Smartboards | Imamother

teachkids ↓

Thu, Aug 01 2024, 9:37 am

I don't understand your question.

You're questioning why education had to get more flashy as the outside world got more flashy?

Or why we switched to projecting work on the board instead of having Morah/Rebbe waste time writing it while children were expected to sit quietly and wait.

Or why we bother writing things at all as we learn more about kids who struggle with auditory processing.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Thu, Aug 01 2024, 9:40 am

teachkids wrote:

Mainly this “why education had to get more flashy as the outside world got more flashy?”

↑ teachkids ↓

Thu, Aug 01 2024, 9:44 am

amother OP wrote:

Mainly this “why education had to get more flashy as the outside world got more flashy?”

Because the world out there is flashy and instead of being taught to sit and focus with a toy or art project as toddlers and preschoolers they're being thrown from one thing to the next and are used to the feedback so they come to expect it. Really though, smart boards, unless you're showing videos all day (which is awful education) aren't actually engaging the kids THAT differently than old fashioned education, it just eases prep on the teacher that they don't have to fuss with transparencies, and printouts of props that they have to cut and laminate, and tons and tons of writing on the board with their back to the class.

I'm wondering what's sparking this question for you, and what your role is (new teacher, aid, disgruntled parent etc)

amother

↑ OP ↓

Thu, Aug 01 2024, 9:49 am

teachkids wrote:

I’m a parent of young children ages 11 and younger and I feel the blue light may not be healthy for this kids to look at all day. Sometimes the teacher turns the lights off to show the board etc. also my kids have seen videos that they shouldn’t have seen as it’s so easy to have a mishap on a smart board

amother

Junglegreen

Thu, Aug 01 2024, 9:52 am

amother OP wrote:

I have quite a few students who bring blue light glasses to school.

So then the teacher needs to prepare videos better- but this was a problem with projectors too

amother

Aster

Thu, Aug 01 2024, 9:54 am

I also find that instead of coming up with something to fill those last 10 minutes of class that are "lost" the teacher just shows a video. I remember all these fun educational games we would play when we finished early, we loved it. I get it, it's easier on the teacher to just show a video but...

I don't care that it's just Marvelous Middos Machine or the likes, my son has never watched a video at home. Why is he being introduced to this at school? He is still talking about the videos that he watched months ago. This is probably the biggest impression left on him from the whole school year.

amother

Plum ↓

Thu, Aug 01 2024, 10:01 am

Showing videos is an issue period. No teacher should be showing videos for entertainment.

But smart boards are an incredible learning tool and when used effectively can be a game changer for certain subjects

icedcoffee

Thu, Aug 01 2024, 10:02 am

As a teacher, I rely heavily on my smartboard, not because it's flashy but because it's a great tool. For example if we're practicing annotation, I can display a poem on the board and have students come up and show the class how they annotate. Or I can model how I would closely read a passage and mark it up. I don't show videos for fun or to kill time, but there are many other very valuable things I can do on a smartboard that I can't on a blackboard.

amother

↑ OP

Thu, Aug 01 2024, 10:03 am

amother Aster wrote:

This is what I mean but you articulated it so eloquently thank you. Why are us parents sitting ducks while we pay thousands for our kids to be introduced to videos. I would rather the school day be shorter then have such narishkeit. Honestly. What happened to music in schools? I feel at times we are conventional cattle just putting our kids on a conveyor belt and numbing them. Props to the amazing menalachim, I know they do exist. But for the majority of kids…

↑ teachkids

Thu, Aug 01 2024, 10:33 am

amother Aster wrote:

So then this is a teacher issue.
Possibly related to schools preferring to hire cheap sem graduates instead of trained and experienced teachers.

I've had a smart board in my classroom for years, and the only class I show videos in on a regular basis is Hebrew language class where it's part of the curriculum to get them used to hearing the language from a native speaker.

amother

Arcticblue

Thu, Aug 01 2024, 11:54 am

Smartboards are extremely helpful and impactful on education. As a teacher I absolutely love smartboards and not for showing videos... Having the ability to display the pesukim as you teach chumash (even when students have their chumashim open in front of them), being able to change the background to graph paper for math, a word web for English, or any graphic organizer is an extremely useful educational tool. Not only that, but having the ability to save your work onto the board to be revisited at the beginning of the next lesson is game changing. I could go on and on about smartboards. I do think some teachers can use smartboards as a crutch, hence the filler videos. A good teacher makes sure that their lesson works with or without a smart board as they can malfunction. It's there as a tool and has so many benefits when used properly.

amother

Lightcyan

Thu, Aug 01 2024, 12:12 pm

As the other posters have said, smartboards can be a great teaching aid. The issues of watching videos sounds more like a teacher issue than a smartboard issue. My children have smartboards in their classrooms and they don't get to watch videos. Occasionally they will watch something educational-like a video of matza bakery before pesach, that sort of thing.