Copy / Paste by Peter Pappas

Harness Twitter and Your Audience Backchannel with Wiffiti

Recently I posted about trying out Wiffiti in my professional development sessions. "Use Wiffiti to Engage Your Audience." Since then I've used it a few more times with great success. I thought I'd share a live Wiffiti screen with my readers. This is from my most recent training session at Pomperaug High School in Southbury CT.

Wiffiti accounts are free and it's very easy to use. I created a new Wiffti screen using the school logo and set it to gather the tag #R88. The evening before the presentation (and again that morning), I posted a Tweet asking for greetings - “Say hi to Monday's teacher workshop at Pomperaug HS. (Southbury CT) Go Panthers! Tell us where you're from & why you Tweet. Add tag #R88”  As participants arrived in the workshop, they were greeted on the big screen with encouraging words from all over the world. 

During breakouts I switched back to projecting the Wiffiti screen and invited workshop participant to text message into the screen. They had fun with shoutouts to their friends and comments about the workshop.  Pretty impressive when you're talking about the impact of technology on teaching and learning!

Many thanks to my Twitter PLN who took the time to send us a greeting. You made this possible!

First Day of School? Don't Pass Out Books - Problem Solve!

I first published this post at the start of the 08-09 school year. It proved to be very popular and I've had thousands of downloads of the Kelley Murder mystery students were asked to solve. I've added a second mystery - a bank robbery - and republished my original post below. Enjoy!

~ Originally published August 27, 2008 ~

As a social studies high school teacher, I faced over 25 years of the first day of school. When I first began teaching, I did usual thing – working through the class list (“do you prefer Patrick, or Pat?), a dry recitation of the class rules,  passing out the textbooks. Blah, blah, blah – think of the message it sent to my students.

As my teaching style evolved from the lecture / work sheet model into a more engaged learning environment, I redefined how I wanted to introduce my students to my course. I also came to understand that it was imperative that I get all my students to contribute a few comments to the class during those first few days. Very quickly classes learn which students are the talkers and non-talkers. Once those roles are locked in – it’s very difficult for student for break out of them.

So I did not waste the opening week of school introducing the course – my students solved murder mysteries. I took simplified mysteries and split them into 25-30 clues, each on a single strip of paper. You can download one of the mysteries and a set of rules from my website.  I used a random count off to get the kids away from their buddies and into groups of 5-6 students. Each group got a complete set of clues for the mystery. Each student in the group got 4-5 clues that they could not pass around to the other students. They had to share the clues verbally in the group and that guaranteed that every student is a talker on day one.

While the students worked to solve the mystery – I concentrated on learning the student names. After I introduced the mystery, I bet them that by the end of the first class, I could go around the room and recite their names. While they worked on the mystery, I circulated getting to know students and their names. Another message – in this class, we’re all learners.

Over the next few days we would process their problem solving skills, group dynamics, differences between relevant and irrelevant information and introduce the idea of higher-order thinking like analysis, evaluation and creating. We might even have time to try another mystery to see if they got better.

Inspire Your Students To Tell A Story With Prezi

I've been using Prezi in my workshops and have written a few posts illustrating it's features - brainstorming with Prezi and embedding Prezi in your blog.

Enjoy "Create a Prezi" - a fine video that demonstrates the process in under 5 minutes. (No, I didn't create it!) It will inspire your students and give them a chance to break out of the lineal / PowerPoint style. (Thanks for the tip - Twitter/ashleyproud)

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Motivating Students - A Make and Take Workshop for Teachers

This week I head back to Edison School of Engineering & Manufacturing, to conduct a two day follow up workshop.  Our previous work together identified four target areas: 

1. Motivating students
2. Making learning relevant
3. Student-centered learning strategies
4. Effective use of technology

We are going to start by modeling a "Brainstorm, Group, Label" activity (See Tool 13).  It will also  set our agenda for the "make and take activities" of the workshop. Day two begins by modeling a "Fishbowl Discussion Group" on the topic of effective next steps. We'll use the ideas generated in the fishbowl to design a Strategic Planning Grid (below) to prioritize their staff development for the fall.

Most of our time over the two days will be spent assisting teachers in designing specific lessons. I've assembled some Literacy Strategies that teachers can use as starting points for modify their existing lessons. 

“Non-readers”  for students who lack decoding skills.

“Word-callers” for students who can decode, but lack comprehension skills.

“Turned-off readers" for students who have the decoding and comprehension skills, but lack motivation or engagement.

I'll also be showcasing some web tools that are very engaging for students.

Wordle (text analysis) 

Many Eyes (data and text visualizations)

Prezi  (presentation tool) 

Dipity  (timeline builder)

Bubbl.us (brainstorming)

Flickr Tag Related Tag Browser (image tag analysis)

Follow the NECC 09 Conference on Twitter

Back in March, I used Twitter to virtually attend the ASCD conference. Unfortunately the visualizing tool I used (TwitterCloudExplorer) is now off line. Here's a new tool called StreamGraph that I'm using to visualize the  latest 1000 tweets which contain the search word "NECC." The 2009 National Educational Computing Conference is being held in Washington DC from June 28 - July 1. Sorry I have to miss it.

Since the conference has ended I have replace the live StreamGraph of NECC with this screen shot of what the graph looked like during the conference. 

Link to StreamGraph

The StreamGraph shows the usage over time for the words most highly associated with the search word. One of these series together with a time period are in a selected state and coloured red. The tweets that contain this word in the given time period are shown below the graph. You can click on another word series or time period to see different matches. In the match list you click on any word to create a different graph with tweets containing that word. You can also click on the user or comment icons and any URL to see the appropriate content in another window. If you see a large spike in one time period that hides the detail in all the other periods it will be useful to click in the area to the left of the y-axis in order to change the vertical scale.

Twitter StreamGraph was created by Jeff Clark. Check out his other great visualizations at Neoformix.

Classroom Discussion Techniques that Work - Try This Hollywood Classroom Walkthrough

Recently I blogged about the teacher-centric information flow in the traditional classroom. See: Engage Student Discussion: Use the Social Network in Your Classroom  If you would like to see my point illustrated, you can do a quick "Hollywood classroom walkthrough" with this clip from "Stand and Deliver." Before you play the video, create a diagram with eight small circles labeled teacher and student responders 1-7. As you watch the video, keep track of the sender/ receiver in each exchange of information with lines and arrows. Once you have finished with the diagram, reflect on a few broader questions:

1. Were the students comfortable offering their answers?

2. What feedback did the teacher give after each student answer?

3. Did the students get any closer to a valid answer as each, in turn, ventured a response?

Go back and look at your information flow diagram. You'll notice that every answer was directed to the teacher. After the first six  answers the teacher found a clever way to say "your wrong," without explaining why. Students made a series of guesses at a correct solution without any evidence that they learned anything from the prior responses. Finally a student shows up at the door with correct answer and it's not even clear that she heard any of the earlier answers. 

Some might admire the comfortable climate of this classroom - after all, students were very willing to risk a response. Ironically the only one making fun of them was the teacher (a practice more suited to Hollywood than a real classroom.) Others might consider this an example of rather Socratic approach - but I don't see the teacher posing any new questions to expand student thinking. When you strip away all the clever (inappropriate?) repartee you are left with a very teacher-centric discussion - with students guessing at a correct answer. 

This approach reminds me of an illustration I saw in "Math Is Language Too: Talking and Writing in the Mathematics Classroom" by Phyllis Whitin. It's a drawing done by Justin, a second grader, writing and drawing about his relationship with math.

Like Justin, the students in "Stand and Deliver" don't see math as a topic for peer discussion or reflection. Rather, they "do the math" for their teacher. While these two examples focus on math, this dynamic could be true of many whole group discussion across the curriculum. I admit to being equally guilty of a dominating classroom discussion as a rookie social studies teacher. "Class, what were three results of the War of 1812? ... Anyone? ... Anyone??"

After years of facing this type of discussion, students learn that their comments are of provisional value until "approved" by the teacher. Over time, students stop listening to each other and only focus on what the teacher says or validates - "will that be up on a test?" When students are put in small group discussion, they rapidly get off subject. With no teacher to validate their comments, they naturally gravitate to other subjects where peer comments are valued - "what are you doing this weekend?" 

In my workshops I train teachers in discussion techniques that foster student reflection and interaction. The strategies are focused on getting the teacher out of the role of information gatekeeper and encouraging student-centered dialogue. 

Want to encourage students to redirect their thinking and reflection away from the teacher and toward one another? Try a research-based discussion technique like the Fishbowl-discussion 68 KB PDF

Engage Student Discussion: Use the Social Network in Your Classroom

Watch a typical whole group discussion in the classroom and you'll most likely see a "hub / spokes" flow of information. Teacher to student A and back to teacher. Teacher to student B and back to teacher. So it goes as the "bluebirds" get to show how smart they are. 

Over time, students learn that their comments are of provisional value until "approved" by the teacher. That's because in this style of discussion the teacher is most likely searching for specific replies - sort of playing "guess what I'm thinking" with the "best" students in the class.

Students tend not to listen to each other and only focus on what the teacher says or validates - "will that be up on a test?" When students are put in small group discussion, they rapidly get off subject. With no teacher to validate their comments, they naturally gravitate to other subjects where peer   comments are valued - "what are you doing this weekend?" Often teachers then conclude that small group discussion doesn't work.

In my workshops I train teachers in discussion techniques that foster student reflection and interaction. The strategies are focused on getting the teacher out of the role of information gatekeeper and encouraging student-centered dialogue. 

With practice, teachers find that students are eager to engage and participate. We know they want to contribute, because outside the classroom, students are flocking to social networks to share their thinking with one another. It's unfortunate that our students can't be part of the (offline) social network sitting beside them in class.

While students don't need classroom computers to be part of an engaging discussion, technology can be a catalyst to foster engagement. I was interested to see the following video of The Twitter Experiment - Bring Twitter to the Classroom at UT Dallas.

"UT Dallas History Professor Dr. Monica Rankin, wanted to know how she could reach and include more students in the class discussion. She had heard of Twitter... The following is a short video describing her "Twitter Experiment" in the classroom with comments from students about the pros and cons of Twitter in a traditional learning environment." (Filmed by UT grad student kesmit3.) Link to notes on the experiment.

BTW - I found this video via my Twitter network. Follow  @monicarankin  @kesmit3 

Lost All Your Contacts on iPhone? Here's How to Use MobileMe to Get Them Back

I sync my iPhone, MacBook and iMac over MobileMe. I like that a change in an appointment or contact on one device shows up on the other two.  But MobileMe has a problem! Twice in the last week I have opened my iPhone to find that all my Contacts were gone. This calamity mysteriously happened on its own. (I did not make any setting changes to lose my contacts.) But here's how I got them back. 

Note: This post detail the process for restoring contacts when running iPhone 3.0 software. If you are using iOS 4, follow this link to my July 2010 update.

1. On my iPhone I went to "Settings" and picked "Mail, Contacts, Calendar."

All the email accounts you have on your iPhone will be there as choices along with your MobileMe account. 

2. Under accounts I selected my MobileMe account. You get a list of all the data that MobileMe is syncing. 

3. I turned Contacts "Off." (It's the only sync I turned off.) You get this dialogue box asking you if you really want to do this. Be brave and agree to "Stop Syncing" your Contacts. 

4. I waited a few seconds then I went back to the screen in Step 2 above and turned Contacts "On."

5. I gave the iPhone some time to sync. It probably helps to be on wifi.

6. When I reopened my Contacts on my iPhone, they had all returned. Note on this last step you might have to open and close Contacts a few times to get your iPhone to force a MobileMe sync.

I have no idea why this is happening. Looks like MobileMe has some work to do!

Using Print on Demand to Publish Your Own Books

New print technologies make it very easy to publish your own books. No need for the information gatekeepers to decide what we read. I’m showcasing a few approaches that may be of interest to my readers. 

Reading recovery teacher publishes new line of early literacy book

MaryAnn and I worked together in the East Irondequoit Central School district while I was the Assistant Superintendent and she was the lead Reading Recovery teacher. I was not surprised when she recently started writing and publishing emergent texts. Although not my area of expertise, it certainly is MaryAnn’s.  She has a remarkable background in and passion for early literacy. She came to the East Irondequoit district just for the opportunity to train in and practice Reading Recovery.

MaryAnn’s Short Tale Press, features “little” books for early literacy that are based on real people and places and authentic life experiences. I can see my own grandchildren in her main character, Colin. This makes her books very appealing to modern children.  Parents and grandparents would be wise to visit her website when gift time rolls around, which we know is all the time! They are also written to be appropriate for students in Reading Recovery, ESL and classroom guided reading.   Visit her website-there is always a new text there - she is a prolific writer / publisher. 

Out of print author tired of rejections turns to self publishing

My dear friend and mentor – Abe Rothberg got tired of rejection notices for his latest works of fiction. Ironic - since his previous books were published by mainstream publishers and favorably reviewed in NY Times, Harper's, Time Magazine, and Publishers Weekly. Plus he was frustrated to see that his previous work had gone out of print. 

We decided to cut out the middleman  - team up and bring a new series of his work into publication. He supplied the manuscripts. I formatted them in Word and converted them to PDF. I designed the covers in Photoshop. We created a free account to publish the books on demand at Lulu.com - a print-on-demand publisher. For more on Abe and his books go to to his site - Abraham Rothberg

Teachers – it’s your turn to become a publisher for your students' writing

I think we need to re-think how we teach writing with a shift in focus from teacher to student.

Old approach:

• Students are asked to write only on the teacher's topics.
• Student writes for the teacher.
• Teacher grades their writing.

New approach: 

• Students can develop topics that matter to them.
• Audience and purpose for writing is identified. 
• Students are asked to reflect on their growth.

We all struggle to create authentic writing experiences for our students. Imagine if they had an opportunity to see their work in print – and we're talking about a real paperback.  Let them go through the process of writing, co-editing, illustrating and designing a book. Rigor and relevance meets motivation and self-directed study. I've gotten so excited by the results that I've done workshops to train teachers. You can see material and sample student books at my website Read > Think > Write > Publish

BTW – I’ve been following Theresa Reagan on Twitter. She’s an Elementary Principal from Michigan who is making great use of Lulu to publish student work.  See her students' books on their Lulu page 

How to Become a Teacher: Resources for Certification and Interviews

It's been 40 years since I set my goals to become a teacher. (You might be amused by my blog post on the 1971 evaluation of my student teaching) Fortunately today there are some great online resources to assist you. Here's two that impress me.

CertificationMap

Teacher certification requirements vary greatly by state and are often difficult to understand. A new website, CertificationMap informs future teachers about the requirements for certifications in every state.  It's sponsored by MAT@USC, a Master of Arts in Teaching program delivered online from the University of Southern California. I tried it out and found it to me much more user friendly than the individual state Department of Education websites.

Click on a state link and you'll find salary statistics, prerequisite coursework, steps to teacher preparation, testing, and useful links for teaching in that state. If you would like additional information, you can input your email and phone number. I tried it out, expecting not much more than to be solicited by USC.

I did get a very welcome surprise when I was called two days later by Nicole Dillard, a counselor at the USC's Rossier School of Education. She was more than willing to use her state-by-state database to supply me with additional information not found on CertificationMap regarding certification requirements. Of course, she also explained the merits of USC online certification program and noted that in the site's first two months it had generated nearly 300 interested leads for the program. Bottom line – try CertificationMap and feel free to give your contact info without fear of the hard sell.

Road to Teaching

A second site I'd like to recommend to folks interested in a teaching career is: Road to Teaching: Resources for Aspiring, Student, and Beginning Teachers. It's a site written by teachers for new and aspiring teachers. Here's their overview:

A cadre of dedicated educators, known as star contributors, have committed to providing support to student teachers. These star contributors will answer your questions, address your concerns, provide advice, and give encouragement. There are several ways to connect with a star contributor. You can (anonymously) post a comment or blog by joining Road to Teaching. If you prefer to email a specific question (e.g. content related question) to any of our star contributors, please feel free.

One of their most popular posts is Teacher Interview Questions. It contains an impressive array of questions, many with sample answers. It's well worth a visit before that next interview. Road to Teaching also includes valuable links and the chance to dialogue with others who are starting their teaching careers.

A Guide to Designing Effective Professional Development: Essential Questions for the Successful Staff Developer

All considerations for professional development (PD) should flow from the premise that staff development should model what you want to see in the classroom. We strive to offer our students engaging, relevant, and rigorous instruction that supports students who will, over time, take responsibility for their learning. PD should apply those same goals to training teachers, staff and administration.

I've seen PD from a variety of perspectives - as a 25-year teacher receiving staff development, as a teacher offering PD courses at our district teacher center, as a K-12 director and Assistant Superintendent planning PD, and as outside consultant / trainer. Viewed through those lenses, I've developed few questions for consideration by professional development planners.

Design and planning:

1. Did your teachers have a meaningful role in deciding what PD is being offered? (You're in trouble if the training is merely based on a tip from someone who saw "this really cool presentation.")

2. If it's a school-wide inservice day, have you provided appropriate training for all faculty and staff? ("OMG! We forgot about the librarians! Do you think we can get away with putting them in with PE?)

3. Is there a clear alignment between how the session is promoted to teachers and what the trainer is prepared to deliver? (Before my session begins, I usually ask a few attendees what they expect. When no one has a clue, I've got work to do.) 

4. Have you prioritized your PD objectives to bring focus to your initiatives? (It's easy to turn people off with the perception of "just another reform du jour.")

5. If you are implementing PLC's or action teams, do the participants see their value? (Or do you have groups of "PD prisoners" who only see it as busy work?)

6. Do you offer appropriate training for all staff? (Don't forget, the entire organization can support instruction.) 

Delivery

7. Have you considered internal expertise, before turning to outside trainers? (PD is about building capacity.)

8. Will the trainer be utilizing the strategies being advocated? (If not, at least modeling them.)

9. Do you differentiate PD by instructional method? (Or is that something you only expect teachers to do with their students?)

10. Will teachers leave with ideas they can immediately put to use? (Not everyone is fascinated by the implications of new brain research on student achievement.) 

11. Will appropriate administrators be in attendance? (It sends a powerful message when they are.)

Follow up

12. What is your plan for follow up to the training? (No drive-bys allowed!)

13. If you are offering technology training, will teachers have immediate access to the necessary equipment? (Use it, or lose it!)

14. Do you have a mechanism to gather and act on participant feedback (Learning is about experience and reflection.)

15. Have you clearly identified an instructional outcome you hope to see as a result of the training? (Or are you doing it, just because it's in fashion?)

A high-functioning professional development program considers these questions and many more. The best programs are guided by a tacit "reciprocal accountability." If administration is holding teachers accountable for student performance, then administration is accountable to engage teachers in the design and implementation of meaningful PD. Likewise, if teachers have an active role in shaping their professional learning environment, then administrators should expect to see the strategies utilized in the classroom, followed by an honest appraisal of what's working.

I disagree with the notion that teaching is kind of innate "gift" that only some are born with. Teachers are nurtured with experience, training, and reflection.

If you've read this far,  you might also like a few other posts:

Teacher-Led Professional Development: Eleven Reasons Why You Should be Using Classroom Walk Throughs

Lesson Study: Teacher-Led PD That Works  

The Reflective Teacher: The Taxonomy of Reflection 

How To Use Twitter to Virtually Network at the ASCD Conference 2009

I couldn't attend this year's ASCD conference currently going on in Orlando. That's a shame, since conferences are such a great place to meet new people and share ideas. So I thought I use Twitter to see if I can virtually meet folks and share thinking.  

First here's my elevator speech introduction - conference attendees pretend we just met over coffee...

Great to meet you... My name's Peter Pappas, from Rochester NY. I taught high school social studies for over 25 year, became a K-12 coordinator and then finished the last 5 years of my career as a assistant superintendent for instruction. Since then, I've been able to devote myself, full time, to expanding my role as a staff developer and consultant.

I've had the chance to work with districts across the country with a focus on literacy, technology, document-based instruction and student engagement. Staff development should model what we want to see in the classroom, so I bring an audience response system and we actually use the techniques I'm promoting!

Follow me on Twitter - hope you have a great conference!

Oh .. and ... have you heard of any good sushi restaurants nearby? .....

Note: As of 4/26/09 the TwitterCloudExplorer seems to have disappeared.  Here's a screen shot of what it looked like during the ASCD conference. Notice my Twitter name edteck was the 4th most Twittered word when I took the screen shot.

Technical Specs

1. Hashtags are a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets. They're like tags on Flickr, only added inline to your post. You create a hashtag simply by prefixing a word with a hash symbol: #hashtag.  I sought out the relevant hashtags people are using for the ASCD conference. Note: It seems this year both #ASCD and #ASCD09 are being used. For more on hashtags 

2. I used a Twitter Search to look for people using the #ASCD OR #ASCD09 hashtags. Search results here.

3. Then I sent out Tweets to people using either hashtag with a link back to this post. Hopefully their replies will follow.

4. I'm a big fan of quantitative display of information, so I used one the many new Twitter visualization tools - Twitter Cloud Explorer to generate this embedded query. Note: As of 4/26/09 the TwitterCloudExplorer seems to have disappeared.  There are many new Twitter visualizations coming along every day.

Teaching with Historic Photographs: The Google LIFE Photo Archive

Google has posted ten million photographs from the LIFE photo archive on their online gallery of images. It's a great source of material for teachers and students who support a document-based approach to teaching history. 

While I wish that Google had done more to curate the collection with robust search tools and more specific categories, I think that teachers will find it to be an invaluable resource to enable students to "be the historian."

I've put together this quick guide to help you get started.

1.  If you are unfamiliar with the document-based approach to teaching history, you might want to start with a quick visit to my web site Teaching With Documents. There you find many resources including Document-Based Questions (DBQ) for  students grade 2 - high school. Of particular interest are these Student Analysis Guides and for more detailed analysis - my Reading a Visual Document: Guiding Questions. (55KB pdf)

2.  If you are interested in how historic documents can be used to support literacy and critical thinking, visit my sample:  Homefront America in WW II.  It shows how to improve content reading comprehension with source documents framed around essential questions that link the past and present. 

3.  Now that you have some instructional background in using historic photos - it's time to visit the LIFE photo archive hosted by Google. It's organizes images by era and subject. Once you click on an image you get a brief description and some labels (tags) that allow you to find similarly tagged images. 

For example here's one of the archive photos taken by Dorothea Lange in the Migrant Mother Series. It makes a great contrast to the iconic photo she took that day that is more commonly reproduced in textbooks. (You might ask your students which of the five photos they would choose, and why?)

The LIFE archive includes this description with the photograph: Migrant mother Florence Thompson & children photographed by Dorothea Lange.

Location: Nipomo, CA, US

Date taken: 1936

Photographer: Dorothea Lange

And LIFE archive uses these labels for this photo: Lange, Dorothea, Mothers, Fsa Photographers, Us, Tension Or Worrying, American, Poverty, Florence Thompson, Photography By, Migratory, Farmers, California, Expressions, Agriculture, 1930s

4.  If you don't already use Cooliris, I suggest you download this free browser plug in. It presents the photos in a broad panorama that  allows you to scroll through many images.  I've embedded a short clip below of Cooliris in action, so you can see how it can transform your browser when searching for images and videos on Cooliris supported websites.

5.  And remember that all Google image searches allows you to specify image size with this drop down box in the upper left of the screen. 

How to Embed a Prezi Presentation in Your Blog

Prezi is a great new presentation software that replaces the lineal PowerPoint style with the ability to present text, videos and images in a unique zooming style. You can find out more about Prezi at my earlier post.  Here are more samples of how I used Prezi to cover the 2010 ASCD conference.

Please note that I updated this post on July 1, 2010.
 Prezi's embed options have changed. 

1. Open your online Prezi presentation and click the embed link (lower right in this screen shot.)

 

2. You will get the dialogue box below. You may want to adjust the pixel size to fit into your blog columns. Copy and paste the html code into your blog.

 

Wiimote Interactive IR Pen Whiteboard Solution

It's only been just over a year since Johnny Chung Lee's first posted his creative solution for turning a Wii remote into an cheap interactive whiteboard system. Watch Johnny Lee's original IWB video.   

Last week, Stan Merrell and Adam Wilcox - two of my Rochester NY tech buddies, met fellow Rochestarian - Tino Agnitti. Tino has developed a great Wii mounting bracket and IR pen that makes assembling Lee's Wii creation a snap. Tino calls his IR pen "The Groove" it's a sleekly designed, 2nd-generation IR pen that features - Hybrid Activation Tip Switch and Button, Treated LED for better tracking, Vishay TSAL6400. It runs on AAA batteries and it works great. I was especially impressed with its very intuitive interaction with writing applications. Tino also created "The Spot," a mount to connect your Wii remote to a standard tripod with a 1/4" - 20 thread.

Tino sells his Groove/Spot combo for only $39. Spend another $39 for a Wii remote (no need to use the rest of the Wii system) and you have an interactive whiteboard on any flat surface you choose to aim your  LCD. Tino showed me how to  aim the Wii at my monitor and we turned my MacBook into a tablet! 

Software? For PC, Tino recommends Smoothboard produced by Boon Jin Goh, a friend who lives in Singapore.   Tino set me up with the Mac version - Wiimote Whiteboard that I'm running. It comes out of Germany from Uwe Schmidt, a master's student at Darmstadt Technical University.  It was a quick install and it's especially easy to calibrate. For more on the growing wiimote community check out The Wiimote Project Forum  

I'm working on integrating the wiimote system into a portable whiteboard that I can use in my presentations. I'm very excited about pairing it with Prezi - its zooming capabilities will allow me to do exciting nonlinear presentations. 

My buddy Stan Merrell shot our meeting Tino