Don Kasprzak

Watch out for “Smart” when it comes to Interactive Whiteboards.  They are just “dumbboards” and most of all, the lack of compatibility will surprise you.  Smart Technologies produces a series of interactive whiteboards called Smartboards.  They also hold the trademark to the word “smart” and lets be very honest – there is something powerful about holding this trademark when you sell technology-based products.

Smart’s Smartboard allows a teacher using a custom pen with touch recognition to control a software program while standing in-front of the Smartboard.  There is no better example of the use of Smartboards than the educational marketplace.  The term “SmartClassroom” has been around for over a decade.  The call to replace ancient chalkboards with Smartboards continue to grow louder and louder.

But just hold on a minute.  The popular message to schools is simple: “Go Digital” and embrace “high tech” in your classroom.  Parents think their children are getting a better education simply because their school has installed Smartboards.  But the costs are so high (between $3,000 and $8,000/unit) that some K12 Districts hold special fund raising events to pay for these units.  And as a result critical services like bandwidth are ignored….but this is another discussion.

While working at an Art college in Wisconsin I was interested to learn about a “grant opportunity” to add Smartboards into classrooms.  I arraigned a two week “kick-the-tires” evaluation from Smart Technologies’ regional sales office.  Yes – a two week test drive. My goal was to obtain a real-world understanding of this technology to justify the purchase, install, design and lead a faculty training program.

During my testing period I was also fortunate to take a campus tour of Marquette University’s installation of Smartboards around campus and even take a look at their new SmartClassroom in the new Raynor Library.  Several vendor installations around campus successfully demonstrated a range of working interactive whiteboards.

But once again the products from Smart Technologies failed to impress.  It left an impression on me that Smart Technologies is all about Paris Hilton selling cheeseburgers?

What did I learn?  If you can actually find the time to analyze this product and really give it an honest evaluation, you will be disappointed.  It misses the mark on “smart.”  Smart’s unit failed so terribly that I refer to them as Dumbboards.  The conversations at Marquette were just as interesting, a limited choice of supported applications really kill the marketing hype of these products.  However at the same time the real, functional SmartBoards integrated into SmartClassrooms have a price point over $40,000 per room.

Guess What?  S E X sells even in Ed Tech
Everyone is so hooked by the “sex” of “Smartboards” — and ignoring the product’s limitations.  Part of my arrangement included a vendor demo.  Things could not have started off on the wrong foot in-front of the College’s Faculty, Administrators and IT staff. The demo crashed three times during a 1-hour sales presentation.  I can guarantee that with three crashes, you’ll even lose the support from the IT group … and they are used to demo crashes.  Faculty and administrators were laughing after the second crash.  Holding out all hope….I gave up after the third.

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