Smart Boards

I just want to comment on this neat piece of technology that some of you have already mentioned on this blog. During my observation I sat in English 12 classes taught by the same teacher. She had a lot of fun with the Smart Board and admitted she was growing attached to it. It's a step up from an LCD projector (besides just text, she also used the Smart Board to show movies and You Tube clips). I saw it in action in her writing class. She was able to show a word document, "play" with the text like highlighting, erasing, moving words around and save all the changes. During lectures, she would write on the smart board and have an e-copy of those notes so she could email the notes to the class. This allowed the students to engage in the discussion when she's brainstorming for ideas rather than busily copying what she had written. During the school's 10-minute Tag sessions, the students could draw on the Smart Board without creating havoc to felt pens and white boards. This was particularly useful to the student with learning disabilities. It was a source of entertainment for him. Over all, Smart Boards can save a lot of paper, ink, precious time and missed learning opportunities for students who can't multitask.