Knowing what to do with it!!!

There are so many aspects of our daily lives that are made simpler by the inventions and advancements in technology. However, technology is only as useful as the knowledge the user has of how to make the most of it. 

Spending some time in a primary school last year, I saw the many varied ways that teachers implemented the Smart Board into their program. You could tell who had explored it, who felt comfortable and confident to use it. For example, I saw some teachers really utilise all of the features of the Smart Board creating games, and demonstrating learning for the students, but also allowing and teaching the students to use the Smart Board to the best of the students’ capabilities. On the other hand I saw other teachers using their Smart Board as a display board, using blu-tac to put notices up in the classroom – the power on these ones was never turned on and being curious about this, I found out that these teachers said they didn’t know how to use it, and were not sure where to start and this is why they never used it. Over the next couple of weeks, I spent some time demonstrating different ways to use the board with one teacher who was interested and she was impressed. She realised that she would be able to incorporate the Smart Board into her program but wanted to build more confidence and so she enrolled in some day courses about using a Smart Board.

I was on YouTube yesterday and came across this video, and even though this has been set up as a gimmick, it isn’t too far from the truth for some people when technology is introduced to them when they don’t understand the real use for that product.