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# The SMART Board

By Murray Bourne, 16 Sep 2006

I saw the SMART Board interactive whiteboard at ICET (International Conference on Educational Technology) last week.

The product has improved since last time I saw it. It is basically a touch-sensitive board that you write on in "digital ink" (the plastic-tipped pens just press on the board and the software makes it appear that you are writing on the board.) You can use any application that your computer supports, since the board acts as the desktop and all OS operations are available. Pretty clever.

I was not so interested at first in this product because I felt it would just perpetuate the "teacher at front - students listening" paradigm. However, I can see that it does have a lot of interesting collaborative possibilities, since it makes it easier for students to be involved in what is going on at the whiteboard, rather than watching some teacher demonstrate the interactive element. It would have been great when I was using LiveMath to demonstrate mathematical concepts.

There was a demo by a secondary school teacher showing how he uses the board with Google Earth during his classes - it was impressive.

### 2 Comments on “The SMART Board”

1. Jenny Huang says:

Dear Blogger,

Here's another brand of interactive whiteboard (IWB). I would highly recommend that you have a look at them too.

"E-Ink Pte Ltd carries the latest in technology of IWB. With the new technology, it allows higher performance in terms of speed wise (real time data conversion rate), very high resolution, extremely durable and minimal power consumption (no power adapter is required)."

In terms of software applications, they are easily obtainable from multiple sources world wide. Most importantly, IT-Board\'s application is compatible with just any software that runs on Windows.

We are an IT company and often need to run very high end programs during our presentation to our customers and it has worked perfectly well for us as it's claimed speed is so no bull. And we are also using their tablet monitors for our inhouse artwork - very impressive!

Here's the website: [no longer exists] Good luck!

2. Murray says:

Thanks Jenny - I'll check it out.

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