Texting with Activexpressions

Posted by allisyn on

Today BrainPOP was visited by one of Promethean’s super-talented TLC’s, Ben Posner. Ben showed us Promethean’s new Activexpression devices and helped us brainstorm ways to use them with BrainPOP. Activexpressions are Student Response Systems, or SRS devices. If you’re not familiar with SRS devices, they allow teachers to get instant feedback on what each student knows or has to say. Newer SRS devices allow students to respond in a variety of ways; the Activexpression devices even allow students to text short answers with a mobile-phone like design.

One topic we explored was how students could use SRS devices like Activexpression to write collaboratively. For example, In BrainPOP’s Thirteen Colonies Activity: “Think About It,”, each student could use the devices to text one reason why colonial immigrants and modern immigrants have similar reasons for coming to America. Their various texted responses would appear on the interactive whiteboard at the front of the room. Then the class could decide how to arrange or edit the various responses into one paragraph.

I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty excited that students can now put those texting skills to work for an educational purpose! What are your thoughts? Are you already using SRS with BrainPOP in your classroom? Tell us about it!

Filed as:  BrainPOP, BrainPOP Jr., SRS