Active board/smart board use

Tom Dunne · 09-07-2013 4:50pm #1

Just a quick, non-scientific survey on how many schools actually have smartboards/activeboards.

I'm doing a lot of reading on technology in education and curious to know how prevalent they are in Ireland.

Crazyteacher · 09-07-2013 5:25pm

In most classrooms I've subbed in yes. But you'd get the odd few that dont.

whiteandlight · 09-07-2013 10:36pm

All my schools I've subbed in. Use of them varies wildly. Current school one teacher who uses smart board for all lessons and me using iPad/apple TV to make it a smart board. There are several others but none being utilised on our scale that I know of.

Sorry should have said all classrooms have data projectors and these are widely used by all teachers.

spurious · 09-07-2013 10:57pm

Mostly we just have whiteboards and projectors.

Moody_mona · 09-07-2013 11:48pm

All our maths rooms have smart boards, other classrooms have projector. I feel I use my smart board as a projector over 90% of the time.

Pwpane · 10-07-2013 11:59am

What's a smart board??

teach88 · 10-07-2013 2:42pm

Overrated I feel.

RealJohn · 10-07-2013 3:11pm

Moody_mona wrote: »

All our maths rooms have smart boards, other classrooms have projector. I feel I use my smart board as a projector over 90% of the time.

I'm the same to be honest. Handy for being able to pick up where I left off or go back to anything I've already covered easily though.

doctorwhogirl · 10-07-2013 3:26pm

Mostly whiteboards and overhead projectors but we also have the software of a smart board and a pen to make them interactive. Only have two of the fancy ones.

Crazyteacher · 10-07-2013 5:44pm

Ok so I'll change my answer to mostly ordinary whiteboards and data projectors (here's me thinking that was a smart board).

whiteandlight · 10-07-2013 7:02pm

I didn't vote coz I wasn't sure if you count projector/apple TV/ipad as a smartboard

Crazyteacher · 10-07-2013 7:45pm

What's Apple TV like ?

whiteandlight · 10-07-2013 7:56pm

Crazyteacher wrote: »

What's Apple TV like ?

I love it but that's coz I'm into the iOS platform. I have an ipad and mac so Apple TV is a very easy addition to make both work through the projector at a simple swipe. No cables!

solerina · 11-07-2013 9:42am

We have smart boards in practically every room in our school...I dont know anyone who uses them as more than a white board...I think they are a total waste of money !!! School should have bought ordinary white boards and invested the money in other more useful IT resources (imo).

RealJohn · 11-07-2013 2:08pm

solerina wrote: »

We have smart boards in practically every room in our school...I dont know anyone who uses them as more than a white board...I think they are a total waste of money !!! School should have bought ordinary white boards and invested the money in other more useful IT resources (imo).

In fairness, I know we got some sort of grant specifically for IWBs so your school might not have had a choice.

Chris68 · 11-07-2013 3:36pm

The grants weren't specifically for IWBs. At second level anyhow. Schools had to first purchase PCs and projectors for every classroom. If they had money left over they could go for interactivity but they had to target the maths classrooms first.

Tom Dunne · 11-07-2013 4:18pm

Pwpane wrote: »

What's a smart board??

Same thing, really, at least for the purposes of my inquiry.

Musicmental85 wrote: »

I didn't vote coz I wasn't sure if you count projector/apple TV/ipad as a smartboard

Not really, I'm just looking to get an idea of the actual devices.

The reason I ask is that I am taking a module on technology in education and the overwhelming message appears to be that there is no evidence to suggest that technology makes a difference in education. Most of the literature I am looking at is of course related to the UK, so the purpose of this was to get a (admittedly unscientific) idea on how things were in Ireland.

One particular piece of research looks specifically at whiteboards and comes to the same conclusion. As a side note, the guy who undertook the research is now being shunned by the UK Dept. of Education and is no longer receiving and research grants.

whiteandlight · 11-07-2013 4:42pm

Well I know that my parents and students love the approach in maths. All my lessons are uploaded to edmodo and they talk to me/each other online about the work. None of them forgot SOHCAHTOA after watching a video "song" about it

implausible · 11-07-2013 5:54pm

All rooms have data projectors and there are two smartboards in the school. Use powerpoint, notes on word and I upload photos of handwritten notes/diagrams from the board to Dropbox to reuse.

Pwpane · 12-07-2013 10:22pm

I'm still not sure what you mean by 'smart board'.

We have data projectors shining on ordinary white boards. We have no IWBs that I know of. As teachers don't have their own rooms it can be very awkward to use the projectors with setting up etc so a lot of us don't bother.

solerina · 13-07-2013 10:30pm

Pwpane wrote: »

I'm still not sure what you mean by 'smart board'.

We have data projectors shining on ordinary white boards. We have no IWBs that I know of. As teachers don't have their own rooms it can be very awkward to use the projectors with setting up etc so a lot of us don't bother.

smart boards are interactive..kind of touchscreen which can do various things...(if you can figure out how to use some of them !!)..look up cleverboard...its one make I know of

Active board/smart board use

Do you have a smatboard/active board in your classroom? 17 votes

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