This post is a comment on a fellow student’s post in the discussion thread of week 3.

Surely, the use of the SB is offering some great potential for the younger ones.  On your question:”Is use of technology, such as a SmartBoard, actually improving learning concepts, or is this an assumption rooted in passionate beliefs of the teacher?” I am undecided as if SB are the change in learning.  I do believe that it might have been a trend and now it’s something else.  Maybe it was an assumption rooted in passionate beliefs of the teacher.  Vi Coulter (2013) stated that classroom dynamics are evolving quickly and so must teacher pedagogy.  The tools used for teaching are very diverse and SB is one of them.  As pen and paper, if the pedagogy remains the same as it was before, it doesn’t make a change.  Bleecker (2007) in his paper noted, from a research in UK, that smartboards produce no statistically appreciable difference in achievement among girls and boys.  What do engage learners more with the SmartBoards?

In my own classroom, students love to go click on the SB, but they are not eager to run in front of the class to manipulate something on the wall.  We have SB in every classroom (Grant for government in past years) and they have been in contact with them for since Kindergarden. It is not new anymore, it is just there.  Some teachers are using them while others aren’t anymore.  There is so much more tools available online in a collaborative environment that I found it is more beneficial to my students that way.  I can see their enthousiasm when they log in to MathAmaze in groups and challenge themselves, or when they go on NetMathsto complete lessons I sent them.  I can also see them all excited when we look at YouTube videos on crime scenes or forensic science games.  It is my belief.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Reference:

Bleecker, J. (2007). An Analysis of Smartboards: Catalysts for Pedagogical Change? Technology in               the Mathematics and Science Classroom.                                               Retrieved from: http://www.chss.sd57.bc.ca/~jbleecker/ETEC533/Papers/Unit_A/bleecker_framing_issues.rtf

Coulter, B. V., & Bozeman, M. (2013). The Effects of the Integration of Interactive Technology,                   Specifically the SmartBoard and CPS Clickers on Student Understanding of Scientific                   processes.  Retrieved from:

http://scholarworks.montana.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1/2769/CoulterB0813.pdf?sequence=1