But something exciting and different is happening in one of the classrooms. All students' eyes are glued to the front of the class as Grice goes through a Language Arts lesson on expository paragraphs. First, as a class, they create a paragraph in Microsoft Write, which is displayed via an LCD projector onto the whiteboard. Words and phrases are highlighted and then moved around by pressing on the board. Students then go back to their computers and work independently on their paragraphs.
Students then draw their own pictures to accompany their paragraphs.
As the final part of the lesson, Grice and his students compile a slide presentation. When his school first purchased modern IBM computers and an LCD panel, Grice looked forward to exploiting the technology for learning. However, limitations of this initial setup became obvious. Once software is projected onto the whiteboard's touch-sensitive surface, a teacher or student can manipulate the application and write on top of images just by pressing on the surface with a finger or pen. Classes can even explore the Internet, access a CD-ROM, or show live pictures from a camera on the whiteboard.