TIPS AND CONCERNS REGARDING INTERACTIVE BOARD USE
| Question: What problems/drawbacks are associated with board use? |
| Many times the calibration is off a tad. Many times I do a jeopardy game in created in Powerpoint (using links etc) and sometimes the link do not work b/c the touch and the placement do not fit. |
| Portability – we have to move board, move projector and laptop to classroom which is a hassle. Or we move class to library media center which skews the class routine. |
| Text input, but it isn't that big of a deal. I have the keyboard nearby. |
| Size-makes it awkward to move around in our 3 story, urban school environment takes time to "orient" the board-if student, or teacher, accidentally moves board-throws everything out of alignment and you have to reorient the board |
| If the board is moved AT ALL it becomes disoriented and will not communicate with the computer. You have to reorient it (not a big deal, but some teachers still aren't very comfortable with doing this themselves). Also, the stand is "iffy." It was designed for adults in corporate boardrooms, not children. It has leg bases that jut out and are easy for kids (and adults) to trip over. We train them to stand to the side to present...this isn't a bad thing, since they need to learn to present without standing in front of their visuals anyway. Also, their shadow can sometimes get in the way as they write, so they must stand to side. The marker to text function can be iffy if your handwriting is not perfect. |
| Set up time and slow internet access. |
| Setting the board up ahead of time. We only have three and they get moved form room to room. Who has what and when is a problem. |
| Overcoming that how do I get this ready and use it. I teach students to reorient the board so it's ready for each class. If a student bumps the projector you have to reorient the board. Also the fact I have to keep the board about 5 feet from the projector hurts use in some classrooms. We had to get two (one for each floor) as the Board wouldn't fit in the elevator without taking it apart. |
| Setup is a little too complicated to be truly portable, to move into the various classrooms. we usually keep it in the computer lab, unless something special is going on in the classroom. |
| Getting the angle just right. |
OTHER COMMENTS
| I was very excited about the possibilities of the SmartBoard, but I could never get the teachers interested in classroom use. Then, when we renovated the library last year, we looked into a plasma board that could roll up; finding none, and having nowhere to put the SmartBoard in the the renovation plans, we gave up and went back to a regular roll-up screen and LCD projector with a lazer pen. The SmartBoard is in a closet for the most part and hasn't been missed. |
| All I can tell you about our school is that the tech. department bought one of these plus computer etc. with grant money, offered training to teachers, hardly anyone came, no one uses it. It's part of the whole case for thoughtful overall PLANNING, not just dumping technology into a school. |
| I deleted it because we have 2 SmartBoards which are sitting - unused. The main reason: They have to be calibrated every time they are moved and they must be used with an LCD projection device. |