Smart Boards Aid in Interactive Learning
by Kate McCann - Southtown Star
While a group of seventh graders from St. Michael S chool in Orland Park waits for their math lesson to begin, they idly view live video streaming from the International Space Station on what looks like a giant television.
After a minute, Greg Pitzer, at NASA's Ames Research Center, appears on the 64-inch screen and briefly quizzes the students on the average number of airplanes U.S. air traffic controllers track at any given time - 4,000 - and how many nautical miles aircraft should ideally remain from each other - three.
First-grade teacher Mary Quinn, top left, watches as Jessie Moyar, 7, tries to match pairs on a Smart Board, at St. Michael School in Orland Park Friday. This school now has Smart Boards in every classroom due to the anonymous donation.
(Matthew Grotto/ SouthtownStar)
Using a Web-based simulator, Pitzer challenges the students to use their knowledge of distance, rate and time to land three airplanes in 3 minutes, 48 seconds at the same airfield in Modesto, Calif., without crashing.
"There really is no room for mistakes," he warns. "In real life, you don't get a second shot at bringing these airplanes in."
At least two crashes later, one group of students safely lands the planes with, they claim, six seconds to spare.
Thanks to a series of donations totaling about $150,000, St. Michael School in Orland Park now features Smart Boards in every classroom, from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. The interactive whiteboards are the hot new high-tech teaching tool being installed in schools throughout the Southland.
The NASA lesson was through the school's interactive distance-learning system, also bought with the money from the donation, which uses a dedicated bandwidth instead of an Internet-based connection to connect the school with live learning lessons around the world. So instead of the often pixilated, delayed-audio connections experienced by users of Web cams, the "Smart" technology allows for a sharper, clearer picture and higher audio quality.
As NASA's Pitzer quizzed students about air traffic, it was easy to forget he was broadcasting from a research center in Moffett Field, Calif., and not standing inside St. Michael's library.
So far this school year, St. Michael's students have made 17 long-distance connections, transporting them to the Toledo Zoo to learn about endangered species, the Philadelphia Museum of Art to explore the role of knights in medieval Europe and to Vanderbilt University for an interview with a Holocaust survivor.
"One of the age-old questions is, 'Why do I have to learn this?' " Principal Bernadette Cuttone said. "They are learning at a young age the mastery of math and science and all the worlds it can open to them. They can be air-traffic controllers, they can be pilots, they can be astronauts."
The long-distance learning capability is available only in the school's library, but the Smart Boards affixed to the blackboards in each classroom have changed the way kids are learning and teachers are teaching, school staff members said.
Through the use of animation, colorful graphics and sound, the boards encourage full-class participation and can accommodate students with different learnin g styles.
'Wonderful educational tool'
Fifth grader Patrick Larkin stood before his classroom Smart Board, which was asking him in which sacrament do someone receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. As Patrick spells out the answer "confirmation," a cartoon basketball swishes into a hoop and cheers with each correct letter he selects.
His teacher, Sister Pat McKee, said she uses the Smart Board every day to teach her vocabulary and religion classes.
"I love the Smart Boards. I think it is just a wonderful educational tool and it gets the children out of their seats and active," said McFee, who has been an educator for 56 years.
Mary Quinn's first graders struggle to stay seated as they wave their hands in the air for a turn at the Smart Board. The lesson is antonyms, and each student picked to go to the board can drag a word through the genie's magic lamp until it's opposite meaning pops out the other side.
Most of the first graders said they like the Smart Boards because they like playing games and having fun - and even their teacher said they don't even realize they are learning half the time. And 7-year-old Ryan Casey said he likes the Smart Board because it's more "advanced" than what he was offered in kindergarten.
Seventh graders Sarah Finn and Marty Ryan said they find their minds are less likely to wander during a Smart Board lesson when the whole class is participating on the same level.
"It's easier to interact with the teacher, and it makes learning a more fun experience," Ryan said.
Smart Technologies, the Canadian company that makes the Smart Boards, introduced the first interactive whiteboard in 1991, and its products are the most widely used in U.S. classrooms. About 20 percent of all U.S. classrooms use some type of interactive whiteboards, according to a spokeswoman for the company.
Cuttone said the donors of the technology, a husband and wife whose children attend the school, now are offering even more financial help to upgrade the school's computers. The boards were installed in classrooms over the past two years.
"For a Catholic school to have a Smart Board in every classroom, it's a gift beyond my words to explain our gratitude," Cuttone said.
