Smarboard spinoff...

Those of you who use SmartBoards- how regularly do you use them?

What's going through my mind now is...what if you have this great lesson planned and the thing craps out on you?

Right now I can see myself using it constantly and I'm just worried of that moment. I know we always have to have a backup plan...I guess I'll have to make actual physical manipulatives for those moments (yikes, like it's not taking long enough just making the smart board lessons!).

So....I'm curious- has your SmartBoard ever crashed on you during a lesson? Any technical problems I should be forewarned about?

TIA!

Re: Smarboard spinoff...

i use mine pretty much daily. It has never totally crapped out on me.

My biggest issue is that mine is not mounted on the wall, so the laptop is on a cart and the board is on wheels. you can lock them both but they still get bumped into. when that happens it misaligns the board and when you go to write on it or touch it, everything is off, so then you have to realign it. It is not the biggest deal, but it is annoying.

The other main issues is that it is hard for the kids to write on it and you can't have more than one student writing on it at once. So i use my blackboard for that.

The last thing is when students copy the notes. If you have students that are slow, you can't advance to the next screen until they are all finished. I find that this can hold up the lesson. But it is nice that all the notes are written out for you in advance.

Re: Smarboard spinoff...

The only problem I've found is the color is not true to life...never had it crap out on me though.

Re: Smarboard spinoff...

yes i have... and you just have t ogo with the flow. there are times where i have had the kids do a worksheet, or i just used the blackboard, or i said, let's stop and went back to it later.

you'll see that the projector is not happy when the color, like Sweet Cin starts fading... that means you need new bulbs. turning if off when you're NOT using it really helps... saves energy and saves the bulbs which are very expensive. i see teachers that leave the board on all day..the kids are at lunch and gym and the board is still on!

also, often the smartboard needs to be recalibrated. you will noticed this when you or the kids go to tap on it for a command (like clicking a mouse) and it doesn't do anything..... there is a command on the smartboard that let's you recalibrate, which helps it be mroe sensitive to the commands... it's like a refresh or re-start command.

Re: Smarboard spinoff...

I had mine for about half of this school year and it never failed me... I used it daily... I have to re-orient it sometimes, especially when the little kids are using it for some reason... other than that, I only keep it on when necessary, and haven't had it crap out on me totally... I recently noticed that the color is off... but I'm hoping that doesn't mean we need a new bulb... how often does a bulb need replacement??

Re: Smarboard spinoff...

I use mine almost every day. I teach foreign language. Sometimes, it is not a set "smartboard lesson". At times, I will just use it to write out the notes (so that I can print them for the kids that are absent), or have them write the homework answers, or have a bunch of sentences on there that they are going to translate, or have a picture posted that they can talk about.

Re: Smarboard spinoff...

I am set to get one in my room for September... I have had minimal use on it and haven't been trained much on it. Can I teach myself??

Re: Smarboard spinoff...

I do not have one in my classroom, but I do use the LCD projector everyday in my classroom everyday and will show videos clips and what not. My advice always have a back up worksheet in case something happens. This has been so important for me at least since our server likes to not work

Re: Smarboard spinoff...

We are a small school. We have two SmartBoards - one for the upstairs and one for the downstairs classes. We are allowed to sign out the boards for one month at a time. Except one azzhole in the building stole the projector for the upstairs board. Guess who is upstairs?