What I learned about SMART Boards

One of the most valuable things that I learned about SMART Boards during our class presentations, was the page recording feature.  Indeed, this seems like a terrific tool to use for students who are absent or struggling to keep up with the teacher and rest of the class.  In addition to helping such students by emailing the class session to parents, I think this establishes a strong sense of respect in parents.  They would see that a teacher is truly commited to their child and will utilize whatever tools available in order to help their child succeed in school.

The questions that I have are not so much from lack of knowledge, but of experience.  I am at a point where I am asking myself, "Okay Inna, you have this excellent set of tools in your belt.  Now, how do you use them again??"  For instance, I am eager to incorporate the SMART Response clickers in a lesson, but it seems that everytime some one has used them thus far, there has always been a key step missing that caused a delay in the class session.  Some other questions I have are: Do many classes in local districts really have SMART Boards?  Can old-fashioned whiteboards still be as useful in class as these new handy-dandy technological boards?  I feel like in some ways they can.  For instance, with the SMART Boards, you can't have four students up at one time drawing on the board like you could with simple white boards.  I suppose I am a believer in the power of SMART Boards, but I still want to hold onto the old-fashioned way that seemed to work just fine.