The last time I was in fulltime employment as a teacher we used flip charts and marker pens. There was one chunky great box of a computer gathering dust in the corner of the room. I didn’t even have a whiteboard. Now I sit staring at the large white rectangle on the wall of the classroom that is apparently called a SMART Board. I have had a 2 minute tutorial from Mrs Finch (the class teacher) during which I frantically tried to scribble down the order in which she clicked on things on the laptop while marvelling at how this makes things happen on the big screen. She hurriedly shows me how to use something that looks like a pen to write with directly onto the SMART Board. She produces a neat letter ‘a’ then disappears as the children arrive. I am supposed to be using the SMART Board as a teaching aid for phonics after break. I plan to use break time to have a quick practice. But it turns out that break goes very quickly between a sticky incident with a squashed pear, a disagreement involving a Monsters Inc . 2 figure and a very long tale about going to the football stadium. Before I have drawn breath the children are back on the carpet waiting expectantly. I look from my scribbled notes to the laptop to the SMART Board. I press a key. Nothing happens. I realise I have no idea what I am doing. Four year old Jahvarnie rescues me. ‘What you do is you press this one’ he says helpfully and gives the key a good bash. I am just about to say ‘Jahvarnie, don’t do that’ when I notice that he is right. The screen changes and we all sing along to some songs. For a while it is all about arrow keys, which I can manage. Then we get to the bit where I should be using the pen thing to write on the screen. How hard can it be? I attempt a letter ‘p’. I make a large wobbly blob. There are giggles from the carpet. I decide to ask for help as a distraction. ‘Who can help me make a letter ‘p’? Use your fingers to write it in the air.’ Almost all the fingers are ready, except one which is up a nose and another which is poking a neighbouring child in the ear. I stare hard at these two until they are ready. The children make ‘p’s in the air accompanied by their puffing out candles sound, ‘ppp’. I try again on the smart board: another wobbly blob. More giggles. I sigh. ‘Oh dear, your ‘p’s were much better than mine’ I say weakly. Then like a guardian angel, Mrs Swift the TA appears at my side with a flip chart and a marker pen. I could have hugged her. When I get home I decide I am going to master this new technology. The children are thinking about making friends, so I look for some relevant clips. I find a good link of children meeting and playing together in a park. I take the link in the next day and am quite impressed with myself for getting it all set up on the SMART Board. Just before lunch we read a story about friendships and then I play the clip. Everything works! But we can’t really see it because the sun is shining on the SMART Board. Mrs Swift and I dash about pulling down blinds and then we can just make out some small people in duffle coats holding hands. The children are remarkably patient about having to squint at the screen. But as they leave for lunch, Peter pushes his glasses up his nose and gives me a look. ‘I couldn’t see anything’ he says emphatically. Just then Miss Wren pops her head round the door. She is the teacher for the other Reception class. Miss Wren is fresh out of college and very up to date. She waves a small silicone backed rectangle at me. ‘The school iPads have just arrived!’ she says excitedly. ‘I thought we could get the children to film themselves this afternoon’. Peter gives me another look and goes off to have his jacket potato with cheese.
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