I use to too. I grew up in this educational environment and felt like I obtained an excellent education. However, that was then and now is a bit different.
The times of only having one television in the house, cassette players and an Atari are gone. Today's homes are often equipped with a television in at least three rooms, not to mention our student's bedrooms. Many of our students have computers at their homes. They often times watch Mommy or Daddy and have learned much from simple observation. So we too, as educators must step into their 21st century world if we are going to prepare them for their future.
An elementary school today has some classrooms that resemble the pictures above, but now more and more are beginning to look like this:
These student's are not sitting in their seats or on the floor captivated by what the teacher is saying, instead their watching an interactive screen and actively taking part in their learning. They are teaching one another and experiencing things I as a child never had the opportunity to. Boy have times changed!
Welcome to the generation of the SMART Board! "What is a SMART Board?" you may ask. Well, it's defined as an interactive whiteboard and is a product of SMART Technologies. It 's one of the many new technologies bringing 21st century classrooms alive.
It works with a projector and puts your computers desktop image onto the interactive whiteboard. It then acts as both a monitor and an input device. Users can write on the interactive whiteboard using a digital pen or they can use their finger like a desktop mouse. Buttons launch a pop-up keyboard and a right mouse click menu for more input options. The interactive board is usually mounted on the wall or a floor stand and is used in face-to-face or virtual settings in not only educational settings, but also in real-world business and government environments. Talk about preparing our students for the future!
All the training one needs to incorporate the board in lessons can be found at the following website:
http://www.rockingham.k12.va.us/howto/smartboard/smartboard.htm
I think this is a wonderful resource site for teachers. It helps those who are not familiar with the capabilities of an active board as well as helps those who just need a little extra help in being creative and utilizing the technology in a meaningful way.
I love the way that you can bring interactive educational websites into the classroom with ease. I also like to see the students taking an active role in their learning and wanting to teach each other. There are millions of educational websites that we can now access and use to help teach and engage our student into learning the standards. My favorite site is
http://www.brainpop.com/support/presentation_movie_short.weml
Here, as a teacher, you have at your hands a tremendous amount of lessons plans that capture student's attention and immediately help engage them in their learning.
You will be teaching your student's not only the standard's for the subject you are teaching, but also teaching them the ever more important skill of using technology in everyday life. Again technology was limited when I first began school, but it grew as I did, only at a much faster pace. Student's must know how to utilize today's technology in order to become successful, productive members of society and this is just the start.
I personally cannot wait until every classroom is equipped with the latest technology and all teachers are daring enough to be creative with it. I believe students will grow exponentially and that we will all benefit if we teach students respect and responsibility for technology now.
I believe all students can benefit in some way from use of a SMART Board no matter what their current level of abilities are. I have seen it utilized from Kindergarten to College and can only imagine how much more technically savvy our students will be then we ever will. Technology seems to help capture the non-interested learner's attention as well as inspire the gifted's creativity. The large screen is easy to see and the audio control helps to accommodate the hearing impaired. Some sights even have Closed Caption capabilities.
As you search the web yourself and locate even more teacher's websites, you will discover many more ways SMART Boards can be utilized in the classroom. I encourage you to embrace this new technology and experience all the creativity that can come along with it.
If your school does not have SMART Boards, hook them up with some of the articles at this site:
http://smartboards.typepad.com/smartboard/2008/10/smartboards-are-making-it-into-the-classroom.html
Websites that might help you obtain grant money for technology:
http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/os/technology/edgrants.html
http://technologygrantnews.com/grant-index-by-type/educational-technology-grants.html
If you would like more information about SMART Boards, you can check out the sites below:
http://www.education.smarttech.com/common/education/pdf/EDCompassIssueFebruary09.pdf
http://smartboards-nycsd.wikispaces.com/
http://www.bristolvaschools.org/mwarren/SBActivities.htm
http://www.amphi.com/departments/technology/whiteboard/eleminteractiviesites.html
http://movies.atomiclearning.com/k12/smartboard95_mac/
http:www.education.smarttech.com/ste/en-US/Ed+Resource/Lesson+activities/Notebook+activities/
Pictures for this post were obtained through Google Image.
Video was taken off: http://www.teachertube.com/
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