Smart Table Project
The SMART Table is the first multitouch, multiuser interactive learning centre for primary school pupils. Designed to encourage collaboration, discussion and consensus building, the table gives early primary school pupils a gathering place to explore digital lessons, play educational games and work together on interactive learning activities. Groups of pupils can simultaneously touch objects on the surface and enjoy a playful kind of learning. The possibilities for fun and teamwork are limitless on the table - from sliding an elephant across the surface, to following a trail of clues or mapping the human body. And the table’s interface is so intuitive that pupils can get started on activities quickly and easily.
The CLC has purchased 3 of these tables. In order to properly evaluate their suitability, they have been placed with 3 primary schools who will be evaluating the table and a range of learning activities downloaded from the internet and providing feedback via this site.
If you are interested in seeing the Smart Tables, then as part of the pilot, the schools have agreed to allow other schools to view the tables, either in lesson time or at a mutually convenient time.The schools involved in the pilot are: Dorchester, St. James and Bethune Park primary schools.
At the moment, the range of software available for the SMART Table is fairly limited, but as with most emerging technologies, it is anticipated that commercial providers will write software for this product in the future.
For more information about the SMART Table, please follow this link.
http://www.taglearning.com/productdetails/SMART+Table+interactive+learning+centre.html
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12/10/10
I spent some time with four Y6 pupils at St James with the Smart Table. My job was to teach them how to turn it on, choose the activities and turn it off so they could then show other teachers and pupils. Well, this would have taken about 10 minutes, so whilst there, we looked at some of the activities available.
My initial impressions are that whilst there are some activities that could be useful for independent learning, many are better used as a stimulus for group work and discussion. E.g, there’s an activity on ‘wants and needs’. This could easily be a trivial drag and drop activity, completed with no real purpose, but the discussion that the pupils engaged in was interesting and valuable, especially where a difference of opinion occurred that needed some further discussion. I’m not sure how well this activity would completed be without some sort of adult supervision though.
Forces was another activity, where video clips can be viewed and discussed One beauty of the Smart Table is that learners can pass clips round the table to each other.
I’ve tried looking at the software that comes with the table with a view to creating resources but didn’t find the software all that intuative to use… so I gave up for the time being!
I will need to re-visit a trial school sometime and try the activities with different age groups. Watch this space.
22/11/10
Well, session 2 with a Smart Table and pupils duly completed. I worked with Y1 to Y6 on a range of activities.
I remain convinced that, with the possible exception of Foundation Stage where it might serve some purpose as an option for a self initiated task, the presence of an adult is required to promote and steer the discussions. I had some very good discussions with Y4/5 pupils on probability- a curriculum area that they hadn’t touched before- but I wonder what success there’d have been had they been left to their own devices.
Once the activity had been completed, there are no complimentary activities for the pupils to try independently to test their understanding. For this topic, I think I could have rustled something just as engaging in Easiteach in 10 or 15 minutes and used it on an IWB with a larger group.
However, the forces activity does have some video clips included and the ability to have a number of pupils viewing a different clip to identify the forces and slide them between each other is something unique to devices like the Smart Table. (It’s only competitor as far as I know is Microsoft’s Surface, though this seems to have less curriculum areas available).
I do wonder though, as we move towards mobile personal devices such as the Apple’s iPad and the Samsung Galaxy, (and there will be a host of cheaper clones available soon), whether this sharing will be done with these, rather than something like the Smart Table.
Some of the activities are self marking, so it is quite possible to keep dragging icons around the screen until you get the correct answer.
I worked with a group of Y2 pupils on the teeth activity and exactly the same applies to this as the probability one.
The table is on its way from St James to Tweendykes soon, so it will be interesting to see how it is used there and whether they’ll be a little more enthusiastic about the Smart Table than I am at the moment.
In conclusion I think the table needs commercial companies to write software for it that addresses specific curriculum needs and adds value to the product.
The authoring software needs to be a lot friendlier. I have spoken to a number of people who have tried to create activities in this and the time taken to create is far longer than the time pupils take to complete.
So, would I borrow this from the CLC for a few weeks and use it across the school? Yes.
Would I recommend a school spends £4500 of its eLearning budget on a Smart Table? No
It’s not that I don’t like it, just that at that price I know I could spend my ICT money in better ways.