Smartboards in the classroom

This post is more of a reflection on today’s class: I have always been pretty pessimistic when it comes to purchasing smartboards for classrooms. I tend to feel that a computer with projector might just be easier to manage and I really do not like the smartboard software that much as its not nearly as good as say PPT. However, my opinion may have been swayed this afternoon.

In my Educational Technology course with undergraduate students we went over ‘how to use the smartboard’. It was my normal lesson on smartboards and we talked about their implementation and use. My main question to the students was how can these improve learning? Anyway, while students were playing around with the software I had them go up in groups of 2-3 students and use the smartboard to get a feel for it. After 5-10 minutes I noticed many students were surrounding the smartboard, laughing, and having a blast using it. They really had a great time playing with this technology. I was impressed by the motivation it gave them to interact with anything in the classroom. If my college aged students are that excited to use something like that I would bet that K-12 students would appreciate it even more. Thus I now am beginning to see more potential in this technology that I always thought was a bit much for a classroom.