I was interested in finding out more about the SMART Board, its capabilities and how it's being used in classrooms right now. The SMART Board is an interactive white board that links your white board, your computer and your digital projector. The touch sensitive display is controlled directly from the display. This technology is changing the way that teachers structure their class as well as the students learn the material. It allows anything that is possible to be accessed by a computer to be displayed on a large screen with audio and video feed capabilities. This means no more huddling around one desktop or viewing a blurring image from the overhead. The SMART Board has the capability to revolutionize education.
The one disadvantage that I found when researching this software was that it only has single-touch capabilities. The newer, more advanced software that is coming out has a multi-touch function and I think that this should be Incorporated into the SMART Board. That way a teacher can pull up Google Earth, for example, find the area they are studying and zoom in using two fingers to select the area. Multi-touch is quicker and more effective than single touch functions. This video of Jeff Han is where I think the SMART Board should be heading.
The other disadvantage to SMART Board is that it doesn't come with much (if any) material to use in the classroom. You also need to purchase Notebook software to create templates to use on your SMART Board. With the Notebook software you can make almost anything from handouts to graphic organizers to vocabulary exercises. There are thousands of templates available online, so you aren't forced to make them yourself.
I think that the potential that the SMART Board provides are endless. Your class can start the morning video conferencing with another school in Kenya, play an interactive math game like Ghost Blasters, show examples of their work on the board using digital ink, see and hear examples of history they are studying using PowerMedia, or watch daily current events on FrontLine. They can record a daily message as a class to their parents about what they did at school that day near the end of class. When they leave the teacher can publish it on the blog so when they get home they can show their parents what they did that day at school. As you can see, the SMART Board provides room for creativity, imagination and innovation in education. Once it becomes the center of a classroom you are going to wonder have you ever lived without it.
How to use SMART Board for the everyday activity:
3 comments:
I've used these smart boards. They're really cool, but I see where they could be a lot cooler. The more the better right? But for now I'm very impressed with their capabilities.
I think that SMART Boards seem really cool. I would be interested in learning more about them before I become a teacher because they would be very useful in the classroom. They sound a lot more interesting then just an old overhead!
I've used a less advanced software like this in the business world, it's called Sametime Meetings. Meeting attendees are allowed to share their screens and "present" to the others in the meeting. But the Smart Board idea is a lot more advanced. The touch screen capability is great. Thank you for posting on this!
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