Greenfield Elementary second grade teacher Dana Ducklow is one of the teachers who has had an interactive SMART Board installed in her classroom.As technology marches on, schools strive to keep up. At Baldwin-Woodville Schools some new technology has just been installed at all three schools.
SMART Boards, computer interactive whiteboards, have been installed in all three educational buildings in the B-W district.
According to Lisa Magnuson, B-W's Technology-Curriculum Director/Technician, 13 of the SMART Boards have been installed in classrooms at the High School, Viking Middle School and Greenfield Elementary.
"It's very exciting because the world now becomes our classroom," said Magnuson. She said a class studying the art in the Louve Museum can go to the Louve web site and take a guided tour. Geometry can be taught in 3-D and manipulated on screen. "I think it's going to become an indispensable teaching tool.
The SMART Boards not only communicate with the teacher's computer and displays the computer screen, but also allows touch operation of the computer from the board. All that takes place on the board can be saved on the computer for review. For instance, said Magnuson, a lesson could be posted to a teacher's web site and someone who was absent could see what was covered in class. The computer screen is projected to the whiteboard by a projector installed in the ceiling.
There have been five SMART Boards installed at Greenfield, one for each grade level; four at Viking; and four at the High School, one of which is a mobile unit.
At Greenfield Elementary second grade teacher Dana Ducklow has a SMART Board installed in her classrooms and students have already been learning from them. She said her students have been actively learning from the SMART Board and enjoy it and she and the students are learning from each other.
Each of the SMART Boards cost between $4,000 and $5,000, including installation. They were purchased from and installed by a company called Computer Integrated Technology of Woodbury, Minn.
