I feel like after reading a lot of the posts that my classmates have posted that my school is behind the times in the technology race. Many of the programs that they posted about are ones that I haven't even heard about nor have the resources to use within my classroom. Just this year, we were awarded some money through a source that allowed us to get Smartboards in some of our classrooms. I have to say that after going through some of the training on how to use them, I am excited. However, my classroom wasn't one of the ones that was lucky enough to get one. So, I guess I will have to wait a little longer....just wish that check that Mr. Cantrell spoke about would actually come true. For the purpose of this blog post though, smartboards are what I want to talk about. Being a Special Education teacher, this technology is so beneficial because it is interactive and allows the students to manipulate their own learning. It incorporates multiple levels of learning styles which is so important with students who already have a difficult time with academics.
With the Smartboad 600 series it comes with the Smart Notebook Collaborative Learning Software which helps you create, manage, and deliver high impact interactive lessons. In addition to the Notebook, this series also has Smart Exchange website which is a collaborative community that is connected with educators in your district or around the globe and allows you to share content lessons with other educators so you are not consistently reinventing the wheel.
In an ideal world educators could upgrade their package and purchase the 800i which has a modular design, so it would be easy to add other products to it such as the SMART Document Camera, SMART Response Interactive response system, and other accessories such as Blue tooth. With this capability it means that you could use this system in a variety of environments.
I would love to be able to use this type of technology in my classroom so I can get my students actively involved in their education. I believe that we are stuck in the traditional sense of education and the students we are educating are square pegs that don't fit into the round holes that we have molded. Therefore, there is more discipline problems, higher dropout rates, and lower achievement. If we would take a little more of the money that we are spending on the the testing and spend it on adding technology and upgrading the systems within our older schools, I believe that our students would then become more actively involved in their education and we would see the increases that we are so desperate to see now.
Our school purchased several smart boards last year and they are amazing. I went to the training introduction but don't have the opportunity to use them myself. When I was doing field experience I was able to watch students use them. They were doing math and it was wonderful. They could write on it from their seat or on the board so it worked for one on one or for groups to see what was going on too.
ReplyDeleteI believe you can print the work also so or save it so you can work on it again.
I agree that some of the money spent on assessments would be better spent on technology to keep our students engages. This link; http://www.edutopia.org/big-ideas-better-schools has a great article about improving our schools.