7--Smart+Board+Activities

This lesson on the colonial culture of New Spain in the eighteenth century is designed for middle-schoolers, from sixth to seventh grade. The thinking skills required are mostly observational, with some emphasis put on taking simple notes, remembering places and names, and drawing conclusions about the interaction of cultures. Targeted curriculum standards are Seventh Grade History, Standard 1.1.a, "Determine and explain the interdependent of people around the world during significant eras or events;" Geography, Standard 2.2.a, "Analyze how economic, political, cultural, and social, processes interact to shape patterns of human population, interdependence, cooperation, and conflict."

Working on this project I realized that SmartNotebooks is a tool that may not be fully suited to the needs of a high school classroom. I was prepared to present work that required in-depth textual analysis and visual criticism but found the platform insufficient for the material I wanted to present. Music and images take up far too much room in a SmartNotebook file to be posted here on this WikiSpaces website (which is why I have had to find alternate methods to deliver the finished product to Dr. Chung). The format does not lend itself to a higher level of academic rigor as would be required for a college prep course in history. What would work, as I have seen done in a middle school classroom, is the presentation of Word documents on a SmartBoard so that the electronic pens can be used to annotate the document with students' input or my notes for students to learn from. The other features, however, strike me as gimmicks for keeping students entertained who are used to being bombarded by video, sound, and electronic images. I look forward to seeing what high school history teachers (and especially college professors) are doing with SmartNotebooks. For now, I remain highly skeptical.

My personal level of comfort with SmartNotebooks is somewhere around a six or seven on a scale of one to ten. What I have learned this semester is that the challenges of the high school history teacher regarding students with learning differences, attention deficits, insufficient reading skills, or simply expectations that education should be entertaining, have yet to be resolved. To put it simply, students must be able to read, understand, and critically analyze long and complex sections of historical writing and primary documents. This cannot be taught through "info-tainment" or clever talking images in a slide show, or even movies by directors like Ken Burns. Students have to read and write at grade level, spend long hours in the library, and struggle with language that makes their heads hurt. I do not yet see a way for SmartNotebooks to do this any more than a PowerPoint presentation (which, frankly, is a much more robust platform in my experience). SmartNotebooks, then, may be fun for the kids, but young adults need to be held to a higher level of academic rigor than this software can provide.