Whiteboard Basics
Oftentimes, people use the terms whiteboards and SmartBoards interchangeably. Before getting into how whiteboards work, I just wanted to clarify the difference between whiteboard and SmartBoard. A SmartBoard is actually a brand of whiteboard and it is just one brand among many companies clamoring to distribute their own versions of this incredible tool. It’s also important to add the term “interactive” before the term “whiteboard” to differentiate it from the typical whiteboard used with dry erase markers. An interactive whiteboard is much more than that. Hopefully that eases the confusion that’s out there.
Now that we understand the terminology, let me say a few words about what a whiteboard is, because it is actually many things.
Anatomy of a Whiteboard
After a whiteboard has been set up, one of the first things we notice is that it functions like a typical, and very large, output device. This means that it’s really like a very big and white computer monitor. Anything you can display on your monitor can also be displayed on the whiteboard.
Where it differs from the typical computer monitor is that it can also accept input. That’s just a fancy way of saying that you can write on it, use your fingers on it like a mouse, and so on. Although there are touch screen monitors on the market today, they are not commonplace quite yet. So to simplify even a little more, a whiteboard is like a big and white touch screen computer monitor.
But there’s more…
Whiteboards are not only input and output devices, you can also save what you see to a common format such as PDF. You can also record what you do in much the same way I recorded many of the tutorials you see at this site. This is a great tool, especially for saving lessons for absent students or to post a lesson online for later review.
For a short demonstration on interactive whiteboard basics, check out the video below.
Requirements
While whiteboard technology is evolving at a rapid pace, most require the following things:
- Computer (Mac or PC)
- LCD projector
- Cable to connect computer to projector and whiteboard
Now that we’ve established the basics, let’s take a look at a video that goes through the set up procedures for a common whiteboard:
Tutorials
While there are many brands of whiteboards available, the tutorials in this section will mostly focus on those offered through Smart Technologies. This is by no means to say that they put out the best whiteboard, it just happens to be the brand that we use where I teach. Another great company to check out is Promethean. Their brand of whiteboard is called the Activboard. You will see several examples of teachers using the Activboard in the “Content Area” section. I’ve included links to Activboard software in this section also.
Regardless of which brand of whiteboard you use, remember that it is just an extension of your computer. Therefore, it’s important to take a look at some software basics. We’ll start with Smart Technology’s Notebook software.
To begin the Notebook 10 Basics tutorial, click HERE.
For other SmartBoard tutorials, click HERE.
The Activboard has it’s own version of whiteboard software called Activstudio. To view the tutorials available for this software, choose your platform below.
For Mac OS, click HERE.
For Windows, click HERE.