While the Preston Middle School guys were here, I learned something very important that my previous intern teacher had discovered last year.

When students are at laptops working on a lab, they tend to divide on conqueor or funnel through a gate keeper. When they are at a SMARTBoard, they tend to all work on the same sentence at the same time. This is the dynamic that I want. I want all students working on the same piece at the same time IF THE CONTENT IS ESSENTIAL like writing. There are certainly other situations where I am flexible, but not on crucial content.

The problem with using the SMARTBoard is that the typing is more problematic. Last lab, both groups (groups using laptops and groups using SMARTBoards) finished their labs in the same number of days, so it cannot be too much slower using the onscreen virtual keyboard, but it is more frustrating. There was a compromise.

They moved the keyboard from the PC to the end of the SMARTBoard. So students could stand in front of the smartboard and use the keyboard. I was worried that it would be only slightly better than sharing a laptop. It turns out that it was the best of both worlds. One person would do much of the typing and it as efficient, but the other group members were moving the cursor with the SMARTBoard, which was enough to keep them focused as a group on the task at hand. This was an unexpected dynamic.