Using her finger as a computer mouse, Joan Lamkey draws an equation on her Smart Board.
Photo by Marilyn Silverstein
September 9, 2008
When the new semester’s school bell rang at Abrams Hebrew Academy in Yardley, Pa., last week, it was time to get Smart.
For the first time, the Jewish day school is offering its 104 middle school students interactive electronic whiteboards.
The Smart Board, a creation of Ottawa-based Smart Technologies, updates the classic classroom black board by linking it seamlessly with a computer.
“We have two — one for the math room and one for the social studies room,” said math teacher Joan Lamkey as she led a guest into the classroom of middle school social studies teacher Leslie Kornsgold. “This is called the Smart Notebook.”
Lighting up Kornsgold’s classroom was a Smart Board with images of America’s first 13 colonies. On a ledge at the bottom of the board were four electronically sensitive pens — in black, red, green, and blue — and an electronically sensitive eraser.
Lamkey approached the board and, using her finger as a computer mouse, opened up an Internet page, highlighted text, dropped down a menu, double-clicked on a tool from the floating toolbox, and dragged an icon across the screen. She wrote an equation on the screen, drew a box around it, and, as if by magic, the Smart Board read her handwriting and transformed it into standardized print.
“It recognizes my handwriting, so I can actually do notes, box it, and make it very easy for the children to read,” she said.
“It’s interactive,” said Kornsgold. “What makes it smart is that when we touch the board, it responds. The nice thing about this is that it brings all our elements together.
“As a teacher, you want to keep it fresh, and this is going to do it.”
With the Smart Board, teachers will be able to call up a page from their textbooks or the keyboards of their computers. They can access the Internet, play a DVD, draw an interactive map, show a film, plot a graph, track homework assignments, e-mail a lesson to a child at home, or hold videoconferences with sites around the world.
“It’s a multimedia center,” said Kornsgold.
As the teachers put the Smart Board through its paces, Rabbi Ira Budow, head of school at Abrams, walked into the classroom to watch.
“This is pretty cool,” he said. “I’m going to put it in science, too. You can do experiments in front of the class.”
Budow said that he first learned about Smart Boards at a workshop last spring, during the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education convention in Boston.
“They demonstrated it and said this is the best way kids can learn,” he said, “and that’s what I’m in business for. We are in the business of giving state-of-the-art education. I’m into trying to be ahead of the curve, and that’s what we’re doing here.”
Plans are to introduce the $1,800 Smart Boards gradually to more and more of Abrams’ classrooms, eventually bringing the interactive whiteboards to most of the school’s 300 students, according to Budow.
“I’m convinced that kids like learning this way,” he said. “This is their digital world. You see how quick this is. Kids are going to have fun, and they’re going to learn a lot.”
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