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The Benefits of SMARTBoard-Enhanced Presentations in the English Language Arts Classroom

An interview on SMARTBoard Technology with Staff Writer, Daniel Reed.


Can you talk a little bit about how Prestwick House is taking the already popular PowerPoint for the Classroom series and adding new SMARTBoard features?

Seeing the potential to enhance learning through SMARTBoard technology, we have taken our traditional, essentially passive presentations, and, using the SMARTBoard as an interface, created opportunities for students to interact with the presentations.

While these are still valuable and functional as traditional presentations, they also prompt students to complete exercises on the presentation screen itself, providing classroom viewers the benefit of watching, critiquing, or correcting the process as it happens.

SMARTBoard is a tool that makes use of the advantages of group learning; the presentation creates a center of focus and prompts students to think together in order to complete exercises together. Each SMARTBoard-enhanced presentation contains a classroom-ready, easy-to-use lesson interspersed with interactive exercises.


How do students react to this technology? Do SMARTBoard products enhance English Language Arts in the classroom?

Based on the success and rapid proliferation of SMARTBoards, the interactive presentation will soon be a classroom standard. Students of all ages are responding favorably to SMARTBoards; technology is a great motivator when it allows students to participate in a subject, rather than simply hear a lecture about it.

We live in a very visual culture, accustomed to point-and-click expectations; SMARTBoard presentations turn these elements into a teaching tool that captures attention, creates a tactile engagement from abstract material, and encourages the involvement of the whole class. In short, it turns an idea—grammar, even—into substance.


How can SMARTBoard-ready products help teachers teach more effectively?

In addition to motivating students and inducing group activities, SMARTBoard presentations can be infinitely customized to suit a teacher’s preferences. Text, graphics, videos, or additional exercises can be added or cropped as desired, limited only to the teacher’s imagination.

The presentations can be used for introducing new lessons, reviewing specific grammar or writing lessons, or as interactive outlines in support of a teacher’s primary lesson plan. As with any SMARTBoard application, the presentation will always be as close as the nearest computer, which means teachers do not need to reproduce notes and blackboard diagrams term after term, year after year.



Could you give an example or two of how Prestwick House uses the features of a SMARTBoard?

As it relates to the teaching of grammar, the most useful feature of a SMARTBoard is the ability of viewers to enter or move data—correct answers, for example—on the slides of presentations.

We use this feature in our Punctuation Practice presentation by prompting viewers to approach the board and move punctuation marks to the correct places in a paragraph. On our Revising Paragraphs presentations, viewers circle or underline errors in paragraphs and then click a button to reveal whether their choices are correct. In a classroom, this sort of proofreading for an audience creates a vivid learning experience for the whole class.