Expert: Steve Valiquette - 3/2/2009

Question
QUESTION: What are the possible ways in which I could use a SMARTboard (and Notebook software) to demonstrate to teachers how to teach using a SMARTboard in a Biology classroom.

Thanks for your input!
Emily

ANSWER: The SMARTboard is a tool. So basically, you have to envision how to use this particular tool to aid in the classroom. It provides a vivid visual and it is interactive, so I would imagine that it would be important to build a lesson plan that capitalized on those features.

An online resource that minght help is at: http://smarttech.com/Trainingcenter/

I hope this helps!

-- Steve

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: How will the SMARTboard improve students' work when their own classes are primarily labs or hands-on activities? Doesn't using a SMARTboard get away from the 3-D orientation of biology to the two dimensional world that students often find do not accurately depict reality?

Answer
The SMARTboard is an enhancement of the chalkboard of the 20th century. Its integration into a hands-on environment is more beneficial that a static 2-D chalkboard. Here's some points:

- It's interactive.
- It can combine different medias: text, graphics, video, 3-D and more.
- You can provide project demonstrations
- You can respond to data from the hands-on experiments and incorporate it into a dynamic display on the SMARTboard.
- YOu can store and recall different data, different presentations.

This doesn't replace or detract from a dynamic classroom...it enhances by making the chalkboard as dynamic as the classroom itself.

Hope this helps!

-- Steve