Jon Loeb ’11
A&E Editor
| When walking into one of Bill Wilkes’s calculus classes, it is easy to notice a contrast of technologies.
In the front of the room is a SmartBoard, a giant white computer touch screen. On the sides of the smart board are chalkboards, each scarcely used. Throughout his lesson, Wilkes barely touches the chalkboards, but he constantly uses the SmartBoard. |
Wilkes uses many colors on the SmartBoard and, after a while, it begins looking like something out of a Dr. Seuss novel: purple and green triangles with pink arrows around them. While the board may sometimes look confusing with all its shapes and colors, each color and font serves a specific purpose.
The SmartBoard has students watching at full attention. Every few minutes, Wilkes asks the students for a new color to write in, prompting tons of answers and some obscure colors met with giggles.
Wilkes definitely sees the student’s fascination with the smart board.
“They really like it. Certain things become more obvious,” Wilkes said.
Michael Holmes ’12, a student in Wilkes’ class, agrees that the SmartBoard makes it easier on the students as long as the teacher is adept with it.
“It definitely has a positive effect, especially if the teacher is really good at using it,” Wilkes said.
Wilkes mainly attributes his SmartBoard wizardry to the tried and true system known as trial and error.
“There was some training, but you really just gotta start using it,” Wilkes said, while putting his SmartBoard notes up on black board for all of his students to access.
Clearly the SmartBoard has great potential for math teachers, but it definitely requires work and time in order to unlock it. Wilkes is one of the few teachers who almost solely uses the SmartBoardand rarely has any problems with it. Many teachers, such as John Wetzel, are still trying to get the hang of the SmartBoard, yet many are still excited about its potential as a teaching tool.
“[Last year] I used it occasionally. I was excited and still excited about its allure and attractiveness to students at a teaching level,” Wetzel said.
While many have been surprised at the cost of a SmartBoard, Wetzel believes that in the long run it won’t matter, because SmartBoard will just require a quick update, and they will become current technology.
Most teachers seem to greet the new technology with open arms, but some seem to ignore the technological shifts and just go on teaching math. Alan Jolley has become known for his sole use of a chalkboard.
Joe April ’11, a student of Jolley, believes that, if anything, Jolley’s lack of technology has a positive effect in the classroom, “I like the chalkboard better. People have to pay more attention and write everything down,” April said.
While the chalkboard is more old–fashioned, it requires students to hand–write more.
For teachers like Wilkes, the SmartBoard hasn’t really changed the amount of notes in class, because the SmartBoard fits in with Wilkes’s adventurous curriculum.
“The SmartBoard definitely complements discovery,” Wilkes said.
