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MARK FITZHENRY [email protected]
Wednesday, November 15, 2000     Page: 9A

NANTICOKE – The days of 15 students huddled around a computer, backs
bending, necks craning and notebooks fumbling as a teacher gives instructions
are over at Greater Nanticoke Area.
    Want to see the computer screen?
   
Need a demonstration?
   
Does everyone want to look at the same Web page?
   
OK, then. Stay in your seats and watch the teacher touch the Smart Board.
   
It looks like a 72-inch white dry-erase board, complete with markers and
eraser. Far from it. When connected to a projector, and to another computer, a
person’s touch on the screen has the same effect as a mouse control.
   
A teacher can open files, save files, and scroll down a screen by pressing
the board, which shows the projected computer images. It also understands
cursive writing, if it’s written clearly.
   
“It’s a very, very unique piece of equipment,” said Angelo Cipriani, the
district’s technology coordinator. The board makes computer lectures more
effective and draws more students into lectures, he said.
   
The district bought three Smart Boards at $2,200 each and three projectors
at $3,000 each. About 40 percent of the money came from district funds; the
rest from grants, Cipriani said.
   
Schools are the most common buyer of Smart Boards, said Terri MacEachern,
public relations specialist of SMART Technologies Inc., the Calgary,
Canada-based company that manufactures them.
   
Smart Boards also can be found in Vice President Al Gore’s office, the
White House Situation Room, the Pentagon, Langley (Va.) Air Force Base and
NASA.
   
The front of the Smart Board has two layers of material separated by a gap
of air less than a millimeter wide. When someone touches the board, one layer
touches the other, generating an electrical impulse. The board can sense where
the person touched, and coordinates it with the spot on the connected computer
monitor.
   
The board has four “pens” that are actually pointers designated with red,
blue, green and black. When a pen is lifted from the tray, an optical sensor
identifies which color was taken so when the “pen” writes on the board, the
correct color shows. A round felt eraser works the same way.
   
John Gregorowicz, the high school principal, once taught computer classes
with a Radio Shack TRS-80, introduced in August 1977. Gregorowicz saw the
Smart Board for the first time Tuesday and called it “very exciting.”
   
The district didn’t hear of Smart Boards until Bill Jones, principal of the
district’s middle school, scanned through a catalog last spring. Jones saw a
free demonstration and liked what he saw.
   
The board works in any classroom with a computer.
   
“It’s better than I could imagine,” Jones said. “It’s the monitor to
your computer. Everything you can do on your monitor, you can do on the Smart
Board.”
   
Mark Fitzhenry, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 829-7218.
   
CUTLINE:
   
TIMES LEADER/BOB ESPOSITO
   
Angelo Cipriani, a teacher and technology coordinator at Greater Nanticoke
Area School District, uses a Smart Board to demonstrate to his computer class
of nine high school juniors and seniors. Middle school principal Bill Jones
said, “Everything you can do on your (computer) monitor, you can do on the
Smart Board.”