Using Smartboards in Classrooms

Interaction for everyone.

ExploreAll About the Students

Students Say #1

Students Say #2Personal Reflection

Interactive for students and teachersInteractive #1Interactive #2Personal Reflection

Has PotentialPotential #1Potential #2Personal Reflection

Conclusion

Students Say #1William Beeland Jr., author of Student Engagement, Visual Learning and Technology: Can Interactive Whiteboards Help?, decided to do a survey and some interviews with some students to see what they think about the whiteboard.The survey asked the students questions about their attitudes, experiences, and education about/towards the whiteboard.The students surveyed about the whiteboard said what they like most about the whiteboard was being about to touch applications on the board and said it helped them concentrate in their classrooms. They also said that they learned better from the board because of the visual appearances make it easier to understand the teacher.The students that were surveyed also said that what they liked least about the board was the shadow your hand cast because of the light made it difficult to write on sometimes.

Students Say #2

Questions (5 out of 20) Average Rating

Standard Deviation

I enjoyed using a white board. 3.80 .10

I concentrate better in classing when a whiteboard is used to deliver instructions.

3.40 .15

I know that using technology gives me opportunities to learn many new things.

3.60 .12

Using whiteboard is not very frustrating.

3.50 .20

I cannot learn more from books then a whiteboard.

3.30 .16

The students also said that when they use the smartboard the reason they learn better is because both the teachers and the students can be more hands on with the learning process. Another item that William pointed out is that some of the teachers surveyed also thought the smartboard to bring more interaction with the kids, and also more entertaining , which made it easier to grab the students attention and to keep their attention throughout the class.

William came to the conclusion that smartboards to nothing more then help out the students, and more importantly their students.

Personal ReflectionI enjoyed this article a lot. It provided good information about what the students thought and felt about the whiteboard. Normally, everything that is read about the whiteboard has to do with helping out the teachers, and what the teacher can gain from this board. However, in this article it lets the readers know what the students think about the white board and what they personally feel they get out from the whiteboard. Also what they think the pro’s/con’s are about the board itself, and its performance.

Interactive #1 Peter Kent, writer of

Smartboard: Interactive whiteboards in classrooms, discusses that whiteboards are more interactive then computers because they undermine teaching, because teaching with a computer is a difficult class. • Its hard to present a concept where the whole class

can see. You may be saying what about a library? According to Kent, it is very difficult to teach in a computer lab setting.

• Its also hard to keep the students attention throughout a whole class when they are sitting in front of a computer screen.

Person computer may assit students to learn, e-learning, however, personal computers do not assist teachers to enhance their teaching skills.

With a smartboard teachers can e-teach, which involves enhancing the art of teaching.

Interactive #2 Smartboards also allow teachers to teach in many

different styles of lesson plans and teaching period. Smartboards also allow teachers to be spontaneous,

which allows the students to want to be engaged because they do not know what will happen next.

Also if a teacher is holding a lecture and a topic comes up that the teacher is not prepared for they can acess the internet on the smartboard to keep the flow of the lecture moving.

The smartboard will also allow teachers to improve their orals skills by combining their oral part of class with text, sounds, and graphics. • This helps the students learn because of what the kids do

at home. All students play video games and/or watch TV so including all of these graphics, sounds, and videos will easily engage the students and keep them engaged.

Personal Reflection

This article gave me a lot of information about what the whiteboards offer teachers. Also what the teachers can offer students because of the whiteboard. I enjoyed reading this article a lot, since I would love to be a teacher some day, it gave me some knowledge about what to look for and also what I can do to keep my students engaged, when I eventually get my own classroom. It was a very interesting and informative article.

Potiential #1 Steve Kennewell and Alex Morgan, authors of

Student Teachers’ Experiences and Attitudes Towards Using Interactive Whiteboards in the Teaching and Learning of Young Children, point three main task which the smartboard

performs.1. The board helps with active learning, instead of just

passive learning of information.2. The board also helps students interact in a larger

numbers then what was previously possible.3. The board also allows a memory so that any product can

be saved, for possible re-use. Kennewell and Morgan also state that more then

75% of student teachers would choose a smartboard in their classroom.

Potential #2 Kennewell and Morgan also point out that smartboards can

sometimes take some getting use to for experienced teachers, however student teachers see the potential in whiteboards, and find them to me exceptionally useful in the classroom.

Kennewell and Morgan also state that they believe that there needs to be prior training and practice with the smartboard before school placement in order for the board to be as useful to the students as it has the potential to be.

Personal ReflectionsWhen I first started reading this

article it took me back a minute to read something opposite to what I have been reading in my past few articles. Once I read through the article it made more sense to me. I know can see where the authors are coming from and what they were saying. I also understand that experienced teachers need some warming up to is not always such a bad thing. This article was a very interesting article.

ConclusionAll of these article had to do with smartboards. Between these article I learned a lot of information. I learned that smartboards are not always the best technology to be used by everyone, however if a teacher had prior learning about the board they see the potential that the board can bring. The whiteboard also has very many task is can perform that being able for students to work in larger groups for activates, and also is also with active learning by using graphics and sounds, which also helps keeps their students engaged. Whiteboards can also be fit in to any teaching styles because they are very versatile. Along with students enjoying smartboards, it was also brought up in on article that the students also enjoy the smartboard a lot. It was also surveyed that the smartboard does help interact the students in the lesson plans. This is all of the information I found from my three articles about smartboards.

Works Cited Beeland, William. "Student Engagement, Visual Learning and

Technology: Can Interactive Whiteboards Help?". 06/18/2010 <http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.135.3542&rep=rep1&type=pdf>.

Kennewell, Steve and Morgan, Alex. "Student Teachers' Experiences and Attitudes Towards Using Interactive Whiteboards in the Teaching and Learning of Young Children". 06/18/2010 <http://www.canterbury.ac.uk/education/protected/ppss/docs/kennewell-morgan.pdf>.

Kent, Peter. "Smartboards: Interactive Whiteboards in Classrooms". 06/18/2010 <http://www.eastchester.k12.ny.us/schools/hs/teachers/blaser/documents/SMARTBoardsInteractiveWhiteBoardsintheClassroom.pdf>.