Fernhill College - SMART Board™ interactive whiteboards

By using SMART Board™ interactive whiteboards, Fernhill College might just have the answer. “If children come to school after being bombarded with new media and they sit in a lesson in front of a teacher with a piece of chalk they are not going to be turned on to learning,” says Richard McFahn, Advanced Skills Teacher for History in Hampshire and teacher at Fernhill Secondary School in Farnborough. He has found a way of bringing the past to life, with the help of SMART’s Notebook™ software.

Richard will often start a lesson with an historical image projected onto a SMART Board. He can then encourage pupils to highlight a section of the picture using the special highlighter tool, or they can drag words across the screen to describe what they see in front of them. The touch sensitive display connects to the classroom computer and digital projector. Richard can control computer applications directly from the display, write notes in digital ink and save work to share later.

“As an introduction to 1066 and the Norman invasion, I start with a picture of Edward the Confessor from the Bayeaux Tapestry,” he explains. “The technology allows me to reveal half the picture and ask the pupils to circle the person they think is Edward. Next to the image there is a list of words describing how he looks: old, weak, unhealthy and so on. They can touch the words and drag them onto the picture. When I reveal the full picture of Edward I explain that by the time the tapestry was made, Edward was neither old nor weak, but dead! It was Edward’s death that led to the fight over who should succeed him, culminating in the Norman invasion, so the visual image from the Bayeaux Tapestry draws the class in to an exploration of the key issues surrounding 1066.”