LANSING, Mich. — Trying to teach through a screen can be a challenge for educators. One teacher came up with a solution with a couple of pieces of wood and some imagination. Ash-Har Quraishi shows us the answer many teachers are needing.
“I use the miter saw to cut piles to length.”
“The hole that the knob goes.”
“To sand it all smooth.” Bob Pinta, a High School Teacher, has converted his home garage into a bustling workshop. “And then like chisels and a mallet and like hand tools.”
The high school math and computer science teacher is solving an online teaching problem – one contraption at a time.
Bob Pinta explained that “I would be teaching i could use my pen and share the screen but no matter how good of a stylus you get. Writing on the Ipad is not the same as write it on paper.” Pinta found that his students could either see what he was writing or him – but not both.
So, he designed a phone stand that could act as a virtual overhead projector. “I would join the zoom on my phone pointing the phone down at the table and i would have the students pin my hand so that it was the big one.”
The height adjustable stand allows for a much more interactive lesson. “So, they would be able to follow along as i went, and they could see both my face and the paper as I zoom.” His wife posted a video to see if other teachers might be interested in one.
It quickly racked up tens of thousands of views with orders pouring in from all over.
“We have shipped across the United States.”
On the weekend they sit in the driveway for teachers wishing to pick one up in person at $30 plus shipping. Pinta says he wanted to keep the contraption – which doesn’t have an official name – affordable.
“We wanted it cheap enough, worse a teacher could go ‘Oh I'm going to try it’, and even if it doesn't work, they're out to $30 bucks.” with more than than 200 completed and another 160 in production. Pinta has proven if necessity is the mother of invention then ingenuity is likely the father.
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