An improvement in technology could help some Duncan Middle School teachers educate their students more effectively.
Seven DMS teachers got new SmartBoard in their classrooms with installation taking place late in September. These boards replaced some of the original boards that were installed in the building in the early 2000s, when the building first opened.
The teachers who received new SmartBoards in their classrooms include Marinda Cook, Lara Morgan, Mark Hays, Morgan Curry, Brenda Hurley, David Alston and Derrick Miller
“I absolutely love it,” Alston, an eighth-grade social studies teacher, said.
The new SmartBoards operate as computer that hangs on the wall. Teachers have the ability to hook up the SmartBoards to their classroom computers to give it another layer of interactivity.
The SmartBoards being replaced were not fully operational. Since they had aged, some of them work not working properly and were acting more as projector screens instead of interactive boards.
Teachers hope the new boards will make it easier to teach some of their lessons.
The new boards have a better projection quality, better lighting and better sound. The old boards ran sound through the classroom computer instead of coming out of the board itself, like the new boards.
Morgan teaches sixth-grade science and said she likes her new SmartBoard a lot because it allows her to make learning more interactive.
Names of teachers with out-of-date and non-operational boards started over Summer Break. Teachers were notified a week or two prior to the installation that they were getting new boards.
Because of the cost of the board, the school is replacing the old technology a few at a time.
Although all the teachers who received new boards may be the envy of their teachers peers, not everyone is 100 percent on board with the technology change.
Cook, who teaches sixth-grade math, said she likes the new SmartBoard, but the change in technology can be challenging.
“The new board is a love-hate relationship for me because I don’t really like technology that much,¨ she said.
