Teaching has never been easier, thanks to the new Promethean boards in our classrooms. The new replacements are easier to work with than the old Smartboards, and can do so much more according to teachers.

The new boards were installed in classrooms over the summer, and have been in use since the start of this school year. A survey was sent out to faculty in early November, asking for them to rate the boards and their experiences with them. Roughly a dozen responded. Out of those responses, every teacher that had a Promethean board used it daily.

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These teachers were asked to rate the different factors of the boards on a ten point scale: one being awful and ten being excellent. The scores spoke volumes. On average, the boards scored an 8.7 on both their ease of use and how helpful they were in teaching. How easy was learning how to use the technology? The teachers said 8.5. The lowest average was an 8.3, and that was on how helpful the boards’ different functions and features were.

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An overwhelming majority of the teachers said that they were satisfied with the new boards (92.3%), but a significantly lesser majority said they preferred Prometheans to the old Smartboards (61.5%). Another 23.1% said they weren’t sure, while 15.4% said they didn’t prefer them.

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Teachers in favor of the board mentioned how nice the “freeze” feature was, which allows teachers to “freeze” the screen in place and use their computer without students viewing. But all around, the most popular change was how the boards replace both a Smartboard and a projector. Teachers no longer have to pause class to realign their board, nor wrestle with sketchy projector bulbs. When they write on a board, their text comes out legible, not scrambled up together a foot away from where they wrote it.

Many teachers praised the boards for how much potential they held with their features. Several believed they had only mastered the basics of the board, and that there was so much more they could be doing with them.

The only complaints about the board came from how cumbersome they were to shift from place to place or how they can be touch sensitive at times.

There was only one teacher that responded to the survey that didn’t have a Promethean board. They were from the music department, which hasn’t received any boards in either of their rooms.

Still, so far it seems almost all teachers that received a board are happy with it.