Enid classrooms using SMART Board technology
By Tippi Rasp, Staff Writer CNHI News Service
– When teachers at Coolidge Elementary School first got their SMART Boards they knew the technology would minimize paper waste and provide easy-to-see lessons.
Not all of them realized the boards would provide students with the tools to keep them out of trouble and educators a time-saving teaching tool.
“It holds their interest and we have less discipline problems,” fifth-grade teacher Kim Brittain said. Coolidge Principal Clark Koepping said he hasn’t had a student sent to the office for discipline during SMART Board lessons since the technology was installed earlier this spring.
The SMART Boards, teachers say, are keeping students focused and engaged in their lessons. Brittain said test scores went up dramatically since she began using the boards.
Brittain says she scans worksheets at home and e-mails them to herself at school to use with her SMART Board. More than a dozen classrooms are using SMART Board technology, a large interactive board that functions as a personal computer but is large enough for everyone to see and easy enough for small hands to navigate. Users press the board’s touch-sensitive surface to access and control any computer application.
Users can access and create pretty much anything a PC can, but district officials use filters to make sure only appropriate material is accessed.
A projector is mounted to the ceiling and is wired to a high-speed Internet connection. Each SMART Board costs about $3,300, and other districts around the county also use them, although no other district in the county uses as many as the Enid elementary school.
Koepping said the PTA put up the majority of the SMART Boards, and the school helped with the remainder of the cost.
The 13 SMART Boards are peppered throughout the school, including those installed in three of the four first-grade classrooms.
Koepping said a lot of schools buy one or two SMART Boards and teachers check them out when they want to use them. But, he said, moving the temporary set-ups from classroom to classroom is hard on the technology. Koepping said he hopes to have one SMART Board in each classroom in his school in four years.
First-grade teacher Susan States said she used the technology at Dover Public Schools last year and she was happy she was able to get a SMART Board this year. “It wouldn’t have happened without Mr. Koepping,” States said.
The new technology at Coolidge includes two Airliners, or wireless, portable boards to use in conjunction with SMART Boards.
The library has the use of one and Koepping purchased another one for the school to use. “To me, the potential is endless,” Koepping said. “Every time I see something, I imagine the possibilities.”
Koepping said the systems come with software upgrades and tech support for the life of the equipment. ProPresenters, of Norman, installed them.
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