Classroom Technologies | News

Collaboration Links Interactive Whiteboards with News Lessons

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 07/18/11

An interactive whiteboard company is joining forces with a news network that delivers its broadcasts to teens in middle and high schools to deliver media and activities to whiteboards in the classroom. Promethean, which sells the ActivBoard product line along with classroom response systems, has partnered with Channel One to deliver the latter company's daily news program via the its hardware.

The alliance has produced Channel One News InterActiv, which, beyond delivery of the daily news program, will offer assessment activities, pop quizzes, and collaborative exercises tied to current events and integrated with the response devices.

In the same announcement, Channel One said it would be offering a version of its InterActiv product for students in grades three through five, a younger population than it has traditionally served with the broadcasts.

In both sets of offerings, supplemental digital content will be available for instructors to help them add skills development into the lessons in areas such as collaboration, problem solving, and critical thinking. These lessons, according to the two companies, will be aligned with standards in core content areas, including math, language arts, history, science, and geography.

Teachers will also be able to develop their own skills through daily "bite-sized" lessons tied to the skills modeled in the broadcasts. They can take their skills development online as well by participating in a dedicated community within Promethean Planet, Promethean's online education community.

The companies said the new resources be available for the 2011-2012 school year.

"Ultimately, teachers are always looking for new, effective ways to connect and engage with students to make learning meaningful, relevant, and fun," said Promethean CEO Jean-Yves Charlier. "Blending the power of broadcast news with interactive tools will tie real-world situations to learning and challenge students to become educated, engaged global citizens."