What Can I Do with a SMART Board?

The Literacy Minnesota training room has a SMART Board in it. The training team went through training and orientation about how to use it many months ago.

Unfortunately, I rarely use it as anything but a projector. I decided it was time to change that and I found inspiration by searching for #smartboard on Twitter. That search led me to a blog called Teachers Love SMART Boards with an entire list of comments by educators about how wonderful the SMART Board is.

Here are some highlights:

• J Wykoff says “With very little training, a student can actually lead the class in a discussion using the SMART Board, making notes and recording ideas that the class develops.”
• Cic8da says “The SMART Board enables you to do Word Study exercises that allow students to move letters and words around without the anxiety of making a mistake.”
• Anonymous says “The SMART Board allows my students to act like CEOs presenting their ideas or projects.”
• mbkoger says “A SMART Board allows me to bring the world to my students. The playing field is leveled; students can travel the world and interact with experts in the field.”
• Kathleen says “I love that I can teach a lesson and then play it back for the students that were out of the classroom at the time.”
• Cindy says “I love that I could introduce new websites to my students and guide them in exploring the site as a whole group before they use it independently.”
• Becky A says “What better way can a teacher demonstrate the concept of lifelong-learning? My students grow from watching me learn new ways to use my SMART Board.”

These quotes got me thinking about ways to use a SMART Board in the classroom. Here are a few of those ideas:

• Use the SMART Board instead of a whiteboard to write notes and exercises, save the notes, and then post them on a class wiki or email them so that students can refer to them later. This is great for review or for absent students.
• Teach students to take notes on the SMART Board instead of having the teacher take the notes.
• Use online quizzes and activities that students would normally do in a computer lab. By having students touch the board to select their answers, the games are more fun. Students can form teams and take turns at the board.
• After students complete tasks in small groups, invite a presenter from each group to use the SMART Board to share their results. Students can write notes, make drawings, show photographs, and use other SMART Board features.
• Invite the class to explore a new website before asking students to go to that site in a computer lab setting.

What if you don’t have a SMART Board?

Many of the inspiring ideas I found were focused on making lessons more student centered, which is something every instructor can do.

In addition, some of the ideas above can be implemented without a SMART Board. Students can use a whiteboard to be note takers for the class or present results of small group work. Notes and ideas on the board can be saved and shared using a digital camera.