beautiful dream for most schools, the Sway application can also be used with commonmeans, such as a laptop and a video projector. Everything is to have teachers willing tocreate geographic content with this app.

Keywords: Interactive whiteboard; Microsoft Sway;configurable panels; online content;

Introduction

With every day passing, the Internetprovides us with even more varied means ofeducation. Unfortunately, the infrastructureof the Romanian educational system does notkeep pace, many schools barely having acomputer and a video projector. It is oftendifficult to operate with them even in schoolsthat in different ways had managed to buyseveral laptops and videoprojectors, becausethey are only installed in a few classroomsand only the students in that class benefitfrom them or they have to exchangeclassrooms so that others can work withthem too, or teachers have to walk with themfrom classroom to classroom, losing timewith their installation.

It is harder to get an Interactivewhiteboard than laptops or video projectors.It costs more and it needs to be installed in aclassroom, so each class of students couldbenefit from it less often. There is also theinteractive bar, which makes an interactivewhiteboard from a projection screen or awhiteboard.

The bar can be moved every course hourfrom clase to clase, but only in that

classrooms with a screen projection attachedon the table or on a whiteboard, and thereshould be necessarily a video projector too,otherwise installing and calibrating themwill take time, making the class inefficient.Using the interactive bar makes classes moreattractive, students are receptive to anythingthat makes the class ”differently”.

Sway application presentation

Students like working with the interactivewhiteboard, it's something else for them.Such a lesson was "Europe's political map"attended by a sixth grade class. Theinteractive whiteboard lesson was built withSway, the newest Microsoft presentationapplication (Figure 1).

Fig. 1. MS Office Sway logo

172 Geanina-Maria Vancea

Sway has limited design options thanPowerPoint, the main Microsoft presentationapplication, but is very useful whenpresentation is highly dependent on on-linecontent (Figure 2).

Before using Sway, you need to create aMicrosoft account (Live, Outlook, Hotmail)that allows you to access all Microsoftproducts.

Sway works with a configurable panel

system and lets you create a presentationwhere the user inserts items into each panelor can upload an existing Word, PDF, andeven PowerPoint document. Once loaded, thecontent is automatically arranged in panels,

where the user can, if desired, make changesto information or design.

For the "Europe's political map" lesson,we used content creation by manuallyentering information. Any Sway project

begins with frame design (Design page). Theapplication has several predefined framestyles (background, font, page fitting) thatcan be mixed, but you can also create apersonal style (Figure 3).

The content is placed in the panelscreated on the Scenarios page. The firstpanel appears by default when opening theScenario page and it is for the title. Here youcan insert background, image and logo, if

Fig. 2. Sway’s main window

Fig. 3. Design Page

173Office sway and interactive whiteboard in the geography lesson

"Details" in the upper left corner of the panelis activated (Figure 4).

Next is the construction of other panelswhere you can enter text, image, video andaudio from your computer or the Internet.You can embed video on YouTube, Vimeo,etc. Links can be created to various sourcesof online information. Content can begrouped differently (Figure 5).

In the end, the presentation can be playedback, shared, or saved in Word or PDFformat. What the application can not do issave the local Sway project (on your personalcomputer or any other external storage). It

only remains online, in the user's Microsoftaccount.

Creating "Europe's political map"geography lesson with Sway

The lesson has a simple structure, whichincludes a classification of Europe’scountries according to some criteria, whichare exemplified with some images, a map ofthe EU countries, a sketch of the EU politicalstructure and a link to the Seterra site where,through games, students can fix the positionof European countries and their capitals.

Fig. 4. Sway panel

Fig. 5. Creating panels

174 Geanina-Maria Vancea

Each criterion was displayed on a panel,also some images, while others were groupedin a single panel to run in a slideshow whenpresenting the information (Figure 6-8).

Conducting the lesson on theinteractive whiteboard

The lesson done with the Swayapplication was projected on an interactivewhiteboard using the interactive magneticbar attached to the board below theprojection screen. Interaction takes placethanks to a pen that can be handled bystudents. On the screen they can draw, write,

move objects, and save a file they create andsend it to others.

In this lesson, students interaction withthe interactive whiteboard took place in the

second part of the lesson. In the first part, thewhiteboard only functioned as a simpleprojection screen for the sketch of the lessonand for pictures on which students observedor compared European countries. For settingup knowledge with the on-line Seterraprogram, the students went to the whiteboardusing the stick pen to guess the location ofthe randomly displayed European states(Figure 9).

Fig. 7. Grouped images panels

Fig. 6. Title, images and text panels

175Office sway and interactive whiteboard in the geography lesson

Conclusions

Leaving aside the financial aspect, theexistence of an interactive whiteboard in aschool is necessary and useful, as long asthere are teachers interested in using it,capable of creating content for it, otherwiseit is just an expensive piece of furniture.

Using the interactive whiteboard isinteresting for students who are receptive toany gadget. Even if it is not possible to use itin every lesson, under the current conditions,the occasional use of it is a welcomeexcursion from the "monotony" of classicallessons with chalk and blackboard.

References1. MS Office Sway2. MimioTeach Interactive System3. printscreens from my Microsoft Sway account;4. personal pictures from geography sixth grade lesson;5. http://blog.goptg.com/blog/2015/06/25/sway-vs-powerpoint;6. https://online.seterra.com/en/vgp/3007

Figure 9. Seterra on-line with interactive whiteboard

Fig. 8. Panels with images and link