SMART v Promethean!

Throughout the elective we have looked at interactive whiteboards and how they help enhance learning in the classroom. There are huge advantages to using interactive whiteboards such as a variety of resources at your fingertips, allows for collaboration, caters for types of learners and engages many disengaged children. As Brown (not dated) explains " They allow teachers to create easily and rapidly customised learning objects from a range of existing content and to adapt it tothe needs of the class in real time".

This week we had training from Promethean. I had been to the previous training session they had done during the year however, it was still hugely valuable for her to recap all of the skills. We looked at different things you could do on flip charts and ways of creating them.

The training packed a lot of information into three hours however, I now feel that after a little practise I could quite easily work my way around a promethean board. In an earlier post I had stated that I had started to prefer SMART boards because I thought it was simpler to find all of the equipment. However, during Promethean training we were shown a way of switching the board from studio to primary. The studio layout looks far more like the SMART one. I like the idea that you can choose which layout suits best, meaning that the board caters for both adults and children.

Also "Promethean Planet", promethean's website is full of useful resources, other peoples flip charts, tutorials on using the software and online courses. I feel far more supported by Promethean.

So overall, I feel these two lecture were hugely valuable for me teaching because interactive whiteboards are very common nowadays. I also feel that I have the basic knowlegde to quite happily work with either in schools, however after looking at the benefits of both. I persoanlly prefer Promethian because of it's ablity to cater for all needs, it's child-friendly layout, it's huge variety of resources and the support you can get online.

Brown, S (not dated) Interactive Whiteboards in Education available: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/Interactivewhiteboards.pdf [22/3/11]