Smartboards in the Classroom

   My experience in class with using the Smartboard is my first encounter with using one.  Learning about the features that it has to offer and putting together the lesson in multiple slides gave me a good understanding of how it works and what is involved with making lessons to incorporate the Smartboard in your classroom.  After my couple weeks with using it, I think that it is a great technology key to in the classroom to keep students engaged in the lesson. 
   The different animated features and cool effects that are used in the Smartboard and just little things that can keep students attention during lessons.  By using a Smartboard and adding some little effects to a lesson or topic that most students find dull can make a world of difference in their learning potential.  Since it is based on using a computer it is something that students already know a lot about and can relate to.  It is not hard to pick up.  I felt semi comfortable with what I was doing on it after using it for only a week and actually practicing on it a few times so it is definitely something I could feel very comfortable using after a couple weeks of good practice.
   I would love to have a Smartboard in my classroom.  It would make lessons more interesting rather then showing them on power point which has very little in animation compared to a Smartboard.  It would also make showing online videos easy to access and project to the class.  There are probably more advantages then disadvantages to using a Smartboard in your classroom if you are willing to put in the time to design lesson on the software and to practice using it until you can teach a lesson without even having to think about it anymore. You can save lessons and add new slides or links to them each year.  It is easy to add new content to a lesson that you may have already created.  It is an attention getter and is interactive so students can have hands on learning by using the Smartboard during lessons.  It also gets students out of their seat when they participate and makes learning fun.