I prepared slides with lesson components ahead of time. I could use the whiteboard software to rearrange slides that I felt would lead to connections for my students regarding lesson components. The slides allowed me to frame lessons, moving from whole to part in our language study. In other words, we could begin with story text and move to parts of the text, to individual word study, and then to graphemes and phonemes within words. Lesson order could be negotiated within the presentation on the basis of students’ needs. Slides or components of the planned lesson could be skipped if not needed or revisited with groups of students who needed additional work later within the context of guided reading sessions or small skill groups.
While the digital whiteboard software displayed work on the screen, smaller frames displayed the other slides on the right side of the screen. Such organization benefited me as a teacher because I was able to more accurately prepare and present lessons while making more effective use of time I had with the students. In addition, the ability to print copies of lesson text immediately for the students allowed the lesson to flow smoothly from large-group to small-group and independent work.
