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= = = = = = = = = = = = =Smartboards: In the Beginning =

There are 4 steps of confidence that teachers experience after they receive a new smartboard:
 * show movies and videos
 * use a pre-made Notebook lesson for the smartboard
 * modify pre-made lessons
 * develop your own lessons

=What is a SmartBoard?=
 * touch-sensitive
 * one of a variety of interactive whiteboards
 * connects the projector and a computer
 * anything you can do with an overhead, a mouse and a computer, you can do with a Smart Board
 * use it in //any// area of the curriculum
 * does not replace effective teaching

=What's So Great About It?= [| SMARTer Learning with SMARTboards]
 * Chalkboards vs. Smart Boards
 * Management
 * Exciting, Engaging, Motivating - Kids love it, they pay more attention. So do teachers!
 * It reaches and enables children to learn at their own level.
 * Increased interaction between student, teacher, and lesson
 * Encourages questioning and easy to evaluate through demonstration
 * You can save and modify lessons instantly, go back to previous examples, save and print
 * For classrooms with few computers, it reaches all
 * Spontaneous research on the Web during a lesson
 * Building community, collaboration
 * Different learning styles - supports kinesthetic, visual, and auditory learning
 * Any 'point and click' application, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or pages in web browsers such as Safari/Explorer, etc. can be used.

=What are some of the possible challenges?=
 * Know your students; who has low self-confidence or self-esteem, shy, fear of failure, etc.
 * Murphy's Law - It won't work when you need it to.
 * Children may know more than you do - but //is// that a challenge?
 * Access to a Smart Board - be creative and buddy up or borrow when the class isn't there
 * Teacher confidence
 * Professional Development in tough budget years - get creative, look to staff who have experience, use training hours towards recertification