Comments on: Not Very Smart

By: Fiona

Fiona — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 22:36:28 +0000

FYI … there is a Smartboard conference being arranged - Queensland SMART Conference at Springfield Lakes State School on 1st and 2nd November 2007.

By: Chris Durante

Chris Durante — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 12:30:27 +0000

Interesting thoughts on the whole Smart presence at the IWB event. I am at a Smart school with 60 odd SmartBoards in K-12 classrooms. I have seen these IWB events align themselves clearly with Promethean, whilst Smart (ie Electroboard in this context) clearly shy away from anything to do with IWBnet. I wish the politics between these two groups would cease because it is people like you and me Chris, and our teachers and students, that are definitely starting to lose out.
Let’s face it, there is no one board that is better than the other. If you get fooled by this argument you should give up. What users want to see is support and communication. This gives them confidence in what they are doing.
I have no beef against IWBnet - they seem a great team, with the one goal in mind, to make better use of this technology in classrooms. I agree with you that Electroboard are shooting themselves in the foot by not having a presence at these events. Okay for me - I am aware of the politics. What about the 450 odd others who aren’t? - end result - they will choose another board. Meanwhile the potential support and collaboration around the product suffers.
If Electroboard is fair dinkum about their product and its potential for learning, they should be embracing the competition and realise the win-win opportunity that exists.

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 04:24:14 +0000

G’day, yes I had a little play with Easiteach recently. First impression was that I couldn’t get over how awful it looked considering it is trying to compete in a very competitive market. It played for a while, but didn’t really bother persevering with it once I saw their proprietary looking interface. I like the concept of a generic IWB software app that will run on any board, but you’re right… yuck!
Also, it didn’t appear to come in a Mac version, which is certainly a deal-breaker for me.
Still I should probably go back and spend some more time playing with it, because I’m sure I will eventually need to know about it to assist others.

By: seastar6

seastar6 — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 01:02:16 +0000

Hi Chris, I just had two weeks experience using easiteach. YUCK. I just didn’t ‘gel’ with it, it felt clumsy and awkward, and often had technical difficulties (yet to be determined if they were user error…).
I much prefer my limited experience with smartboard.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 15:00:55 +0000

Possibly. Although if Smart were a bit more forthcoming about being involved, perhaps it may not have ended up being a Promethean sponsored event… It may have been a Smart sponsored event. I’m sure they would have been given the opportunity if they wanted it. Guess we’ll never know.
I suppose I’m just a bit annoyed that I have been a big Smartboard fan for a long time now, and I felt like I needed to apologise for them all weekend because they weren’t there.

By: Cael MacLeod

Cael MacLeod — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 14:42:54 +0000

Not saying it’s true, but maybe smart isn’t welcome at a promethean sponsored event…

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 12:34:22 +0000

Great idea John… a “bloggers cafe”, a-la NECC, sounds like a great idea. PowerUp sounds like a plan. I might have a chat to the organisers are see if we can do something along those lines. I was thinking of recording a Virtual Staffroom there too, maybe as an actual session to show how to do it. Perhaps the two ideas could be combined?

PS, I think this comment is the tipping point! This blog has 152 posts and this, I think, is the 152nd comment! Yay! (Pity it was me who made it!)

By: John P

John P — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 12:27:08 +0000

Hi Chris,
There are a few other people that I would have loved to catch up with on the weekend to but missed out. Maybe we need to take a leaf out of the folk who went to NECC in the states early in this year and try and arrange a meeting on the side of conferences such as IWBnet. A breakout room would be neat though we might need to advertise if through our prospective blogs and oz-teachers and the like. Powerup??? etc
Cheers John P

By: Brett Moller

Brett Moller — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 06:24:01 +0000

Thanks for your thoughts Chris,

I understand your interest in these devices and can see that you both use them in what seems to be interesting ways. I agree that we can get students using the boards and interacting with them… However, one central device means one student at a time… If budget was never a question I would certainly have one simply for some of the activities you mentioned. However, budget is always an issue and the value for money on learning is what we need to have some serious discussion about…. I will write more about this in a later post…. Personally for $8000 I would much prefer 4 - 6 laptops that I could disperse to groups of students. The laptop and “connected” devices are much better learning tools than an IWB. The IWB is a great tool for the thoughts you have shared but I don’t see why a school would spend $100,000 on IWB’s?!?! I am assuming that is the money you are spending on just the hardware - not including PD? If so I would be screaming for the money to be spent on a well thought through 1 to 1 program. The research is certainly out there that shows how a 1 to 1 program can improve learning (NOT test scores - well they might - real teachers just don’t convince themselves that good test scores = learning) and I fail to see any credible research that can match up for IWB’s. If I was in a position to launch a technology integration program that would make a difference to learning, I would spend it on a 1 to 1 program with a huge amount of PD for staff.

More in a further post I think as this is getting far to long….

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 04:15:32 +0000

Hi Brett… I didn’t know you were there, wish I had so we could have said G’day in person. I read you blog post and certainly agree with much of what you say. I was the world’s biggest sceptic when I first saw IWBs and for a long time saw most of the value they offered as being in the data projector far more than the board, and in many ways I still do think that. However, after having taught with them for a while, I do agree that they change the classroom dynamic in a positive way. Sure, they are not a panacea for every problem even though they are sometimes marketed as such. One of the problems with them, as I noted in one of my sessions on the weekend, is that if your only tool is a hammer then everything looks like a nail. It bothers me sometimes that the IWB is often touted as the solution to everything. It’s not. It makes some things better, some things it doesn’t really change, and others it probably makes worse. Ultimately it comes down to the skill and insight of the teacher to use this (or any) technology in a meaningful way. Give an IWB to a good teacher and she will do wonderful things with it, give it to a lousy teacher and he will completely balls it up. Like any technology, it’s use is generally quite neutral until someone applies it.
There is still, IMHO, a place for teachers who teach. I’m greatly into a constructivist approach to learning, but I think there are still times when the quickest way from A to B is for a teacher to show/explain it. Obviously we still have too many teachers for whom this is the only way to teach, and that’s a shame.
Good posts though… thought provoking and well worth reading. Thanks for sharing.