Valley Stream, NY
Valley Stream School District 24 wanted to expose their students to new opportunities by enriching their classrooms and learning spaces, and make them more flexible and adaptable. For the students in the younger grades and kindergarten it’s not always easy to sit still at their desk and work in their workbook. A flexible classroom gives them space to move while they’re learning and it helps them focus a lot better.
One of the solutions that i3-Technologies proposed was the iMO-LEARN active sitting cube which is designed to promote active movement in the classroom. It combines both analogue and digital features to give students many opportunities to learn by moving. The analogue aspect invites students to participate in physical activities that focus on communication, problem solving and team building. The digital aspect helps promote active engagement in learning new content or practicing skills related to learning standards.
When using the digital aspect of the iMO-LEARNs, the students can participate in collaborative activities on the i3BOARDs to learn new concepts and to reinforce or enrich different content areas. The multi-touch boards are pre-installed with the i3LEARNHUB software and allow students to collaborate in a wide variety of hands-on activities. They have to turn and move the iMO-LEARN while they collaborate to solve the exercises.
The i3BOARDs can also be used for whole group and small group instruction to provide differentiated activities to the students to meet their specific needs.
The i3BOARDs are located in each hallway in each of the three schools and are used for collaboration activities among the schools. A question (either focusing on academics or social and emotional learning) is posed and shared on all three boards and students from each of the elementary buildings respond to it. All the responses are posted in i3LEARNHUB for everyone to view. This way of collaborating provides an avenue for some students to share their opinion who may not have felt comfortable doing this in the past.