Interactive Whiteboard Use

          The SMART Board is a form of technology that I was not exposed to until after high school. A few of my college classrooms had SMART boards but it was rare that the professors would use this tool to its full potential, so it always just seemed like a hightech whiteboard to me. Once I started graduate school at Teachers College I had more opportunities to become familiar with the SMART board and see what this form of technology is truly capable of. 

           

         Our last class was extremely useful because I have never been trained on how to use a SMART board, and most of the teachers I have worked with only utilized the basic components. Thus, I was completely unaware that this instructional tool had so many amazing features. This brings up an important concern that I know has been discussed with the other forms of technology we have been exploring; what is the point of investing so much money into educational technology if teachers are not effectively incorporating it into the classroom? If technology, such as the SMART board, has so many great learning tools and features, teachers should be familiar with them and know how to use them effectively and appropriately to promote learning whenever possible. However, I know that if I were currently a teacher, I would be just as guilty as those teachers that I just mentioned. I would be using it for its basic components and would probably have to spend a lot of time practicing and playing around with the SMART notebook before I became comfortable using it everyday. With that said, there were many points during class last week in which I felt excited about learning how to use it, but there were also many points where I felt overwhelmed. Since there is so much to learn about the SMART board I feel like it would be useful to take a training course or perhaps a webinar on how to get started. 

           I believe the SMART board is mainly a form of instructional technology but that it could be used as a form of adaptive technology as well. Teaching lessons on the SMART board takes learning to a whole new level, allowing the students to interact with the materials and view it from many different angles (this is of course if it is being utilized correctly and to its full potential). However, it could also be a form of adaptive technology due to its ability to manipulate the way in which information is presented. Additionally, it was mentioned in class that the writing tools could be modified, whole hands or fists can be used to select an option rather than a finger, and the screen can be lowered depending on the children’s’ height. These are just a few example of how the SMART board can be used as an adaptive technology, but overall I would classify it as instructional technology since the main purpose seems to be to make learning interactive for all students. Furthermore, when using the SMART board I believe the teacher must accurately gauge what her students are capable of, and what features may act as more of a distraction rather than a learning experience. This may change from child to child and also from class to class.

        While researching the SMART board and trying to find ways to incorporate this technology into my classroom, I came across the website listed below. It is called SMART Exchange and you can use it to find lesson plans that can be used on a SMART board as well as connect and communicate with other teachers. What I particularly liked about this website is that you can search for lessons that are correlated with specific standards, grade levels, and subjects. Then when you find a lesson you are interested in using you can download it right to your SMART Notebook. This website also has a training section in which you can access free resources and webinars specific to your needs, whether it be early education, English language acquisition, curriculum content, etc.

http://exchange.smarttech.com/#tab=0