Wednesday, April 18, 2012
SmartBoard: Not Cool
When the SmartBoard is not malfunctioning, being used by someone who is trained and knowledgeable of its programming, and is an affordable option, it is a great tool to implement interactive technology into a classroom setting. However, a lot of times these setbacks render the SmartBoard more of a hassle than a help. As my classmates saw during our presentation, the SmartBoard can be very glitchy at times and even someone as familiar as I am with this technology couldn't get it to work for a majority of our presentation. In order for a teacher to become acclimated with this technology, it would either take a great deal of their personal time to self teach or the school would have to pay for instructional seminars for the teachers, which can be expensive. The price a school would have to pay to train its teachers would only be added to the actual expense of purchasing enough SmartBoards for each classroom in their school. And considering SmartBoards range from $2000-5000 depending on size and model, a school with a measly 20 classrooms would be looking at a minimum $40,000 purchase and $100,000 for larger or newer models.
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I agree with Andrew, interactivity has got to be the future in education. However, the move from the chalkboard to a smartboard does parallel what Nicholas Carr writes about in the Shallows. We now have interactivity, new media flashes before our eyes much quicker than chalkboard lessons. Learning takes place as new information is displayed on the Smartboard. This does contrast the more linear form of communication with chalkboard presentations. As we develop our hand-eye coordination skills and our ability to recieve visual cues, our ability concentrate is getting erased with the move away from chalkboards.
ReplyDeleteWhile SmartBoards are pretty cool, they can be unnecessary. A teacher can be just as interactive with her students. When people communicate well and are enthusiastic about the subject, they can be more interesting than a SmartBoard. Good discussion is more personal and will make a deeper connection with the subject material (as opposed to using a new SmartBoard technology that allows students to interact with formerly non-interactive white boards.) In Alone Together, Sherry Turkle points out that we often rely on technology to make connections and interactions personal and important as opposed to relying on people to make those connections. When students can relate material learned in the classroom to their own life in some way, it makes the material memorable. Should students still be encouraged to be actively engaged in the classroom? Yes. Obviously, students typically learn better when auditory, visual, and tactile approaches are used to convey material. The SmartBoard combines visual and tactile, but at what cost? As Elaina pointed out, it can be very costly. If teachers are simply aware of the need to get students to interact with the material more than just telling them what they have to know, the SmartBoard is not necessary.
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