On Wednesday I finally got to try and experiment that I have been trying to organise for a good 3 months, I taught a class using multiple screens.

The first question (one my workmates were really interested to know the answer to) is of course, why. Two of my class are introductions to a new language, in one it is HTML while the other has PHP. Originally my classes followed this pattern:

Lecture: Teaching all the new techniques, functions and elements that will be focused on that week Co-operative work: The class works together to solve quiz questions and create basic functionality Self work: Individuals work on solving tutorial questions and projects

But this pattern suffers from two major problems:

• Students are only given one form of learning (being talked at) and then expected to understand it enough to have the courage to speak out during the co-operative section
• Students are not shown how the functions actually work outside of text examples in the lecture slides

In the past I have attempted to close down the lecture after describing something on them to show the real example rather than just the text on the slide but this also has its drawbacks.

• It pulls the students out of the 'lecture mode'
• The information they are meant to learn have been removed from their immediate view

So, after dealing with this issue for a trimester I finally got my hands on an additional projector. It was then set up so that the lecture slides existed on one projector while the coding / browser results were always up on the other.

My only real worry was maybe the information would come to the students too fast, not giving them a chance to take in the data.

My first class to actually try this went really, really well. While it was only the initial introduction to HTML, students reported that they found the secondary source of information really useful throughout the lecture.

In future classes I am going to have to really focus on how to use the wall real estate, as I am worried about the refraction / shadowing from the whiteboard that currently sits there. I do expect this technique to slowly get