Yesterday I watched "
Terzake", one of the better Flemish daily TV programmes that reflects on news items. An IT-innovative school was shown in
Keerbergen. They have changed all their blackboards or whiteboards with
Smartboards, an interactive white board on which a projector shines the computer images. I once tried this system, but not for long... The group of teacher trainers I was part of pushed it into the classroom corner after some trials.
There are four reasons I don't like the system:
- It constantly shines on you while you're standing in front of the Smartboard (the image on this pages is less ideal as on the commercial page!). Since my volume is rather XXXL, I'd better wear a white T-shirt, so students can still read the spherized letters on my non-virtual body. Moreover, I can't get an overview of my board since my shadow constantly interferes. I end up dancing in front of the board (like this distant brother of mine...)to avoid standing in front of my information.
- What's more: a screen is made to look at from a distance. Computer screens tend to have higher resolutions, so on the one hand the teacher can't get a good overview and back sitters in bigger classrooms can't read the letters.
- But a bigger problem is the fact that since a teacher is 90% of the time turned towards the students, this means that he/she is constantly looking into the projector's beams. Projectors shoot some 2500 - 3500 ANSI-Lumen nowadays, so I think that this can hurt the teacher's eyes, certainly if you use this system 7 hours a day since you have no alternative!!
- The last remark is that with this tech board teachers tend to think they reach their ICT-goals with the students. They have indeed integrated IT in their lessons. However the aims want students to work with ICT. So they still have to go to the computer classes or the OLC's with students so that they can work actively with IT.
The smartboard - as it is now - is according to me, not very healthy for the teacher, especially if he/she has to work with it constantly. Hopefully the plasma (or newer) technology will evolve quickly so that the interactive board will be back-lit.
Until then I wouldn't want to introduce a Smartboard in our school in such a way that all teachers are obliged to use it.
Labels: computer, ergonomics, presentation, projection, smartboard, technique
Just a picture to show you the state of my working space at school. The blue spaghetti is the incoming cable system which in the coming weeks will connect the server to 36 access points all over the school. From that moment on the whole school will be one big hotspot, and all the teacher's laptops will be connected to the network through it.