Smart Board Technology

The artifact above is a picture of me teaching a lesson on consonant-vowel-consonant-e words using a Smart Board. When I taught word work in Mrs. Copenhaver’s class at Adam’s Elementary, I created Smart Board presentations to use with my lessons. I included information in the basal that fit with the Utah Core Curriculum and added video clips and virtual manipulates to enforce the ideas being taught. The artifact above shows a picture of an activity on starfall.com. A picture is shown of an object and the student has to choose the correct beginning consonant sound and drag it to the rest of the word that describes the picture. In this example, there is a picture of a man, so the students has to choose the letter “m” and drag it to “an” to make the word “man.” Then, they have to drag the letter “e” to the end of the word to see how the “e” makes the vowel say its name. In this case, the word is “man” is changed to “mane” then a picture of a lion is shown. I had one student come up to the board to drag the letters and I had the students who were not coming up to the board write the words on white boards so that they would stay engaged.

Because I believe that technology enriches learning experiences, I will continue to use Smart Board technology and virtual manipulatives in my classroom.

This method of teaching was very effective in this second grade class. Students loved having a turn to participate in the virtual manipulatives on the Smart Board and those who stayed at their desk were still participating with the white boards. Throughout these word work Smart Board lessons, I incorporated short video clips that the students really enjoyed as well. Some examples include a song about consonant-vowel-consonant-e words on starfall.com and a music video on homophones from Between the Lions. Through these lessons, I learned that students are more willing to participate and ask questions when I switch up instruction using various forms of technology. I will definitely continue to use the Smart Board and the internet in my lessons in the future to promote active inquiry and cooperation.