Helsinki brings smartboards to all schools
The City of Helsinki will replace blackboards in all of its 200 schools with interactive, digital boards by 2011. Some of them already had these boards from before, and some will have new ones before the semester begins in the middle of August.
The same boards also replace the old overhead projectors, where still in use. "The classrooms will be fitted with document cameras and touch screens, where one can for example project content from a computer. The computer mouse can be operated with finger movements, and the students can download content from the board directly onto their laptops."
The news was reported by Helsingin Sanomat, and ITviikko, (both in Finnish), but I was unable to find out more technical data on the boards. I will report back if I do. (Funnily one would expect that this 7,5 million euro investment would somehow be reported to the taxpayers on www.helsinki.fi site, but it's not).
Normally I'm all for technical improvements, but in this case I'd really like to know more before making up my mind. Repetition is the mother of all learning, I know this being a student myself now. I wouldn't remember anything in exams unless I wrote notes on paper myself. Downloading content onto laptop doesn't guarantee download onto the brain.
Also, we are under an economic recession and there is a pressure to increase classroom sizes and decrease number of teachers. I think I would favor more teachers over digital boards, but I'd need to know more. Surely these smarboards have their advantages, at least they should motivate the children of our digital age to be more active in shcool. I hope.
The same boards also replace the old overhead projectors, where still in use. "The classrooms will be fitted with document cameras and touch screens, where one can for example project content from a computer. The computer mouse can be operated with finger movements, and the students can download content from the board directly onto their laptops."
The news was reported by Helsingin Sanomat, and ITviikko, (both in Finnish), but I was unable to find out more technical data on the boards. I will report back if I do. (Funnily one would expect that this 7,5 million euro investment would somehow be reported to the taxpayers on www.helsinki.fi site, but it's not).
Normally I'm all for technical improvements, but in this case I'd really like to know more before making up my mind. Repetition is the mother of all learning, I know this being a student myself now. I wouldn't remember anything in exams unless I wrote notes on paper myself. Downloading content onto laptop doesn't guarantee download onto the brain.
Also, we are under an economic recession and there is a pressure to increase classroom sizes and decrease number of teachers. I think I would favor more teachers over digital boards, but I'd need to know more. Surely these smarboards have their advantages, at least they should motivate the children of our digital age to be more active in shcool. I hope.
Here we go:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBk-jMpzBzI
The do look pretty handy. Learning math, languages, biology while becoming a digital native. I'm still wondering if this is 7,5 million in the right place at the right time.
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Besides the fact that these board are expensive, I think Helsinki should also consider training all the teachers into using them. I saw the Youtube video and the concept seems very interesting although I think we should keep things simple on the board, this makes the learning process easier.
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