It was pathetic... All of the children were seated around the teacher, who was facing away from them as she moved the book under the camera while she read. Instead of facing the opened book toward the children as she read, the teacher disengaged from the traditionally interactive role and interacted with the technology instead.
Smart boards are not cheap. The cost to install a Smart board in a single classroom can easily approach $5,000. Multiply that by the total number of classrooms in a single school building, and you're looking at close to a quarter million dollars per building.
As I was researching Smart boards, I happened upon a story that perfectly explains their function in the classroom. Tom Chartier titles his story The Stupid Board Needs a Dunce Cap. One paragraph sums his thoughts up nicely:
"However, let’s not go on my opinion alone. I checked in with two experts on classroom learning. The first was noted educational writer and classroom teacher with decades of experience, Linda Schrock-Taylor. She concurs with me. Her view was well put: “When will the schools learn that more manipulatives between the info and the brain causes learning retention problems!” You betcha. Overload the learning brains with stimulus and they will shut down. The more complicated you make the wheel; the more things there are to go wrong. Just go out and look at all the crap under the hood of your cars. Think they’re going to last as long as an air-cooled VW? Nope. Will these $5K Smart Boards last as long as that white board? Nope. How often do you have to trash your computer and buy a new one, every two years? Are Smart Boards subject to the dreaded Blue Screen of Death? How long do you think those Smart Boards are going to hold up before they will need to be sent to the landfill… where they actually belong… and replaced at another huge expense?"
Smart boards are just another example of stupid spending by school districts.
These are comments that obviously come from people who have either never worked in a classroom or have not worked in one for a very long time. I work with a SMART Board daily and taught many years without one. It allows me to use my time more effectively by preparing lessons ahead of time and creating engaging material that will allow the students to interact and play a part in the instruction. If you want to talk about waste, just go look at any school's or office building's paper and toner spending. It's ridiculous!
ReplyDeleteSo before you call something stupid spending, maybe you should base it on more than just your one bad experience in a public non-instructional event.
I agree that Smartboards are a pathetic waste of money, along with Ipads and other technogadgets.
ReplyDeleteTechnology is awesome to a point. It is inappropriate for anyone below 8th grade and in the upper grades should be used sparingly, as anyone with common sense should be able to see for themselves.
My daughter attends a private school with a good reputation and they recently spent megabucks on Smartboards and iPads. It is so true that nothing can replace the human teacher and human interaction. These gadgets are, after all, just techno devices and may have a place in learning, but just a place, nothing more.
My daughter says many kids are playing games on their computers while the teacher thinks they are working on reports.
Power Point? What the heck was all the fuss about that? My daughter says the kids were fascinated with the letters turning circles in the air, but no one was really interested in the material. For myself, I have never attended a Power Point presentation I have ever listened to. Just talk to me with enthusisasm, intelligence, and human eye contact please. Power Points are no more than a computerized version of the old-fashioned overhead projector. We didn't feel a need to use that for everything, did we?
I believe a lot of this hype is generated by corporations who have a vested interest in their gadgets. Unfortunately, the masses cannot think for themselves and many fear getting "left behind". I see many uneducated people using gadgets all the time and I fear the ones getting left behind are our children who are being inundated with too much techno crap.
Do they not already do everything on a screen 24/7? Learning, socializing, communicating, entertainment? What are we thinking???
How many adults do you know that are addicted, yes, addicted, to their screens? I know more than I would like to. Is this human progress?