Promethean boards offer new learning experience for rural
students
Move over chalkboards and step aside overhead projectors. The
newest technology schools are embracing are interactive white
boards
– in the case of the new items at Southside School, Promethean
boards.
Southside School District installed its first Promethean board
over the summer and has installed two more since then.
Promethean boards offer new learning experience for rural students
Move over chalkboards and step aside overhead projectors. The newest technology schools are embracing are interactive white boards – in the case of the new items at Southside School, Promethean boards.
Southside School District installed its first Promethean board over the summer and has installed two more since then.
Interactive white boards are electronic whiteboard writing surfaces, which can capture writing electronically in group presentations and classroom settings, making them ideal for teachers. The interactive white boards typically require a computer.
“This is technology that is definitely making a difference for the student learning environment,” said Eric Johnson, the superintendent and principal of Southside School. “It’s like trying to compare a reel-to-reel tape from the 60s to technology available today…There’s no comparison. Kids want technology in the classrooms and deservedly so. It’s what they’re experiencing at home.”
The Promethean boards have the ability for drag and click access when used with an electronic “pen” known as a stylus. It makes the materials easier to see and interact with. The new technology works like a computer plugged into an overhead projector.
The younger students really enjoy interacting with the boards, Johnson said, as they enjoy being able to physically pull down numbers or letters and drag them around the screen. The boards even go so far as to allow teachers to save lessons from previous days and refer back to them at any point.
If a teacher were teaching a lesson about the Civil War today and she wanted to refer to a previous lesson she’d taught on slavery, all she would have to do is call up that lesson and her notes would be instantly before the students. Likewise, when she is done with the lesson she merely has to drag the materials off the screen and they are gone.
Graphs are especially easy, Johnson said. Just click on the graph option and you instantly have a graph, instead of having to input the data yourself.
If the day ever comes when students are equipped with computers inside the classroom, they could interact with the white board technology, since the Promethean boards are equipped with USB and Bluetooth technology.
“This is great because it puts the technology in the classroom and into the hands of the students,” Johnson said.
But that technology comes at a price. The Promethean boards were priced around $5,000 each, so the school district paid $15,000 for the technology. Some interactive white boards designed for use in upper level classes can cost three times that amount, Johnson said.
Other features of the system include showing videos and DVDs as well as streaming videos from the Internet. Instead of having to bring in a TV cart every time a teacher wants to show a video, now they merely need to switch on the Promethean board and suddenly they have a 60-inch viewing screen, Johnson said. The other advantage is that there are no bad seats, since everyone can see the display equally well.
Patrick O’Donnell can be reached at
po*******@pi**********.com
.
