It's a Really Expensive Piece of Equipment, Fred

Since the end of the election season last fall, I've been missing the SNL political sketches. In a word -- hysterical. Amy Poehler shooting a moose dead in front of the real Sarah Palin? Fred Armisen as Barack Obama engaging a miniature, imaginary Joe the Plumber during one of the debates? Tina Fey? Are you kidding me? As the kids say, "lol!"

One particular episode highlighted a segment that made fun of the growing trend of using Smartboards as part of network and cable news coverage. It pointed out how mesmerized everyone has become by the technology, and how we seem to have forgotten that it's the content that matters. It made me think about how we use technology here in schools.



Lately, just like the news networks, we've also been installing Smartboards to enhance our deliveries, but I have to say, I'm not a big fan. It's not because I don't think they're a great tool - they are. It's just that in a school setting, they're often not really used to their potential. In fact, I'd bet in most cases, teachers are using their Smartboards as fancy $3000 screens to project a PowerPoint, show a video clip, or surf through a few web sites. That's not Smartboard technology - that's projector technology. What are people doing with their Smartboards that they can't already do with a notebook computer and a projector?

In my classroom, I opted to go with an Avervision 280 document camera and an NEC projector. Pointed down at my teaching table, the document camera shows whatever I put underneath - text from a handout or a book, notes that I write, student work that I want to share, or demonstrations that students make. In that sense it works like a combination of an overhead and an opaque projector. It also has VGA inputs so I can plug in my laptop and show what's on my screen - the Internet, Word documents, pictures, video - what have you. I have a VCR and a DVD connected to the projector so that I can show film clips, instructional videos, live television, and video feeds from the library. I can easily move between all of these with the press of a button, and I can do it at roughly one quarter of the cost of a Smartboard. Tell me I can't do anything with this setup that someone can do with a Smartboard - except maybe draw a green cat on the screen with my finger.