SmartBoard Response

I am very glad we worked with SmartBoard in this class. I was not familiar with SmartBoard when we started, because at my high school we were still using overhead projectors in every classroom.

I feel that this technology is in the beginning stages and that it will keep getting better and be easier to use and better to teach with. SmartBoard has the wonderful ability to cater to different learning styles at once because of the combination of visual, auditory and hands-on aspects of the software. I was always really lucky in that I am generally an auditory learner, but most of my friends are visual learners. The fact that SmartBoard can include videos, pictures, and even demonstrations can really help visual learners whereas sometimes a plain white board or an overhead projector just aren’t good enough.

Even though this technology is fantastic, there are always downsides. For me, the main downside was the difficulty I had including multimedia in my project. I am not very good with computers, so I had to make a lot of phone calls when I couldn’t transfer a YouTube video into a flash file or into just an audio clip. Fortunately, I have friends that are good with technology, but some people may not have those resources. Also, when my file got too large, my computer would either freeze or totally shut down when I was trying to transfer my file onto my flash drive.

Overall however, I think this is a great new piece of technology that is only going to get better. This is potentially the beginning of a new era in education, in which we can cater to all learning styles at once.