RIP, SmartBoard

Today was a sad day in Miss Hiltunen's class. At approximately 11:00 am, in the middle of a lesson on finding greatest common factor, my precious, beloved, underappreciated SmartBoard met its end. With a flicker and a flash, it was gone. I knew it was coming. The board had been blinking for months, so it was only a matter of time. But it didn't make it any less depressing. Luckily, the lesson I had planned for today was not SmartBoard intensive. In fact, it was pretty hands-on. I went old school and wrote all the notes on the whiteboard (actually, I think old school would be writing on a chalk board), and the kids did really well rolling with it. Then, the kids split up into groups and used hula hoops to make giant Venn diagrams to find the GCF of a pair of numbers.



We hardly even noticed that the board wasn't working.

I think it's safe to say that had this happened last year, I would be in a tizzy, freaking out about what I was going to do until my board is fixed (most likely it will take over a week). Some of you may be shaking your head at the poor fools of my generation who don't know how to survive without technology. And while yes, not having technology is certainly an inconvenience, the issue goes beyond that. The SmartBoard has been installed dead-center in my classroom, which makes sense since my instruction typically revolves around it. However, it also means that I have very little whiteboard space, and what room I do have is off-center and is not visible to 25% of the class. So now the question becomes--how can I post ANY sort of notes or practice problems so that every student can see them? The million dollar question....

I've resigned myself to the fact that there's nothing I can do about it and it's not worth getting worked up over. It will definitely mean I'll have to do some very strategic planning this weekend, under the assumption that it will be a while before I have my board back. However, it could be worse. It could have happened on a Monday, after I had spent all weekend creating elaborate powerpoints. And, maybe, just maybe, I will actually enjoy a break from creating said elaborate powerpoints.

Before my 8th period class, I decided to draw a gravestone on my whiteboard next to the SmartBoard so the kids wouldn't ask me why I wasn't using my SmartBoard today. At some point in the period, probably during pack up, they decided to pay their respects to "S.B.", and I couldn't help but laugh when I saw it later that afternoon. My favorite--the misspelled version of "bye homie". Especially because I know some kid thought he was really clever, calling the SmartBoard "homie". If only he knew...


(imu = i miss you)


PS...We won both of our most recent volleyball matches...new record is 5 - 1!