Smart Table

The SMART table… Remember those sliding hockey games where two people would stand at opposite ends, and push a puck over a smooth surface and try to score a ‘goal’. Well, imagine a smaller digital version of that played out on a smaller table…Now, imagine that same table being used for educational purposes. Can you? Should you?

Well the SMART table is exactly that. A tabletop with a digital screen where up to four pupils can stand around, collaborate and learn. Well, stop reading after this sentence for ten seconds and try to imagine an educational use where you can drag visual objects over a table, or push buttons on the table screen?

Could you? Well SMART would love you to design it, because the software seem to be lacking. Honestly, anything you could do with a SMART table, you could do with real-life objects for 1/100th of the price. Arrange money? Do it with plastic coins (or on freely available software). Looking at symmetry? Draw it with pencil and mirror, or again do it with freely / cheaply available software on a computer.

Why up to four pupils can stand around a table ordering and dragging (or why teachers would want that) about hasn’t completely been thought out at SMART headquarters. You can paint with it they boast. Well, no you can’t, you just drag you fingers, and leave a mark, that’s hardly painting.

It seems SMART has not come up trumps with this, and unfortunately after their prize-winning SMART board families, is starting to look like they think ‘just because you can, you should’. With the SMART table, no, you shouldn’t.