John Taylor teachers take math lessons online

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This article was published 10/11/2014 (3995 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Math teachers at John Taylor Collegiate are using voice recording technology to create virtual lessons that students can access online.

Using FrontRow Juno technology, teachers can record audio and video from each lesson and post them for students who’ve missed class or want to review the lesson later.

Keith Goetz, a math teacher at John Taylor Collegiate, was one of the first educators in Canada to use the technology when he introduced it into his classroom three years ago.
“Now it’s kind of exploded,” he said.

Since then, the entire math department is using the Juno, while some teachers in the science
department are also jumping on board.

Using a recorder which is placed around the teacher’s neck, the Juno technology records the teacher’s voice while simultaneously recording video from a Smartboard lesson. Students can later replay the lesson through an online portal.

Kari Bergmuller, who also teaches math, said the technology was a huge help in teaching one student who was in the hospital for close to a semester.

Instead of teaching herself through distance education, the student was able to follow along with Bergmuller’s lessons day by day and ultimately complete her credit on time.

“It was as if she had been in class that whole time,” Bergmuller said.

These virtual lessons haven’t diminished students’ need for face time with their teacher, Goetz said. In one case, students complained about having to do a lesson completely online that was recorded through the Juno system, he said.

“It’s amazing after taking them out of their comfort of having a teacher in front of them, how they don’t like doing it on their own,” he said. “They still want that contact, that connection that makes the lessons more personable.”

Instead of spending hours reteaching lessons to students who’d missed out,
teachers can direct them to the recorded lesson online and focus on specific issues within the lesson.

“It frees my time to pinpoint the exact questions they have, rather than reteach the lesson to each person that missed class. My time is more effective that way,” Bergmuller said.

The Juno technology costs about $1,200 to install per classroom.