Smartboard

Our IT department arranged a drop in session to demonstrate how to use the smart board. It's quite nifty. All you need is your finger to act as the mouse and enter (tap the board). You have to have the software (Smart notebook & scratchpad) available either on the computer in the room you are working in, or on your laptop. It provides a nice clear screen with no old stains from previous many uses of pens, but I still think that actually, the white board or even the black board has a lot of advantages.

If you use the smart board it seems to me that you have to have done a lot of preparation before so that you know what to bring up, where to find it, what to do with it when it goes wrong, whereas with a blackboard, it's all in your head. Yes, you still have to prepare but you don't have to be distracted, stressed or embarrassed by technology that goes wrong.

Disadvantages of the smart board:

• As a short person though I'm going to have difficulty tapping the top of the board for some functions such as calibrating it, or for the X square if I'm connecting it to the computer.
• The smart software it takes up a lot of space (and as I don't have a laptop...)
• If you're working with kids, they have great fun scribbling over the board.
• The pens get lost.
• The technology doesn't do what you thought it would and you don't know how to sort it out and everybody is watching you.
  

Advantages of a white board or black board

• I can clean either of them myself, especially the blackboard, the pens are cheaper, and chalk is even cheaper and if the kids nick it, their scribbles are easier to remove.
  

OTH, I like the comfort of knowing that I have everything ready and available giving me a means of presenting my programme in preplanned order.