From left: Kenny, Jason, and Michael Morin check out a new SMARTBoard at HES. (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)

As the new school year began, first- through fifth-graders at Harvard Elementary School found SMART Boards on the walls of their classrooms. A SMART Board is a computerized whiteboard that shows an entire class the same display that is on the teacher’s laptop computer.

The school has added 12 SMART Boards, bringing the total to 20, according to Gretchen Henry, elementary school coordinator. Only the kindergarten classrooms are not equipped with the technology.

SMART Boards are interactive, allowing students or teachers to touch the boards and move objects or change the displays. In effect, their fingers work on the boards like a mouse with a computer. They can also write and erase on SMART Boards.

During the week before school reopened, 23 teachers returned to school for training with the new equipment. Mary Marotta, a technical support expert from Nashoba Regional High School, offered instruction and guidance on the capabilities of the SMART Boards. The course qualifies for graduate credit at Fitchburg State College.

The school library buzzed with voices as teachers worked, individually or in groups, creating lessons and finding new applications for SMART Boards. They discovered and created math exercises, maps, games to identify vowels and consonants—thousands of lessons in subjects across the curriculum.

SMART Boards make possible a number of other teaching strategies. For example, teachers can scan photographs or images from books and, via their computers, display the image on the boards for class discussions. Students can scan maps or charts to display when they give in-class reports.

Only a few of the classrooms at the Bromfield School are equipped with SMART Boards. According to Kathleen Doherty, who teaches social studies, SMART Boards are being used in some geography, physics, and geometry classes.