Get SMART. (Or build your own!)
Well, I’m getting a SMART board. Ivan (of Ivan’s Insight fame) was interested in their Airliner Wireless Slate so when the Digital Union announced it’s SMART Seed program, he applied and put me down for one of their portable interactive boards. We figured it might help our chances if we talked about how awarding us this technology would put it in twice as many hands as awarding it to just one person. We must have convinced them.
After I heard the results from Ivan, I had mixed emotions. Was this abandoning the $50 version? Was I selling out?
Not exactly. I’m looking forward to getting some firsthand experience with a SMART board. I’m also curious to know more about how SmartTech enables users to connect are share info and ideas with each other (something that needs to be done with the home-built versions as well). And, finally, will the slick plug-and-play corporate version, which should eliminate most of the hassle that goes along with the cheaper version, really be worth the price?
So, look for reports here once we get them in our hot little hands. And thanks to Ivan for getting this done!
ESL Technology.com 
I taught with a SMART Board for about a year and a half and got AirLiner towards the end. I really liked that I could save everything we wrote on the board. The other big advantage was after erasing (or actually just moving to a new, blank slide), we could jump back the previous slide and re-display what was there. This meant if I had moved on, but needed to remind students of what was already covered, it was very easy to get it back.
The only advantage I saw to Airliner was not bring tethered to the board, so I could make changes without running back to the board – I found it more useful to control computer applications, but I probably could have done that with just a fancy wireless mouse. I tried using it with the students, but they preferred to actually get up and use the board.