SmardBoads: How Do We Use Them to Enhance Literacy?
SmartBoards: How Do We Use Them to Enhance Literacy?
I clearly remember the first time a SmartBoard appeared in my school. When I was in fifth grade, back on 2009, my elementary school had one SmartBoard in the whole school, and it was in the room where music was held. Flash forward 10 years from that, SmartBoards are in almost any classroom we walk into. SmartBoards have changed the way we can enhance literacy in our classroom through programs and websites.
What is a SmartBoard?
A SmartBoard is an interactive whiteboard, which has replaced the standard whiteboard and overhead projector in many classrooms. Within the SmartBoard, it typically includes the interactive whiteboard, projector and software which is unique for the device. The SmartBoard was invented by two individuals, who's names are David Martin and Nancy Knowlton. Surprisingly, the SmartBoard was invented in 1991, which was almost 30 years ago! The goal for the SmartBoard was to provide classrooms with a whiteboard that functions the same way as a computer through touch controls.
Watch how easy it is to use a SmartBoard!
Here is the link to Smart Technologies website, where you can see the different models that are now available of SmartBoards.
How Can We Use a SmartBoard to Enhance Literacy?
With the help of technology, we have seen the ways literacy has changed through websites and applications. We can now pull up an article or story at the touch of a button and make any lesson completely interactive with the SmartBoard. As you keep reading, you will discover some great websites and resources you can use to enhance literacy in your classroom with the use of your SmartBoard.
1. Storyline Online
What is Storyline Online? This website is one that your students will LOVE! Storyline Online is a free website that teachers (and even students) can access to listen to some of their favorite stories, and the stories are told by celebrities! This website is an award-winning children's literacy website that focuses around storytelling. The website mentions how read alouds have "...been shown to improve reading, writing and communication skills, logical thinking and concentration, and general academic aptitude...". The videos are no longer than 20 minutes, so it is a great tool for teachers to use when it comes to working on students listening comprehension skills, and even just a fun and different way to incorporate storytelling into your classroom. If you wanted to have the interactive side of the SmartBoard being used, you could have your students be the ones navigating the website from the board.
Here are a list of some stories that students will love to listen to.
- A Bad Case of Stripes (https://www.storylineonline.net/books/a-bad-case-of-stripes/)
- The Hula-Hoopin' Queen (https://www.storylineonline.net/books/hula-hoopin-queen/)
- The Rainbow Fish (https://www.storylineonline.net/books/the-rainbow-fish/)
Check out their website for more of the stories that they offer!
2. Scholastic News
If your school district is subscribed to Scholastic News, you need to take advantage of their interactive website that corresponds to the weekly reader you give your students each week. Your students will each still have their individual reader, but now you can bring it up onto your SmartBoard as well. As you go through the issue, there are points online where you stop and pull up videos, draw and highlight directly onto the reader, add sticky notes and even have the website read it out loud. Students love when the stories they are reading in their Scholastic News comes to life, and it is a fun and different way to bring literacy into the classroom. This tool will help with analyzing pictures, reading comprehension and most importantly, get them to enjoy reading.
If you are interested in seeing how the online version of Scholastic News works, here is a link to a sample issue!
Here is a link to their website to learn more about the benefits from Scholastic News!
Connection to the Text
In the text, Read the World: Rethinking Literacy for Empathy and Action in a Digital Age by Kristin Ziemke and Katie Muhtaris, they provide a handful of lessons that relate to literacy. Some lessons that are provided in the book would work seamlessly with the use of a SmartBoard. A lesson in particular can be found on page 43 of the text, and it is titled, "Thinking Through Texts: Use Web Features Effectively". The purpose for this lesson is to be used when students are just starting off to use a new website, when they encounter new features, and if you think a student can be confused on a new web feature (Ziemke & Muhtaris, 2020). In order to adapt this lesson to use the SmartBoard, you would pull the new website onto the SmartBoard and use the pens to highlight and circle the features you are introducing to them. To get your students involved, you can even ask them questions, such as "Can someone come to the board and circle the title of the article?" and have them show you their knowledge.
Here is a chart from the text of 10 common web features!
Here are some other great lessons the text provides that you could use with your SmartBoard in your classroom! Feel free to alter the lesson to meet the needs of your students.
- "Responding and Connecting: Communicate with Emojis" - page 131
- "Applying Reading Strategies to Images and Media: Use Images to Generate Questions" - page 65
The SmartBoard is a great tool that so many of us are lucky to have in our classrooms. When we know the proper way to use it for our lessons, it can open a whole new world to teaching and learning, especially with literacy!
Hey Gillian! Awesome blog post. I also remember the first time SMART Boards were introduced in my elementary school and it was revolutionary. It opened up the door to so many other possibilities that we never considered before! I love your ideas about using SMART Boards to enhance literacy instruction. I've used Storyline Online before and kids love it. This lets them listen to a good book while varying literacy instruction. As important as it is for teachers to read to their students, it's nice for them to also be exposed to other voices as well. This is overall a great resource to teach students how to be fluent readers. Scholastic News is another great tool that a lot of districts are subscribed too. When I first subbed a class, I was given the magazine to read with students and answer questions; I had no idea there was an interactive website that goes along with it! The students showed me the fun games and songs that Scholastic offers that they love to engage with. Overall, thank you for sharing these valuable resources! I will definitely make use of them in my future classroom.
ReplyDeleteHi Gillian, great post! I like that you chose to break down what is and the use of a smart board in the classroom. It is funny to hear your story about how the smart board has developed from around 10 years ago because I'm sure many students around that time have a similar experience. It helped, being the reader of this post how you structured your content. Reading the breakdown of what this device is to what it can be used for truly shows the power it has. You show that it is much more than a projector or white board. It can and should be used to improve literacy. The interactive aspects of the smart board can be engaging and encouraging to students trying to learn the material that is actually being represented on the screen. You also show examples of what online tools or programs can be used to get the most out of this device. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteHi Gillian, great work on your blog post. Interactive boards have become a staple in the classroom nowadays. It is a huge part of teaching and children learning - we depend on it a lot! One of the teachers blew a fuse once which caused both of our classrooms to have no power. Safe to say we were a little lost on what to do for the remainder of the day. Storyline Online is a great resource that the students love. It breaks up the monotony of you reading aloud and adds a fun twist to a lesson. Scholastic News is another great website that can be displayed on the board as it is read aloud by the Scholastic News reader or the teacher. You can watch videos and see enlarged pictures. Scholastic News also links to Google Classroom which is a great resource too! Great job connecting to the text - there are so many great Try Its I cannot wait to try.
ReplyDeleteHey Gillian!! Right off the bat I connected with your blog because my elementary school also only had one SmartBoard which was in one of the fifth grade classrooms. I remember waiting to get my school letter to see which homeroom I was going to be in for fifth grade because I wanted it to be in the classroom with the SmartBoard so that we could use it. It is crazy to see how smart boards have changed the way we teach literacy in the classroom. One of the things that really stood out to me on your blog was the use of the website Storyline Online.  I think that this is such an amazing site because kids will not only be able to read books that they enjoy, they will also be able to hear them from celebrities. Sometimes in the classroom kids get tired of hearing their teachers voice so I think that this is a amazing alternative because it gives the students the ability to listen to the story by someone completely different. I think that this is an awesome resource that I will definitely use in my own classroom. Great blog! Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteHi Gillian! I thought your blog post was so interesting. When I was in grade school, it wasn’t until middle/early high school when we started using smart boards. However, they were game changers in class. They definitely help a lot, allowing teachers to show students lessons from the computer and have more of a hands on approach. Not every classroom had it, but when they did, me and my peers always wanted to use it. I even told my parents I wanted one for my bedroom haha. I like how you provided multiple examples, demonstrating how you can use smart boards to enhance literacy. For one, I have definitely seen It used for storyline online. From as early as kindergarten, teachers show videos of people reading stories. Some of the videos are even animated. Students become super immersed in the stories as they become alive. Also, it is fun to hear multiple people read different books. By projecting it on the smart board, stories become more interactive. I hope my classroom in the future will have a smart board so I can use some of these techniques. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteHi Gillian! I also vividly remember the first smart board that my school acquired when I was a kid. I remember every student and child in my school wanted to have class in that room because it was so fun to use and helped understand the content at hand so much more. You give so many good examples and activities demonstrating how to use the smart board so effectively. I think that you really backed up your topic strongly, great post!
ReplyDeleteHi Gillian! Smart Boards are a huge in all classrooms today. I use it for all subjects whether it is to project a book using a document camera, doing an interactive phonics lesson, or a read aloud! My class LOVES Storyline Online. Specifically my favorite book on there is Rainbow Fish! Myself and I am sure many other teachers depend on Smartboards. I remember my light went out and I didn't have it for more than a week! I didn't know what to do. You gave great examples, I really liked the 10 Features we Use on the Web. Great job on your blog!
ReplyDeleteHi Gillian ~ Smartboards are now integral parts of most classrooms and probably most teachers (myself included) don't even realize how many different ways that the smartboard can be utilized to enhance teaching. The lesson you mentioned on page 43 also resonated with me. As silly as it sounds, it did not even occur to me that we would need to teach website "text" features.
ReplyDeleteYou gave many useful resources in your blog. I will definitely check out that Scholastic News issue. You created a well organized, useful blog!
Hey Gillian. Great job on your post. The layout of your post was very thorough and clear to follow. I definitely agree with you that smart boards have become such an integral part of education. They are now in almost all classrooms like you said. I also remember in elementary school only having blackboards. Smart boards can be used in so many ways and are such a huge help in the classroom. I liked how you explained different online resources to use to promote literacy in the classroom. I have seen storyline online and the scholastic news during my internship. I thought these were great resources for the teachers to use with their students. These websites really allow reading to come to life and this makes reading so much more engaging and interactive for students. Overall, awesome blog!
ReplyDeleteHi Gillian! I really enjoyed reading your post! I think it was a great choice to base your blog around SmartBoards. Just like you, I have a very vivid memory of my classroom getting its first SmartBoard and being absolutely blown away by the technology. My teachers had no idea how to use it and it took them what felt like forever to learn. All of these years later and every school you go into; they are flooded with SmartBoards or similar technology. I could not believe it when you said the SmartBoard was invented in 1991! This really blew my mind. I loved reading all of the ways that we can use this technology to enhance literacy in our classrooms. I had never heard of Story Online before but it sounds like a wonderful resource that I will definitely be using with my future classroom. I feel like students would get a kick out of hearing their favorite celebrities reading them a story. This is also a great tool for working on listening comprehension skills as you said! Overall, thank you for sharing this post with so many resources that I can use in my future classroom!
ReplyDeleteHi Gillian, I really enjoyed reading your post! I agree that smartboards have so many different things to offer that can bring reading to life for students. I liked that you included a description of the smartboard and how to use it. I love that you included Storyline Online! A lot of the teachers at my school use this especially during extra time or snack. When ever I am subbing kids are always asking to play one of these stories. Which shows how much they love them! I also liked that you mentioned Scholastic News for this post! I remember during student teaching always showing the magazine we were reading on the smart board. It had so many other functions that you can do with kids like watching a short clip or an activity related to the reading. Your connection to the book was also really great. I like that you included the chart of ten web features. Great Job!
ReplyDeleteHi Gillian, great post! I remember getting training to learn about how to incorporate these boards in our lessons. I like how you connected it to literacy and all the resources that are available to teachers. The Scholastic News one looks great and I am really interested in trying next year. It is also helpful to know current ways to start enhancing literature through the use of the SmartBoard. One of the major aspects of the SmartBoard is the interaction the students can have during lesson. I find myself on days when the SmartBoard might not be working to become frustrated and feel like my lessons will not be as effective. I do think it is a board that keeps students engaged and involved during daily activities in the classroom. Great job!
ReplyDeleteHi Gillian! Great post! Smartboards are the best! I can't even imagine teaching without them! In fact, I don't think I have ever taught a lesson without it. I LOVE storyline online!! Thank you for the other great ideas too. I've also used scholastic news on the smartboard too and I love the videos, games, and audio too. I love how you connected your post to some of the lessons in the text and even told us how to use them on the smartboard. Thank you and great job!
ReplyDeleteHi Gillian! Love your post! I like that you took the time to fid ways that the SmartBoard can enhance literacy because I think a lot of teachers automatically think "silent reading" or "reading groups" when they hear literacy but it doesn't have to limited to just that. I have personally had great experiences with Storyline Online and Scholastic News. I typically play a Storyline Online book for students during snack time or just when they need a quick break. It's cute because some of the students recognize the person reading the book or can connect to the story being told. Scholastic News was a big thing in the kindergarten classes at the school I interned at. They used them at least once a week to help the students learn about nonfiction text structures. It was super nifty that they could use the SmartBoard to have students come up and interact with the articles. Good job!
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