The fashion on decorating a classroom with smart board appeared approximately five years ago. In order to gain the shadow of technologically advanced education institution every university and school bought several smart boards. Also, the state program on informatization was targeted to supply smart board to every school.
The advantages to utilize the technology of smart board were obvious, when I was at Kaplan Language School in Berkeley. The connection to the Internet is good and teachers are well acquainted with all kinds of technology. Every lesson contained today’s information and today’s news. So, the students were discussing topics, which are hot and relevant. The teachers were writing at the boards, deleting parts of the words, along with special i-pack, which was providing interactive methods of presentation grammar and vocabulary. So, the students were very motivated and happy with the content of the lesson.
On the other hand, technology is not always used properly and turns out to be waste of money. The obstacles are observed every time. The first indicator of money waste is that smart board is just a screen for projector, the second indicator is that smart board without internet connection this is just a piece of whiteboard, moreover, too much stress on technology sometimes provoke the situation where technology dominates the content. Also, learning outcomes of students with application of smart board and without smart boards were not compared scholarly to prove the effectiveness and contribution of smart board to learning outcomes.
It is important to follow the wisdom and apply the technology only reasonably. The technology itself does not provide and guarantee the learning outcomes. The technology stimulate motivation, and may interfere the result this way. But, still, do not forget that not learning is the process where very much depends on student.