Smart boards in the classroom are not essential but can really help facilitate learning according to studies. I do not see smart boards as a necessity in the classroom, but students who are kinesthetic, auditory, and visual learners can benefit from them. Students who are kinesthetic learners can move around and get some hands on work done. Those students who are visual and auditory learners are able to see and hear the activities which engages them. It is definitely important to reach all these types of students, but these needs can be met with a mere creative lesson plan.
If you really think about it, smart boards are just like projectors and have very little difference. From my experiences with: talking to teachers, seeing smart boards being used in the classroom and hearing about the pressure schools put on teachers to use them is totally lame. I do believe that smart boards can be utilized with great lesson plans, but I do not think that it should be used every day. The reason I say that is because those teachers who have a smart board create their lessons to that source of technology only and that completely takes away from the child having a balanced education in regards to the natural world and technological world.
I do think that smart boards are very helpful for shifting your classroom to a more technological one. I think that one good quality that smart boards have is the ability to save all of the work that was completed. This way, teachers can share this information to the class via email or a blog. I think this will allow students to reach the information more easily in case they missed a class or two.
I'm not against smart boards, though I'm not exactly for them either. I would put more time and effort into another source of technology that services my students a little more than projecting/interacting with internet sites.
