Gifford Street receives a grant for 9 Smartboards

Gifford Street High School students won't be banging erasers out in the parking lot anymore.

The Elgin Area School District U-46 alternative school recently purchased nine interactive Smartboards through a $50,000 grant from Grand Victoria Casino.

The touch-sensitive white boards are driven by a computer software system.

The software allows teachers and students to not only write on the board, but convert handwritten images to typed text, to serve as equation guides, and spin and rotate shapes and pictures.

Class lessons, saved on a computer hard drive, can be saved and reopened for later review.

"We've found many of our students are kinesthetic learners," Gifford Street Principal Morris Mallory said. "This works for them."

Plus, for a generation who grew up texting, playing video games and instant messaging, the type of learning fits into their lifestyle, Mallory said.

Quizzes and tests are taken by individual wireless remotes, called senteos, aimed at questions displayed on the boards.

A visit to social studies and civics teacher Rod Watson's classroom on Sept. 8 found students filling out a chart on criminal justice in the Elgin area.

English teacher Sharlene Montgomery had students reviewing quiz questions on characters in literature.

"I"m finding the boards are helping in ways I never expected," Montgomery said.

The boards arrived two weeks before the start of the school year, Mallory said. They took about two days to install.

The school's English and math departments received two Smartboards each. Science and social studies each got one. Another board remains as a practice device for teachers.

Two more boards are shared among the alternative school's middle school classes.

Teachers are taking part in a number of instructional sessions with Smartboard officials this year, Mallory said.

"They're pretty easy to use," math teacher and technology facilitator Dianne Crane said. Crane saves lessons and geometry videos on a flash drive and transports them between home and school.

Gifford street is the first Elgin Area School District U-46 high school to utilize the boards, Mallory said.

"We're thrilled" he said.