Smartboards 101

This, my lovely reader friends, is a Smartboard. It hooks up to my computer and basically turns into a giant touchscreen computer. Everything I can do on my computer, I can do by touching the screen. As an added bonus, it has markers to write with and an eraser to erase. The Notebook software is actually the cool part. The software is what allows you to do so many things such as writing, making moveable boxes, and playing games. You can "copy" anything from anywhere and move it into a blank Notebook page and manipulate it anyway you want. It comes with an almost endless amount of templates, games, and looking online gives you an even larger amount of stuff to be overwhelmed by. It's hard to describe but if I am ever around you and have my school computer, ask me for a demonstration because even though I won't be touching my screen to make it work you will be able to get the general idea.

We are using it a couple of times a day and the kids REALLY love it. I think I could use it to teach (think most boring and mundane task or lesson EVER) and they would be enthralled. Only one student has gotten in trouble for touching it when he wasn't supposed to and watching him being banned from being able to use it for the rest of the week seemed to cure any other inquisitive fingers. I bought a big piece of yellow fabric to cover it up when I think it needs to be less noticeable but for the most part that only lasted a few days as well. As stated previously, the location is not ideal but we've found ways to make it work. I use a pointer when I want them to be able to reach up higher and have small stool if we need it. The fabric and threats/consequences have worked their magic and kept small fingers away so I'm fairly pleased with how we're handling it. I also think it helps that we do use it a lot. They know they will get a chance to use it so they are content to wait until that happens. If I was only using sparingly, I think they would try a little harder to figure it out themselves. Thankfully, they are willing to let me take the lead and show them instead.