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WEEK of November 22, 2004 |
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Smartboards Debut in Lower School by Jeffrey Stanley “Today we are look at the letters f and e. Let’s start with f.” Third grade head teacher Meredith Goldberg held up a perfect lowercase cursive f on a sheet of paper for her class to see. Blank notepad lines for writing were projected on the illuminated whiteboard behind her, waiting to be used. After much class discussion on the curves of the letter f between Goldberg, assistant teacher Susan Shim, and the students, Goldberg picked up a blue marker and turned to the board. “It looks complicated on the page,” she said, “but when you do it, it’s not too bad.” Goldberg let the students call out instructions, talking her through the steps, as she formed a lowercase f with an electronic marker onto the projected lines. “That’s cool,” said one student. “That’s weird,” chimed in another. Students then practiced in their notebooks while individual students got to come up one at a time to eagerly try out the new technology themselves. With a drag of her finger, Goldberg could tilt the lines up to the right for right-handers, or down to the right for left-handers, mimicking the tilt of an actual notebook as they would be positioned by students.
This year third grade teachers are using Smartboards—interactive whiteboards which are increasingly replacing traditional chalkboards and whiteboards in classrooms—for the first time. The boards were purchased thanks to fundraising efforts by the PAT last year. Despite occasional frustrations, the results have been mostly positive, say third grade head teachers Goldberg and Jonathan Edmonds. “It’s been a trial by fire,” said Goldberg. “Every way we’ve learned to use the Smartboards has been by experimenting with them, often right in front of the kids.” She quipped that the kids have been “very patient with us.” Goldberg uses the Smartboard, which she describes as “a futuristic overhead projector,” for a variety of applications. “We project images up onto the screen, like maps and pictures, so the whole class can easily see them,” she said. “We brainstorm as a class and type the words onto the screen as the kids say them. We sort words into groups and we view web movies and sites.” She said the technology seems almost magical at times. “It’s really cool that we can drag words with our fingers or even write with our fingers.” The possibilities seem almost endless. Goldberg was apprehensive at first about how the new tool would impact classroom activities, but after nearly two months of daily use, she can’t imagine life without it. Although the technology fascinates her students, Goldberg stressed that the Smartboard is more than just a fancy toy for keeping the kids entertained. “It allows us to save brainstorms and other work right on our computer instead of having to file away chart paper, which often there isn’t room for in our classroom. It’s easily seen by all the children in the class. We can save work and return to it easily in a follow-up lesson,” she explained. Goldberg uses the Smartboard for every subject. In handwriting, for example, she demonstrates letter formation and then the kids take turns using the board to practice the letters themselves. “In social studies we looked at a topographical map of New York State to begin a discussion about why it made sense for the Haudenosaunee Native Americans to live upstate,” she said. “We then used that map as a model to make our own. In science recently we watched a web animation from brainpop.com to reinforce our study of photosynthesis.” Despite its use every day for so many purposes, Goldberg is humble about the uses she has come up with for the Smartboard. “It’s still very new and I think we’d all like to learn how to use it in more complex ways.”
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