Hawken Teachers Embrace Smart Board Technology

There`s a new technology in classrooms that may soon render the old-fashioned chalkboard obsolete. So states a November 27, 2005 article by Mark Scott of the News Herald tilted \"New technology helping to bring students on board.\" Smart Board is the brand name for touch-sensitive, high-tech whiteboards that are popping up in classrooms across the nation and in Northeast Ohio. \"At first, it was very frustrating, but I saw how excited the kids were,\" said Debbie Hill, a fifth-grade teacher at Orchard Hollow Elementary School in Mentor. \"Technology is the way to bring kids on board. It is so interactive, which allows them to be more involved in the learning.\" Interactive whiteboards can now be found in more than 150,000 U.S. classrooms, according to wired.com. They are made by about a dozen different manufacturers. Nancy Knowlton, the president of Calgary, Alberta-based Smart Technologies, which manufactures the Smart Board and claims a 60 percent market share on the sale of the product, believes it will exist in every single classroom within five years. \"Kids have Game Boys, XBoxes and all these fun interactive things outside of the classroom,\" Knowlton said in a story on wired.com. \"(The Smart Board) matches the experience that the kids are having out of the classroom.\" At Orchard Hollow, Hill is using her Smart Board in every subject that she teaches, from geometry to history. She is also constantly looking for new ways to create lessons. With a growing number of Web sites providing whiteboard-usable applications for teachers, there is plenty of material to access. \"The whole goal is to find ways to help students achieve academically,\" said Michael Lynch, Mentor Schools` educational technology specialist. "There are thousands of Web sites ready to be used that are specially designed for Smart Boards.\" Full integration Mentor School District has about 55 Smart Boards with at least two in each of the district`s 14 schools, Lynch said. \"We have a plan to integrate them in all grade levels,\" Lynch said. In addition to displaying computer screen images in a Power Point-style method, the whiteboards allow users to click icons on the screen by tapping the board with their fingers. \"The transition to a Smart Board is easy,\" said Christi Evans, a math teacher at Edgewood High School in Ashtabula Township. \"If you are able to use a computer program like Word and able to write on a chalkboard, you are able to use a Smart Board. The board just turns your computer screen into a giant touch screen.\" Another benefit is that whatever is drawn on the Smart Board can be saved, Lynch said. \"Any lesson can be saved and printed for a student that was absent,\" Lynch said. \"You can also record voices so that it can be played later to reteach the lesson.\" \"It`s really good for going back and forth,\" said Niko Ruhe, an 11-year-old fifth-grader in Hill`s class. \"You can pretty much do anything on here,\" added classmate Jessica Lipstreuer. Mentor`s Smart Boards were purchased using a combination of funds for science curriculum materials, grants and money from the district`s permanent improvement levy, Superintendent Jacqueline Hoynes said. \"Instructionally, it`s another way to teach,\" Hoynes said. \"It motivates children to be involved. And teachers can look up state standards and be given ways to present that standard using the Smart Board.\" Hoynes said the district`s strategic plan includes efforts to continue bringing technology into the schools. A draw for students Computer science teacher Marjorie Masci at South High School in Willoughby was convinced of the benefits of Smart Boards while teaching Microsoft certification courses outside the district. \"The Smart Board allows me to demo new software and to remain in the front of the classroom,\" Masci s