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Kim Watkins uses a Smart Board while teaching a class at Pioneer High School.

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February 27, 2010

High-tech boards become interactive teaching tool

By Joe Malan, Staff Writer Enid News and Eagle The Enid News and Eagle Sat Feb 27, 2010, 10:06 PM CST

As more hands-on lessons are incorporated into classrooms around Garfield County, Smart Boards are becoming a significant tool for teachers.

Susan Powell, a math and reading teacher at Cimarron Public Schools, uses a Smart Board for many activities in her fifth- through eighth-grade students.

“It keeps kids interested in what we’re doing,” Powell said.

She uses the Smart Board in her math class to work problems, create quizzes or just leave notes for students.

She can write something with the Smart Board’s “magic pen,” and the words disappear in 10 seconds. That helps the students stay focused, she said.

Smart boards also can be used for many other interactive games, quizzes or puzzles.

“It keeps teachers involved in learning, also,” Powell said. “I can use the Smart Board in different ways to keep my classes going.”

Cimarron Public Schools Superintendent Steve Walker said 98 percent of Cimarron’s classrooms have Smart Boards.

That number will rise to 100 when the school completes a new junior high wing.

Walker said he’s a big fan of the interactive board.

“There’s just so many things you can learn,” he said. “It’s a really great tool.”

At Pleasant Vale Elementary, all 20 classrooms have Smart Boards, said Laura Fuxa, technology specialist at the school. There are eight Smart Boards at Pioneer High School.

The elementary school, Fuxa said, uses the boards in math, English and science courses.

The boards also can be used to view live Internet video and other online materials.

There’s a new tool the elementary school is using, called a Smart Table, which is similar to the Smart Board, except it lies flat like a table.

“It’s a really smart table that has interactive software,” Fuxa said, that allows, for example, students to learn to count change.

The Smart Table is used in kindergarten through second grade.

Chisholm Public Schools Superintendent Roydon Tilley said 73 percent of his classrooms have interactive white boards, a generic name for the Smart technology.

The elementary school uses a Promethean board, the middle school has a Mimio and the high school uses Interwrite.

“The basic functionality is exactly the same,” Tilley said.

Tilley said he hopes all classrooms at Chisholm can have interactive boards.

“They are a phenomenal tool,” he said. “The kids love them. They give you so much flexibility in the classroom ...”

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