Savvy on SMART Boards

FOR THE RECORD: ************A caption in the April 22 story “Savvy on SMART Boards” should have said teacher Melanie Kos was using one of the original SMART Boards bought at Joseph R. Perry Elementary School.**********

Joseph R. Perry Elementary School may be in the “tail end” of equipping classrooms with SMART Boards in Huntington Beach, said Principal Monique Van Zeebroeck. But the school’s PTA was proud to announce that enough money was raised to bring in more technology.

“We’re still trying to get quotes on them,” Van Zeebroeck said. “But we are hoping to have purchased them by the end of this school year.”

The PTA’s March Scholastic book fair raised about $6,000, enough to buy three more SMART Boards.

Melanie Kos, one of five teachers at Perry to have a SMART board, was one of the first teachers at the school to receive the technology two years ago after receiving a grant through the Huntington Beach Educational Foundation. She said she has seen improvements in the way her classes participate and behave during class time when using the SMART Board.

“Certain lessons can be boring to some students,” Kos said. “But the technology keeps them motivated and actively engaged.”

When standing alone, the SMART Board may appear to be a traditional white board, but when synchronized with a computer or laptop, the touch-screen board activates, allowing navigation through the tap of a finger or stylus.

Multiple functions and options are also available, whether it’s showing a video, recording sound or even taking a screen shot. Students who have been absent can be kept up-to-date.

On Monday, Kos used the SMART Board by presenting a slide show full of pictures, animation and games as a supplement for her geology lesson to her second-graders. Students watched animations of rock formations and practiced distinguishing different types of rocks as they went up to the board to drag a picture of a rock into its appropriate category.

Kos said one of the biggest benefits of the SMART Board is that it channels learning to all types of students who come from different language backgrounds.

“It doesn’t matter what type of English-speaking student they are, no one is confused by what they are supposed to see,” she said. “Some students won’t understand maybe a word at first, but once they see the pictures and are able to come up to the board to show what they know, they are learning.”

While the advanced technology proves to be a great learning tool, Kos said glitches still occur and the traditional white board is far from being obsolete.

“The SMART Board enriches our curriculum, but I don’t use it more than I use my white board,” she said. “There is always an unpredictability with the system and its connection.”

Kos said the technology can get complicated and some teachers may choose to continue using only traditional white boards.

“It’s not just about touching the screen or getting it set up,” she said. “You’d also need to know how to troubleshoot it and work with the different components that come with the board.”

Still, Van Zeebroeck hopes to outfit all of her classrooms with a SMART Board by 2012. The distribution of the incoming SMART Boards is still undecided.

“Maybe we’ll draw a raffle,” she said.