Sharp Board Smart

Update!

So, my Smart Board experience wasn't so Smart after all. Turns out it's not Smart. It's Sharp!
Here is the product. Doesn't do all those Smart Board things, but is still pretty cool.

I guess I'll have to wait a little longer to see Smart Boards in action. As of September I go back to regular, non-interactive whiteboards and *gasp* chalkboards!! How will I survive?!

Smart Board Smart

Ahhhh...."The proper use of the Smart Board". What is that? I finally got the opportunity to get up close and personal with a Smart Board, and thought I would jot down some of my findings, feelings, and thoughts. 

Smart Board technology is something I had only heard and read about, but had never seen. I don't know that it has been widely adopted in the ELT world...perhaps the cost is prohibitive. My 10-year-old nephew has had Smart Boards in school for years now, but perhaps the Ontario public school system is more well-funded and more unified in its approach to technology than the private language schools are. At any rate, I hadn't expected to gain Smart Board experience any time soon.

That all changed 4 weeks ago when I started work in a new school. I was offered a new contract...only 3 weeks...but one of the perks was that the classrooms were all "Smart"! Cool! I couldn't wait to try it!

OMG! What was I going to do? I had NO IDEA what to do with a smart Board!

I spent the weekend watching Youtube videos (like this one... ) and trying to see just WHAT they would do, as well as HOW to do it! I was amazed at the ease, the speed, the intuitiveness, and was starting to feel like I could handle it without looking like too big a moron.

I entered the classroom with the attitude that since I only had three short weeks, I would try to use all of the features and master as much as I could. It was an opportunity I didn't think I would get again. I discovered that there are pros and cons, as with any technology. Below, I'll just list some of my impressions.

Pros:

• It is easy and intuitive. Nothing to worry about in terms of learning new programs. If you can use a computer, you already have the knowledge to make this thing work.
• The whiteboard consists of "pages" which you can write on forever. You never need to erase anything to make more space. Very useful when you want students to refer back to something you wrote 20 minutes ago. "The Neverending Whiteboard".
• The overlay feature is very cool. You can put up a website, video, slide, or whatever, and then in overlay mode, you can write on it, diagram it, map it, draw on it, mark it up any way you like. I used it with a map of Toronto (from TTC) and asked students to find and circle the various neighbourhoods and landmarks, as our first week consists of an introduction to Toronto for the newly arrived students. Another activity involved analyzing a poem which I had created on Sliderocket. We were examining the parts of speech, and with overlay, we could use different colours to underline, circle, and label the parts of the poem, without altering my slide.
• You can save anything you have on the board and send it to students for later, or keep it in your own files for later use. I haven't done this too much, for reasons you will find in the 'Cons'.
• Videos, movies, slideshows etc...all look AWESOME! They are big and clear, and you can stop, advance, rewind, etc....all by touchscreen. We did a listening activity with a Youtube video where I could stop and replay as often as necessary, jut by tapping the screen...no need to run back to the computer.
• There is a wide variety of markers, colours, backgrounds, settings available for customization. I like to use the green chalkboard background with white marker so it looks like a chalkboard. That's just me.
• The students aren't familiar with this technology either, so there is a sense that "we are all in this together". You can help each other to figure things out. Use it as a "teaching moment"/"learning opportunity". They will be very forgiving of your mistakes/ delays.
• If your board writing is too messy, you can open a Word document and type instead of writing on the whiteboard! You can also make charts, diagrams, or whatever you do in Word. I had a class survey where students had to survey all the classmates and enter their findings on a chart. I put it on a Word document and they could fill it in as they went. Instant results for us to discuss later!
• It's fun.

Cons: 

• For reasons undisclosed to me, the school did not purchase the Smart Pens that go with the board. That means that you have to write on the board with your finger. Theoretically, this should work the same as the pens...but I found it incredibly difficult and frustrating. The boards are extremely extremely sensitive, and finger writing results in all kinds of malformed, misshapen letters with all kinds of weird extra lines, curlicues, and connections in places where you don't want them. In most cases, my finger writing is undecipherable...and uncontrollable. The board simply adds lines and blobs and there's nothing you can do about it. To be clear, you have to write BIG. Only about 6-8 words per page. And it's SLOW! At times when I need to write any quantity of writing on the board, I go back to the old-fashioned whiteboards. For schools considering purchasing Smart Boards: either buy the pens, or keep your whiteboards in addition to the Smart Board. Finger writing sucks.
• Even in overlay mode, the finger writing gets pretty messy looking, so after I've marked up a document, I rarely want to save and send it to students.
• Only one person at a time can write on the board. Think of all the times when you have several students at once writing on a whiteboard. You might have to re-think the groupings, and the time,  etc. In one activity, I had one student act as moderator and collect group information rather than have each group write their own results on the board. 
• Technical glitches still occur (of course). One day, we had no power in our wall outlet, so I couldn't turn anything on. If this was your only whiteboard, you'd be stuck. Luckily, we still have 2 regular whiteboards in the classroom.
• Our Smart Board doesn't seem to have all of the features that I've seen on the Youtube videos. They are doing some pretty cool stuff with writing recognition, blackout and highlight functions, movable parts, and others. Ours doesn't have any of these features. It's very very simple....stripped-down, I guess. 

Okay, I can't think of too many Cons. The biggest problem is the finger writing. I wish they had the pens, but I heard that they cost around $300 apiece, and of course the risk of loss or theft is too great. Overall, I've loved having the Smart Board, and the challenge of finding new ways to use it has been really exciting. It has pushed me to be more creative, and to look at old activities in new ways. That has been the greatest feature for me! My contract was extended a further 3 weeks, so I feel really lucky to have more time to experiment with this interesting tool. Come September, I don't know where I'll be, or what kind of board I'll have, but I'm glad I had the opportunity to add one more piece of technology to my arsenal!