SMARTboards are just that!

I can still hear the gut wrenching sound of nails against a chalkboard. I remember my teacher having a bag full of Expo markers for the white board. Sometimes, I miss those days. However, I LOVE my SMARTboard.  They make lessons more interactive and fun for students and they feel so good about themselves when they get to come up and actually use it.  I do sometimes still miss those days of getting a chalk board and a piece of chalk or a small wipe off board and a marker.  But SMARTboards sometimes really do enhance the teaching we do today.

Lessons are not much more interactive and students can actually move something on the screen. Online learning games can be played as a class now.  There are fun fonts and colors that can be used in SMARTnotebook that students absolutely love (Magic pen anyone???). 

However, in todays age when everything is at the touch of our fingertips, it is still nice to go "back in time" and use a chalkboard or white board every once in a while.

In the beginning of the year, while reviewing how to correctly write numbers and letters with my students, I handed out mini chalkboards and pieces of chalk and play a little "game" with my class. I call out a number, and they need to write it correctly on the board and hold it up. They love it! They don't get something like this too often and its nice to show that you can have fun without technology. I even got the assistant principal in on the fun- the class loved that!

SMARTboards are a fantastic tool for any teacher to use and have fun with however, sometimes I believe it important to get back to basics and for students to remember learning can take place without the technology.

Then again...SMARTboards are pretty cool...