We took delivery of our second SMART Table unit on Friday (the first was faulty) and had the afternoon to use it.
I wanted to share with you a few bits of video that I took of the children using the Table as well as a short introductory clip about the physical structure of the Table and its’ components.
Media App for SMART Table from Tom Barrett on Vimeo.
The children worked very naturally with this application and it was fun listening to them chat away about how they liked it. The level of interaction here is high as there are only 3-4 children working at a time, any more and in my opinion the quality and frequency of interaction with the images would reduce (in parallel to a reduction in the amount of surface available to individual users).
Quick Tour of the SMART Table from Tom Barrett on Vimeo.
What do you think? I would appreciate your thoughts on the two short clips. There will be plenty of opportunity to post more videos throughout the course of the project and I hope to make a short film introducing the applications and software too.
Amazing
Hey Tom,
I can’t believe you got the tables so fast. You don’t waste any time do you. I really see this as a great tool to use for stations. maybe a digital media station or even something as basic as a WebQuest station. Like you have said, the “cool” factor will only last a little while. A couple logistic questions:
Do you have to have it dark in the room to use it? How much room to you have to provide to let everyone have adequate access?
Looking forward to seeing what you do.
I’ve been following your blog posts on interactive hardware for a few weeks, and try to deduce application options for older students (I teach classes 5-13, and want to use a WiiBoard to enrich learning options for my students; German schools are far from using technology like a Smart table…) – hence, I wonder if there is free software around to achieve similar effects like e.g. the media application – tossing around, resizing and rearranging images looks very good, and definitely useful for older students, as well. – To me, so far, the Smart Table’s literal hands-on approach especially addresses younger students’ needs and interests.