Last year, Anne Hambrick, a mathematics enrichment teacher at Our Lady of Victory School in Cincinnati, Ohio, was searching for a cost-effective interactive whiteboard solution for her classroom. Her school had a few Smart Boards in classrooms, but there was no interactive solution in her classroom. For Anne, introducing interactivity into her curriculum meant that she could make her lessons more engaging and have students come up to the board and solve math problems. Along with her Director of Technology, Michelle McGinnis, they got on Google and found Ubi.
What initially attracted Anne and Michelle to Ubi was the fact that they could use the whiteboard and projector they already had in the classroom; thereby investing in very minimal hardware. This was particularly important for Michelle because the maintenance process for their existing Smart Boards is costly and disruptive, oftentimes leaving teachers without the board for long periods of time.
Anne and Michelle started their Ubi experience with the Ubi trial program, allowing them to try Ub in their classroom without having to make a large investment. Michelle, OLV’s Director of Technology, set up Ubi in an hour using Ubi’s step by step instructions. Anne and Michelle needed to create a semi-permanent setup because Anne’s projector is typically on a cart that is wheeled into and out of the classroom. Their final setup involved mounting the Ubi camera above the whiteboard, mounting the emitter directly on the whiteboard and keeping the projector on a mobile cart.
Over the course of a month, Anne experimented with Ubi in her classroom. She was able to use Ubi with her favorite Google apps and apps on a browser like Kenken Math Puzzles. Anne uses Ubi’s Annotation app quite often to have her students come up to the whiteboard and work out math problems. Because Ubi is so simple to use, Anne spent very little time “learning the system” and was able to incorporate Ubi into her lessons from Day 1. Throughout her trial, Anne engaged with us to tell us how things were going with Ubi and this open dialogue lead to a lot of improvements in our software. For example, Anne really needed a graph paper option when using the Ubi Annotation app. We added it immediately and now many other math teachers are enjoying this feature.
After a successful trial period with Ubi, Anne and Michelle decided to buy a permanent software license. They are looking to bring Ubi into classrooms that currently do not have interactivity and will eventually look at “upgrading” their Smart Boards with Ubi.
“I LOVE my Ubi.” – Anne Hambrick