Teachers and Educational Experts on Nortel LearniT Value

"Using technology in the classroom engaged my students, and that was no small task!" Carol Knott said when she wrote to Nortel LearniT, sharing her positive experience using our materials and approaches.  Nortel LearniT helped her  successfully connect with special needs program learners in Elk Island Public Schools, (student pop. 16,200) Alberta, Canada. 

Carol says she's seen Nortel LearniT presented to teachers from all disciplines and levels...and "light bulbs go off everywhere...it's useful across the board!" For her, the Nortel LearniT site is especially user friendly as she breaks down each task for her students into several smaller steps.  "I use lots of direct teaching and the tutorials are nicely broken down into small chunks, so I can find a quick lesson addressing only what's needed, and do it on the fly. Now THAT'S useful stuff!!"  See Carol's kids thank us !

Taking a Picture Teaches a Thousand Things

Carol's integration of photography included using it for direct teaching of students and on an as-needed basis—whenever it would fit to send a student exploring with digital camera in hand. To  teach this she used Nortel LearniT Imaging tutorials .     

As an example, Carol recounts an experience with autistic student who did not understand facial expressions and nonverbal language.  "We sent him around the school with the task of taking pictures of different facial expressions of staff and students.  For him it was actually quite a multi-step process."  It was, first, "learning to use the camera. We used the photo composition tutorial, The Rule of Thirds." Real | Windows Media | Flash

Then, the step was "teaching him how to ask appropriately if he could take a person's picture.  We used each picture to immediately identify the facial/body gestures and how it made him feel as we had that image "captured".  He had some positive interactions with same-age peers around the school in a nonthreatening way." 

"Stepping stones to success"

Tech-infused Learning

"Technology gave Carol Knott's learners a boost in more ways than one, as she glowingly reports their success when tech-infused learning engaged them.

"These are students who are never the best at anything, and often their tech skills surpassed the teacher or the assistants." 

"These experiences motivated students and let them be the expert -- and I followed the lead."

"Totally personalized=Totally engaged!"

Animating students with animoto

 "And then we discovered animoto (see a Nortel LearniT feature & video using on animoto).  animoto was ..."another one Nortel LearniT shared. It was a great way to engage students on field trips in a simple way."

"We all had cameras, took pictures, uploaded the best and sequenced and discussed the most important part of the lesson.  It definitely honed our photography skills and the students were way more interested in post discussion, as they waited for their shot to be highlighted." 

" We shared the animotos with parents via e-mail...another tech tool for the students.  It was a fantastic answer to the age-old question, 'What did you do today?' because we could have it done and sent before the kids got home." 

www.nortellearnit.org real-time, 24/7

At other times, "We did Power Points of Field Trips, Personal Histories, Social Studies lessons and used the Nortel lessons as a reference.  We all (kids and assistants) have varying degrees of experience doing a PowerPoint so having the Nortel PowerPoint site to reference was really helpful."

 "When working with any particular student, my assistants could go to the site, get the information for the next step, in the moment, and move the student forward with relative ease and without having to interrupt me as I was working with someone."

" Those who could read did it themselves.  That was fantastic, it empowered everyone, kept us working, not stalled at certain points, (and of course when you're stuck, that's when the negative behaviors start...)"

Thank you, Nortel LearniT!

Nortel LearniT -- www.nortellearnit.org; workshops; and consultative help