The government in Japan have just decided to give a brand new digital whiteboard (although they call them 電子黒板 electronic blackboards) to every elementary and junior high school for free. Well, with our tax money anyway!
There’s a fair chance that when they arrive they’ll just get put in store cupboards and never used. So tell your teachers now that you want to use it for English class. There’s a fair chance they’ll be loving you for wanting to make use of it! The kids love it so much seeing the GE songs on screen, but also being able to play the computer games on a touch screen. So stake a claim to yours today.
Plus there’s also going to be a ton of money available for training teachers to teach English. Again there’s a fair chance this money will be wasted as the teachers won’t know where to spend it. So please tell them about the Genki English workshops, I’m sure you’ll love the training and the teachers’ attitudes to English changes completely, especially if they get the training for free!
Here’s a link to the story in Japanese to show your teachers: http://mainichi.jp/
Hey Richard thanks for the heads up! Just talked with
the kocho and he said it might take time to get the money from Mombusho. So I asked if my BoE could make the purchase and turn in the receipt. He said that was probably doable. If you have the CD’s the smart board a definite next step. I’ve been using it since last April and the kids love it. It also saves on the wear and tear on your own voice. One piece of advice, when you are introducing a song DON’T USE THE SMART BOARD! Your kids will just start at it. Use the CD player to practice and once they’ve got it down let them see it on the SB. What a genki time for all!
Hi Kobe Kid,
Well done on asking about that, very interesting!
Also good idea on doing the songs without the images first. I guess you can just switch of the projector for that part.
The first time I did Left & Right with a big screen the kids cracked up when he jumps off the screen, there was no more singing in that lesson, they just wanted to watch it over and over again!
P.S. with a digital board, the Mr Octopus song is the most popular with 1st and 2nd grade, just watch how they ooh and ahh!
Wow, how great! (At first, I wondered if it were another April fool!) I’ll talk to my school teachers about it today!
@Yumiko: I had a feeling people would think that as well!
If you could write something up on your blog it would be fantastic. This is going to be so, so good for Japanese kids. In England all schools have the boards and it’s so much easier for the teachers, and so much more fun for the kids. As the experts predicted I guess the economic crisis is going to have some very good effects!
But we do need to make sure the teachers know how to use the things they get!
Richard, I was translating it (I’m a mind reader, ain’t I?) and came back here to copy the URL of this blog and found your last comment. I’ll go on to youtube from now to embed the video, which will help Japanese classroom teachers understand how to use it.
Oh how I love my Kocho, he’s smart and helpful. His advice to everyone is to start bugging your school and BoE today. In a few weeks there will be no smart boards left with the coming deluge of orders. As the saying goes the early bird gets the worm.
Wow,
that’s great news, and I’ll also go to school and ask today.
Same as Yumiko, I’ve been checking three times, wether this might be another April fool. It’s kind of unbelievable that the Monbusho suddenly decides to put so much money into education.
One other device that you might want to look for at your school is an e-黒板. I just found out yesterday that my school had one of these unopened, collecting dust in the computer room… your “Japanese schools are too rich” post was not an exaggeration Richard. When I contacted the BoE about the smart board they asked if I was using the e-黒板? The what? It’s a poor man’s sb, you place a small device on the white board and then use a projector to display the image on the board. The big difference with the sb is that you can’t just touch it, you have to use a special pen. I’m going to use this until my “economic stimulus” sb arrives from the MoE.