Smartboards Everywhere!

In classrooms these days, interactive whiteboards are all over the place. They present a new way to teach and a new way to convey information. Smartboards and are other technologies enhance teaching because now teachers can utilize many different manipulatives and mediums all on one technology. The interactive whiteboard allows teachers to combine the elements of the internet, Word, Excel and even aspects of Publisher all at the same time. However, although this technology is great, it is not always easy to learn to use. There are many specifics of it that I myself found challenging at times. It takes diligence and patience to succeed with the Smartboard. Not everyone wants to have that patience but I believe proficiency with an interactive whiteboard is essential to being a truly effective teacher.

Students nowadays need to be motivated to learn from external sources and the interactive whiteboard allows them to remain engaged and be a part of the lesson. The pros are numerous for one of these in the classroom: student participation, a multiple amount and a wide variety of materials at one's hand to use to teach and the ability to bring content from all over the place to one individual notebook page on the Smart software. Some cons, however are that the lesson can lose its importance if there are too many Smartboard gadgets and the like or that the students may expect there to always be something interactive and pressure is placed on the teacher to deliver. Just like Powerpoint, the Smartboard can create bad tendencies for a teacher such as looking at the screen rather than focusing on the class. If his back is turned to play with the Smartboard, he will miss waht is going on behind him, whether it be learning or not.

For myself, I wish I had known how to use this in the past. I would definitely had worked on creating Smartboard elements and the lesson activity toolkit specifically to use as class assessments each day. I think it is always a matter of balance between how much interaction to have versus straight up instruction. Every teacher must face that but there is no doubt that interactive whiteboards are an extremely valuable tool for classroom instruction.