ChallengeFind an affordable tool to capture and share students’ ideas and learning materials

SolutionUse existing classroom resources with eBeam Edge to create dynamic, productive––and often student- driven––lessons

Benefits

• Teachers enrich lessons with interactive components

• Capture brainstorming ideas easily and quickly, which are easy to save and share

• Recording capability helps studentsfine-tunetheirpresentation skills and capture their work

• Create how-to training tutorials for staff development

Location Hampshire, UK

Hazel Ruck, Advanced LecturerBrockenhurst College, UK

“With eBeam, you can teach the way you normally teach, and use your normal whiteboard. eBeam just enhances your teaching. And that’s the beauty of it. You use what you’ve got.”

Success Story : Brockenhurst College, UK

eBeam Enriches Lessons with Interactive Elements and Student-Led PresentationsHazel Ruck teaches Spanish at Brockenhurst College in the south of England. The college serves approximately 3,000 full-time students (aged 16 to 18), along with roughly 8,000 part-time adult learners. Some students are enrolled in Sixth Form for two years to prepareforA-Levelexams––theacademicqualificationrequiredtoattenduniversityintheUK.Thecollege’sreputationisfirst-class:Brockenhurst College has been awarded an Outstanding rating by Ofsted<http://www.ofsted.gov.uk>,thegovernmentdepartmentresponsible for inspecting and regulating services that provide education for learners of all ages.

Lecturers at Brock use the eBeam Engage across a range of subjects, including Geography, Maths and Spanish.

Ruck, an Advanced Lecturer at Brock, wears many hats. In addition to teaching Spanish, Ruck also plays a key role in staff development. She mentors staff, attends courses to keep up to speed on new learning techniques, observes lessons and conducts training. Along with two colleagues, Ruck is responsible for in-house eBeam training.

Pre-eBeam, Ruck thinks back to the tedious routine, day in, day out, whensheusedaregularwhiteboard:“You’dfilluptheboardwithwritingandthenwipetheboarddown,”recountsRuck.“Thenumberof times you have to wipe things off––all that erasing, and students waiting, [it] takes time.”

Success Story : Brockenhurst College, UK

WiththeeBeamSoftwareTools,thisannoyancedisappeared:Ruckappreciates how easy it is to clear the whiteboard without losing any of the content––all it takes is a quick click. She also remembers her frustrationswithstandardwhiteboardmarkersrunningoutofink.“Ineverhadapenthatworked,”recallsRuck.“WiththeeBeamstylus,now the pen never runs out.” And, of course, everything on the board is saved.

Secondly and more importantly, Ruck’s students frequently work on creating mind maps. Pre-eBeam, the only way to preserve their creations was to take photographs of the whiteboard’s information. Now, the ability to capture all the brainstorming sessions digitally, thankstotheeBeamSoftware,isenormouslybeneficialforRuckandher students.

The Ease with eBeam

RuckvalueshoweasyitistogetstartedwitheBeaminthefirstplace, simply by using your normal whiteboard in conjunction with the product’saccessories.“Ilikethefactthat[eBeam]letsyoucarryontheway you’ve always taught, and it enhances your teaching,” says Ruck. “Youusewhatyou’vegot,anditdoesn’trequireanewwayofteachingor specially-prepared resources. That’s the beauty of eBeam.”

Ruck explains how eBeam enriches her lessons, making student learningmoreinteractive.“WhenIusePowerPointpresentations,for example, I can write on top of the slides, and then insert blank pages to gather ideas or brainstorm with students,” she says. Using eBeam’s software, Ruck can capture the documents and upload them to Brock’s web portal. (This is handy for students who were absent or who need to recap.)

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Success Story : Brockenhurst College, UK

Another convenience Ruck doesn’t have to keep going back to the computertorunthroughtheslides.“eBeamletsmedoitallfacingtheclass, which is where I want to be.”

Separately, as part of her role in educating staff on eBeam, Ruck and her training team put together mini-presentations on how to use eBeam––and uploaded them to the portal. The tool they used to create these tutorials? The eBeam Engage.

eBeam Helps Hone Students’ Presentation Skills

For one assignment, based on a play that the class was reading, Ruck’s students had to focus on a particular theme, and make a presentation. Using eBeam, students talked over their PowerPoint presentations––and recorded the audio to complement the slides. In turn, these presentations-with-voice-overs were uploaded to the Student Portal. Then, for homework, students needed to look at their classmates’ presentations and write an essay on one of the play’s themes they chose.

Ruck points out that students are constantly asked to present, and this exercise, using eBeam’s recording feature, is great practice. However, when it comes to presentations, students shy away from participating in videos, because they do not like other people to see how they look.“Sowiththevoice-overs,studentsaren’tbothered,”saysRuck.“[Capturingaudio]getsaroundtheproblemoftheirresistancetomaking a video of themselves.”

Ruck adds that for this recording project she was pleased not to havetohuntdownanexternalmicrophone.“TheEngageʼsinternalmicrophoneworkedjustfine,”saysRuck.

After integrating eBeam into her teaching for one academic year now, Ruck realizes that she couldn’t go back. The same goes for her colleagueswhoalsouseeBeam.“Forthoseofuswhouseit,weloveit,” she says. Ruck reports that there is currently a waiting list of staff members who really want eBeam.