Educational Technology Hardware (SMART Board®)

Go smart , Go interactive 

•    General overview 

      Smart Boards are a special type of  interactive touch-sensitive white boards that can be used to collaborate and communicate with students in the classroom, with faculty or staff in conference rooms, with colleagues over the Internet, or just about anywhere that has electricity and an outlet to plug in a Smart Board, a computer and, if you really want to benefit from the Smart Board's capabilities, a projector as well.  

• Contribution to the field of Education

       A Smart Board can be used to enhance pedagogy and increase clarity and degree of detail through presentations. The Smart Board and computer can be used with or without a projector, however, in order to take full advantage of the Smart Board, a projector is recommended. These include but are not limited to Internet browsers like IE and Netscape, E-mail programs like Outlook Express, Netscape, Eudora and Pegasus, and Office Suite Programs like Microsoft Office, WordPerfect Office and Star Office Suites, as well as multimedia applications.

• Usability and Navigation

         The Smart Board software allows the user to save, print, and e-mail their presentation to others or   to keep it as a record in the Smart Notebook. The Smart Board can be used as both an electronic whiteboard (without a projector), a product that is used to save dry-erase marker notes to a computer or an interactive whiteboard (with a projector) which is a product that can be used to show the computer screen and interact with that information.

         Users can import most applications into the Smart Notebook and edit them on the board with the Smart Pen Tray pens. Microsoft NetMeeting can also be used to interactively conference over the Internet or Intranet and edit and change the documents throughout the document.

• A break down
• The Good

• Smart board has a wide variety of lessons and topics for grade levels. Lesson plans, activities and business meeting information can be stored, accessed and used on the boards by any user when saved to a website.

• Allow users to save their work in a notebook to use later. 

• The Bad

• The cost of the boards varies according to size, tasks and brands.

• It needs regular maintenance 

• Sensitive usage.

• The Bottom Line 

            Nowadays, smart boards are essential tools in a high tech environment.           

•     Rating  

         5 (Excellent)