Smart boards replacing chalk boards

Wired News reports on the rapid growth of interactive, computer-driven whiteboards in classrooms, which may someday make the punishment of cleaning chalkboard brushes a thing of the past.  Right, smart boards are being used in more than 150,000 classrooms in the U.S, with even more being put to use in 75 other countries.  The boards let teachers and students share assignments, surf the web and even edit video using their fingers as pens.  And, by all indications, the market for the devices is booming, with more than a dozen manufacturers in the field, although one company, Smart Technologies, has a 60-percent market share.

[Brian @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

columbia university's elementary school? whaaaa?

[o2sk8 @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

I have had one of these boards in my class here at UMass Lowell and I know of a few other places on campus that have them. They are pretty cool to use.

[Casey @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

When I was in high school (that's odd, it was just a few weeks ago) our schools started using these, and by "using", I mean paying for them, putting the white boards up, but nobody actually doing anything with them. Only our Art teacher really used it. The other rooms that did have these didn't have projectors, and had teachers that couldn't even use computers in the first place, except to use the internet and get sports scores.

Great investment, if you ask me.

[Tucker @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

My school adds to that number! We have them in almost every classroom. They really are nice.

[steven @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

Our professors tended to use these seldomly. What attracted me to this thread was the teacher above; I thought the guy's raised hand was really a long slit in the skirt.

[Gandhi @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

Screw all that! CHeck out the hot teacher in that pic. And the ironic thing is her name, according to the Wired article is "ELiza Bang"

Lol! How come I never had hot teachers like that when I was in school. If nothing else, my attendance would have been 100%!

[mike @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

yeah..don't hire teachers, BUY NEW BOARDS!

[Dave @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

My son developed a much better solution, it is a tablet PC linked wirelessy (WLAN) to a digital projector. The setup is cheaper, works better, and you get the use of the projector and the laptop for other uses.

Whiteboards maybe the 'rage' but they are really not the best equipment to do the job.

[Justin @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

The school I work at has these. They're used way more as regular whiteboards than as smartboards. Total waste of money.

[L?shz @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

I agree with #3. my old highschool got a bunch after the despotic new IT lady started up. Very few teachers were willing to use them. those that did never did anything that couldn't be done with a powerpoint show projected on a NORMAL white board. Using the board as an imput device is very impractical and IF one absolutly wants to circle things on diagrams, etc digitally instead of with normal ink on a whiteboard, why not just use a remote handheld mousetrackpointtrackball? this would prevent the teacher's body from blocking half the class's view of the board anyway!

[kffjjffff @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

I want one for home

[GunForHire @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

My school (in Northern Ireland) has one of these in every classroom. They've been there for a while as well, and as far as I know they are either already in other NI schools or are being put in. It's part of the whole 'C2K' project which will connect every school in the country so I'm told.

[Nick @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

I work at a Highschool in south eastern Michigan and we are nearly complete in our transition to SmartBoards. They are really an amazing tool for the teachers and students.

[GunForHire @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

Oh and in response to #10, there's been wireless graphics tablets available for these things for ages now, so the teacher getting in the way isn't a problem.

[tainted @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

IRT #14,

Unfortunately, that's even more money that has to be spent.

I know that in the district I work for, we've been purchasing 1500 laptops/year for three years now, and we've just hired our 5th person to handle onsite diagnostics and repair. Obviously, when dealing with public funds, spending plans can miss some things. :)
Were we to start buying more smartboards (we have a few in each of our 22 schools), you can imagine the chance that we'd also be recieving wireless handhelds to suplement them.

[Darryl @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

I've installed these in schools. Very nice toy.

[Me @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

Almost every room in my school has them, and all the teachers use them. At first, no-one really knew how to use them, but after being given a little help from students (ie. Me), they've gotten used to them and started using them regularly.

[Max @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

Is this part of the "no child left behind act"? I can just picture some 55 year old AP English teacher trying to teach a class, but instead she has to call the network administrator because the damn $10K screen won't turn on. A whiteboard works just fine and last I heard there weren't too many problems reported with good old fashioned chalkboards.

GREAT use of our education money. Our government rules! Why not raise the salaries (and expectations and accountability) of our teachers rather than buy expensive gadgets like these?

[io_data @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

Of course, you could surf the web together for erotic pictures so the students are in the mood to please the teachers...

[Justin @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

It sounds like an interesting technology, but . . only if its used right.

It seems like the technology people in schools who have replied are saying they're the greatest thing since pen and paper were invented... but how about students?

It seems to me that a teacher would have to do a lot of prep work to make something like this valuable... and part of having a whiteboard/chalkboard/overhead is that you can just write right away. I know I wouldn't have learned half as much in my AP Calc class if the teacher didn't go over problems we had trouble with on the overhead daily.

Are there any students that think these are beneficial? How are teachers using these to your advantage?

[KG @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

ok, i don't know if this is the same thing, but I sat in on a class that in addition to a regular whiteboard, the teacher had a board up that he could write on like a whiteboard, except it digitally copied whatever he wrote on it. After class if students were missing any notes or needed to go over the material again, they could get online and download what was written on the board, almost like a movie, with FF and RW and such. This one class was the school's "Smart Classroom" with student's desks having laptops and remotes and such to answer questions remotely with no risk of being ridiculed for a stupid answer. Just my thoughts.

[Will @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

These boards aren't that convenient unless you use them for Powerpoint (OMG TM) Presentations. They are pretty $hitty for whiteboards, considering there's usually a problem in the alignment of the light stuff... so that you write something, but it shows up >>>>>>>>over here.

Sucks.

[Shmee150 @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

As a pupil at a school with these in every classroom - in the UK. The advantages of it from my point of view are that it certainly keeps you more awake in dull lessons when the teacher is doing something on the board, simply through changing the background colour or whatever. Another thing is that if you miss a lesson for whatever reason the whole lesson's worth of notes are e-mailed to us by the teachers so that it can be caught up on. In terms of using the smartboard rather than a laptop on a projector which is what they used to do it is the simplicity of being able to write as is traditionaly used on chalk boards and white boards combined with being able to save the notes for later. Another thing they do is keep the previous year's notes for recall later and other similar things.

[Alex @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

This isn't remarable, although I am suprised you still used chalk. My shcool ditched blackboards in the early 90s we then use whiteboards which are now 80% replaced with smartboards.

[John @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

As a Media Services Technician at a medium sized Community College I have had plenty of expierence with various models of electronic whiteboards. I highly dislike the polaroid/ibid/polyvision boards. The software was troublesome, non intuitive (this from an IT major), and generally just not that great. The Smart Board brand though is fantastic with the latest software upgrade adding in handwriting recognition (have yet to test this). The smartboards are a breeze to use and setup.

As for the comment on the writing being non alinged with the image that is an installation issue that can be fixed in less than one minute by running the calibration utility.

As for the comment on $10k screen. You might want to check your figures before spewing crap our of your ass. The last boards we bought cost around $1200 a peice.

Currently we are moving away from Smart Boards towards School Pads http://www.gtcocalcomp.com/interwriteschoolpad.htm

It comes in costing half of a smartboard. Requires almost no installation. is wireless so the teacher can interact while moving around the room. It does take some getting used to at first but so far we have had nothing but postive feedback from the teachers that have used them. It is also unobtrustive, if a teacher wants to use it they just turn it on. With the smartboards they are always on, and a projected image doesn't look as good as it does on an actual projection screen.


Smartboards = good
Schoolpads = better

[Andrew Galeucia @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

these boards are awesome i work with them all the time at ETBU IT Department we have them in few class rooms

[Matt @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

I wish my school had some of these. The best part would be that the teachers would have no clue how to use them and/or they break somehow so we won't have to do anything in class. At least now we would be able to confirm are suspicions about what are teachers are looking up in class while we are "working".

[KirbyMeister @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

Cheaper solution: Projector + laptop or tablet PC + whatever software you're using

[chihuy @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

As for those who think this is a waste of money for schools. I agree, if we're talking about public schools which could definitely use the money for better teacher salaries etc.

However, my school is private and has smartboards in all classrooms but a few. It's my guess that most of the schools with smartboards are not public.

My school is fortunate to have money to spend and I think the smartboards are great. They make lessons more interactive as oftentimes students will go to write answers or notes or whatever on the smartboard during class. Plus the previously mentioned saved class notes thing.

The calibration isn't really a problem at my school since the projectors are mounted to the ceiling so they wont move.

(i'm a student)

[Steve @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

Gotta agree with #24 as well. At my school, we have been using the Sartboards for three years. We are switching to Smartpads b/c of the cost and ease of use. I use mine almost every day. It's pretty cool, but not revolutionary. The one nice thing is that if you are presenting something, it will record it as a movie file, and if you plug in a mic, your voice instructions are recorded as well. Then, the absent kids can just download the presentation the next day, or during study hall and you don't have re-explain everything at the expense of spending time with the kids who bothered to show up the first time.
But I think that it is an intermediary technology, and Smartpads are the next step toward fuller interaction.

[Steve @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

smartpads=schoolpads

[Dana @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

We have these in several conference rooms where I work. In the six years that I've worked here, I have not once seen someone use one as a smartboard. Everyone seems to think they are just plasma screens.

[Wim Bonner @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

I bought a Smartboard at an auction a couple of years ago. I paid $75 for the board with the stand, and then paid about $75 more to get a set of "Markers" and the USB cable directly from the smartboard company.

The way the system is supposed to work is that you display your projector output on the board, and the quick alignment sets things up. I've never actually used it for it's intended purpose, I just use it as a portable whiteboard, because I got such a deal.

The strange thing about writing on it is that you need to press harder on the surface than I norally do with whiteboard pens for it to register into the computer. I've wondered if newer units might have a more sensitive and harder surface to do the drawing on.

I initially had hoped to use it as a remote whiteboard because I was telecommuting at the time, and hoped it would simplify some conference calls. Unfortunately, the primary people I was working with weren't as technically savy.

[allenu @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

I used to work at SMART. They have new camera-based boards that don't use pressure to detect contact. It feels kinda weird, actually, because it doesn't require pressure.

[dcyer @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

I am a teacher and have used the smart board and can say it is an expensive toy that looks good for district personnel to show to politicians to show "how tech savvy" our district is. It is not practical for normal teaching.

[$tretton @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

Here in the UK we have been using these things for a long time in class rooms basicly these electronic white boards work like normal white boards but you just use a magnetic pen to write instead!

Plus you can upload previous work that you have writen on the board and saved!

[Ashley Bennett @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

Indeed, these are really popular with the children. I did research on this subject about a year ago in the UK when attempting to create educational software for the GameBoy Advance. If anyone wants to know more and read some of the papers I wrote, check out the download sextion of http://www.hiash.com/portfolio/gba/

[aburridoz @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

hey here in mexico a lot of public schools have them they are pretty cool i cant believe it the free schools have them even the ones in the old and poor towns they have them and I pay for a school that the shitty chairs are falling down
life is hard or what... lol

[fraser uk @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

yeah smartboards rock in my school inscotland we have on in nearly every class ther great !!!

[Eliza @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

Greetings,
I am Eliza Bang, the teacher in the picture and quoted in the article. I wish the journalist would have included all of my quotes in this article--especially something along the lines of, "The best arguement for having a SMART board in the classroom is the variety and flexibility of mediums which it allows for me to present, and for students to represent their learning...which is why it is a great motivation for learning."

I wasn't crazy about the fact that my quote stated motivation as the reason I liked having a SMARTboard in my classroom without explaining why. In short, it is easy to engage and excite my students when they have many degrees of freedom to show their work (research, expression, etc.). We are a school with a diverse learning population, and the flexibility and control they feel over their learning is a great motivator.

While I do not think a tool like this is absolutely critical for teaching, it is a wonderful resource. The flexible representations of learning could still happen without the SMARTboard, but it certainly helps!

Thanks for listening...