I haven’t yet actually taught my lesson using the SmartBoard but I am excited about the potential it holds for educators. I would definitely want one in my classroom as a teaching tool. In class we only scratched the surface of what the SmartBoard can do and I was engaged by the novelty of it. I wonder how long that fascination would last in a group of children though. It still comes down to the teacher and the personal relationship they foster with their students. I have learned a lot this semester about teaching and one thing that has stuck with me is that there is no substitute for a really good teacher – someone who is trustworthy and has an engaging personality. Without that I think any technology is pretty useless.
Recently I observed in a first grade classroom. The room was equipped with an ActivBoard and the children were very much engaged in their “Hang-Mouse” game on Spelling City. I could tell that this was a regular activity, something that the students had been trained in. They knew what they were doing and could pretty much carry out the steps on their own. But it was a caring teacher, who got just as excited as the students and made comments about the characters in the game, who made the difference in whether or not learning occurred. The students transitioned well from their interactive whiteboard spelling game to chiming in as their teacher read a story that they were studying.
I want to be a teacher who can use an interactive whiteboard (or whatever the latest classroom technology happens to be) but can also engage her students in a simple story or song.
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