Smart classrooms are all the rage in high schools and on college campuses; teachers are combining the latest in technology with the more traditional methods that have been proven so successful over the last several centuries. By incorporating a multi-media experience into a lecture setting, professors are supplementing their techniques with audio and visual aids that help to elucidate the subject at hand. Traditionally, smart classrooms have been based in a lectern that coordinates a variety of functions. An automated projection screen raises and lowers at the touch of a button, an overhead projector puts still images and movies on the wall so the students can have parts of the lesson expanded. An integrated computer allows the instructor to put together presentations at home and easily transition them from one computer to another. Together, in the right classroom and with the right professor who is trained to utilize them to the greatest degree, these tools can give a lesson or lecture more impact.
There is a new weapon in the smart classroom arsenal: the electronic whiteboard. This incredible tool is a dry erase board that’s combined with a smart computer touch screen. Professors can upload the necessary items to the board and can integrate note taking and sketches on the screen with the ease of a modern computer. This technology will make flipping between photos a snap, enlarging specific images quick and painless, and stopping and starting video as simple as it is for the casual Internet user at home. As more universities begin to integrate this tool in classrooms, they will be able to promote their university as being on the cutting edge of technology. The millennial generation will likely seek out these types of schools; these are students who have grown up with integrated technology and find navigating and incorporating it to be second nature.