Technology in the Classroom

Last week in Math 371 we got the opportunity to practice with a SMARTboard and a Promethean board.

We were able to take turns, try new things, and teach each other useful techniques. One beneficial trick that one of the students taught the rest of the class was a quick way to erase the SMARTboard. If you take the eraser and make a circle around what you desire to erase and simply touch inside the circle it disappears. When working with the Promethean board the toughest part is writing on the pad because you can only see what you’re writing on the Promethean board. Overall as the class worked more and more with the boards it was clear that everyone slowly became more comfortable using them. Over the course of this semester that seems to be the theme with all the technology the more you work with it the more you perfect it.  

While we were practicing with the boards we discussed amongst each other about using these devices in the classroom. One thing that we all agreed on is that sometimes technology will malfunction and as educators we need to have a backup plan for these instances.  Teachers cannot afford to waste an entire day in the classroom, so we need to make sure that were not overly dependent on technology. As a class we also discussed how technology is always upgrading and we need to be able to keep up with it. This is a frustration that all teachers are going to have to deal with; like getting use to a SMARTboard over the course of a few a years’ then getting something entirely new.

I think the lesson that all the Math 371 students learned was not to get frustrated but rather keep practicing and spending time before you teach a lesson.  Also a key point we learned while practicing with the two boards or any type of technology for that matter is to locate the undo bottom right away. When a person is playing around with technology there is going to be a time when they get themselves into a bad situation.  I find it important for all educators and future educators to understand that they will have to use technology and it will be constantly changing, it is going to be interesting to see how classrooms change in the future. 

By Spenser Kipfer