Day 26 - 4/22/10

I've learned a lot from my experiences with SmartBoards. They can be a great resource, but they can also be a pain to find activities that both utilize SmartBoards and are actually worthwhile and more than a gimmick for the SmartBoard software. I think that it's important to have an actual reason to use SmartBoards rather than trying to shove them into every lesson, because there are a lot of activities out there dealing with every subject that aren't really worth the time. It is also important to know how to use these activities. With the frog dissection SmartBoard activity, I think it would serve best as a pre-activity leading up to the actual dissection, rather than to be used instead of an actual frog dissection in a biology class. Overall though, I think they are very convenient. Even just the basic functions of the SmartBoard (writing in different colors, erasing, correcting student work, hiding things, etc.) that come with the SmartBoard itself would be a huge convenience for a teacher, and would replace the need for a dry-erase board or overhead projector among other things.