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Hey, this is Betsy from Classroom Teacher Resources. Today, I’m going to talk to you
about my smart board.
Hey everybody! So I am lucky enough to have a smart board in my classroom. I got mine
through a grant through my state and district, and I use it for everything I teach in my
classroom. It doesn’t matter the content area, we’re going to have a smart board
lesson that goes with it.
I have a few things that you need to consider if you have a smart board or are getting one.
One of the nice things that my district did is they mounted the projectors on the ceiling
in every classroom that had a smart board, which has been great. You don’t have the
shadow issues nearly as much if your projector is up high and mounted. Some smart boards
do come with swing arms for their projectors up above, which also eliminates a lot of the
shadows. But if you just have a projector sittin' on the desk like I used to have, you
can make that work, too. It’s just a different training for kids about where they need to
stand to be able to see around the shadow.
Other consideration is the height of your smart board. I teach in a fourth-grade classroom
where I have some students who are as tall or taller than me, all the way down to about
one little miss who’s barely four feet tall.
So I had my smart board mounted where even the shortest students can reach the top portion
of the white board area.
You may not have that luxury of being able to decide where your smart board is mounted,
but one great tip for smart boards is that you can shift that tool bar to the top or
to the bottom so your...some of your smaller students can reach it.
You can see my tool bar up here at the top and now I can shift it to the bottom where
my little miss, Tatiana, can actually reach all the tools if she’s up here using the
smart board as well.
Some of the other considerations for smart boards is you need to think about your students
and what expectations you’re going to have for them using it and touching it. I have
to remind my students almost on a daily basis that if this light is on on the smart board,
even if the projector is off, it is still controlling my computer. They...it was quite
a bit of a learning process. They think that if the projector is off, that they can go
ahead and touch it. But several times, they've kind of messed up some things on my computer
because they were just playing with their fingers all over it. So that was a bit of
a learning process.
The greatest things about smart boards is the fact that you can use color, photos, video
and sound so easily integrated in the program like that and those are ways to access different
learning areas in a child’s brain for deeper understanding of the content you’re trying
to teach.
I can’t say enough how the smart board has become so integral to how I teach students.
It is such a great engaging tool to use.
Look for future videos coming up on how I use my smart board in my classroom and some
of the things I do with it.
Hey and if there’s something specific you want to see having to do with smart boards,
write it in on my Classroom Teacher Resources Facebook page, on my website, or just respond
to my Classroom Caboodle newsletter.