SMART+BOARDS

(From SMART's website) "the SMART Board interactive whiteboard that combines a flexible pen-and-finger system with legendary ease of use. With a state-of-the-art design housed in classic interactive whiteboard styling, the SMART Board 600 series interactive whiteboard provides adaptable, dependable and intuitive interactive capabilities."

SMART Boards are becoming widely used in Webster Central school district, and have generated considerable interest among teachers and students alike. A typical classroom installation consists of a ceiling mounted projector, a wall mounted SMART Board, and a personal computer (laptop or desktop) conected to the projector via a VGA cable and to the Smart Board via a bluetooth USB dongle. At it's most basic level, a Smart Board allows users to use their finger and/or "pens" to control the personal computer from the front of their classroom by tapping or drawing on the interactive screen (put simply, with a Smart Board, "your finger becomes your mouse"). The most popular software used with the Smart Board hardware however is SMART's own "Notebook" software, which allows teachers and ststudents to create, edit, and run presentations and activities, as well as take and store notes as they might on a typical chalkboard or whiteboard (the advantage being that the notes are savable, and can include rich content from external sources.

The Instructional Technology staff is providing a series of workshops to help teachers become comfortable with (and to strategically use) all the great features of the software and hardware. More information on upcoming workshops can be found on the IDC

Additional resources, training materials, and teacher-created templates can be found at []. [] .