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Yale’s Information Technology Services SMARTing.

Yale Daily News:

SMART Boards, which connect to regular computers and allow users to edit documents on the larger screen with stylus-type markers, came to Yale about four years ago as a high-tech alternative to chalkboards. There are currently about a dozen of the machines, which cost about $12,000 each, scattered in classrooms across Central Campus.

… Pedro Monroy, who oversees classroom media services at Yale, [said] that he does not get many requests from professors asking that SMART Boards be added to their classrooms across campus.

That’s an unfortunate commentary for a technology in which Yale has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars.

… [T]echnology is often a tough sell at Yale; [the university] stopped holding general lessons for faculty across the University before SMART Boards even came to campus because of lack of interest…

… Anne Fadiman, Yale’s Francis writer-in-residence and adjunct English professor, [is] content to teach with just chalk and a blackboard and a dozen students gathered around a table.

Asked why she doesn’t use a SMART Board, Fadiman replied in an e-mail message, “They’re too smart for me.”

****************

Who sent this Onion report on classroom technology use to UD? She can’t remember. Anyway.

Margaret Soltan, September 8, 2009 2:11AM
Posted in: technolust

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8 Responses to “Yale’s Information Technology Services SMARTing.”

  1. Dom Says:

    When I was in high school, whenever a teacher spent class time fixing or fiddling with the audiovisual equipment, it was customary for a handful of students to imitate the high-pitched beep of the Emergency Broadcast System test pattern, quietly, from the back of the classroom.

  2. Joe Fruscione Says:

    $12,000 each. Wow. I had no idea that SMART Boards were so expensive.

    There are a few in the library of the university where UD and I teach, although I’ve only seen them used, without using one myself. Like PowerPoint, these boards *can* be useful if used, well, smartly–to display a particular website, or ways of navigating a book/article search through several screens, or other specific activities better demonstrated than described.

    That said, I’m with Anne Fadiman: Give me a chalkboard, and give me chalk on my hands after I teach.

  3. Shane Says:

    I sent you the Onion link UD.

    Wonder how much those touch screen thingies they use on CNN are. I would bite somebody to have one of those things in my lecture room. Next up: Powerpoint in 3D!

  4. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Thanks, Shane.

  5. Jason Says:

    I know several faculty who insist on Smartboards for their classes; the boards record what they write, so a record of the lecture can be posted on the course website after class. It’s way more useful if you’re teaching something boardwork-intensive like math. (Honestly, I don’t think it’s that good for showing pictures. That’s what PowerPoint is *for*, really.)

  6. david foster Says:

    Michael Schrage on "sparkly tools."

  7. lelangir Says:

    In HS it was mostly science/math teachers that wanted these. In college, professors don’t even know how to turn on a DVD player.

  8. Margaret Soltan Says:

    lelangir: And University Diaries aims to keep it that way…

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