Epiphany in the Classroom

The Smartboard arrived in my classroom on Friday. My class has known about it for quite some time. When they arrived back from music class, they were like "Whooo...is that a.....Smartboard?" I didn't turn it on that day because, well, you need it hooked up to a laptop with the Smartboard software. Although I am a techie, I just can't create a laptop out of thin air!! Our IT person (whose classroom is right next to mine) hooked it up with a school laptop and she showed me a few things and then scanned my morning work in for today.

I came in, went over to get the projector and laptop, hooked it up and we were in business! My class was oooooing and ahhhhing when they walked in and I had the morning work displayed on the huge whiteboard. But that wasn't the epiphany moment in the classroom, oh that is coming up soon! I then searched our Language Arts curriculum site and found our weekly story and found the reading vocabulary words. They had constructed a game and we played it before snack time. We also did our Shurley English sentences and that is when the big Epiphany occured...one of my students whom I will call E shouted out "This is the BEST day of my LIFE!" (He reminds me of Alex Keaton of "Family Ties.") He is a funny, yet VERY energetic and lively kid.

With my teacher juices flowing, I go onto our Math program and found extra practice, models, manipulatives and GAMES (students love that!) and we practice by playing a few games before taking our paper and pencil chapter test. After Math comes Science and there was no stopping me then...I tried our science curriculum and they had an animated review of the moon and the stars lesson that we read today. I stumble upon pictures that NASA took and the kids were oooing and ahhhhing again.

By this time, it is ready for everyone to pack up and Alex ummm I mean E, shouts (again) out "Oh I don't want to go home!"

That does a teacher good, but it also makes me think, ummmm, was I THAT boring before I got a Smartboard? Oh, and all the teachers are green with envy that I (yes the QUIET one that I am) got the FIRST smartboard in the whole school. Basically the IT person is right next to me (next door) and I am not afraid to play around with stuff so I was the guinea pig. I have had quiet a few visitors aka teachers popping in and looking at it!

It's amazing what a little technology and fun can do to energize my students and myself!! Okay I will promise take a pic of it tomorrow and post on Wed (barring any snow days!) for those of you who haven't seen a Smartboard.