SMARTBoard Interactive Whiteboard for Dummies Review

The latest version of SMARTBoard Interactive Whiteboard for Dummies was written by Radana Dvorak in 2012. The Smart Whiteboard can play videos, and you can draw over videos using the SMARTBoard Interactive Whiteboard. It can also record video.

The author explains the difference between interactive whiteboards like the SMARTBoard Interactive Whiteboard and electronic white boards. She says that electronic whiteboards use computers to save what is written on the white board. Interactive white boards can do far more, such as displaying documents from your computer, playing video, recording notes written over a digital presentation and let a presenter access the internet through the interactive whiteboard. Then the book moves on to the how-to portion.

Chapter 2 addresses the hardware connections, whether you use a USB cable or use a Bluetooth wireless connection. You can connect the SMARTBoard Interactive Whiteboard to a PC, a laptop computer or a projector. It can be controlled by touch, via keyboard or with a pen. The SMART pen tray has color coded slots for pens, but the number of pen slots depends on the SMART board model you have.

SMARTBoard Interactive Whiteboard for Dummies tells users how to download, install and configure Bridgit meeting and SMART Meeting Pro. The author gives readers a number of free resources for the Smart Whiteboard, such as streaming educational videos from PBS.

The SMARTBoard Interactive Whiteboard is promoted as a good way to teach math interactively, letting students at other locations work the problems as if they were on a blackboard with the teacher able to observe their progress. Teachers can also show presentations and mark on the interactive board to highlight items or write notes on the “white board”. The author gives teachers significant advice in how to incorporate the SMARTBoard into the classroom.

The ebook has links to the SMART website to help users identify their model of SMARTBoard. The 600 model and 800 model have different features. The 800 is more recent than the 600, but the 600 is more commonly used. They also have different buttons. The author gives separate, clear instructions for tasks like orienting the white board for each SMARTBoard version.

The author explains the different SMART tools and how to access them. Unlike many eBooks, this one does not have many linked cross-references between Chapters. However the author does say which Chapters have more information on a topic, like the section on the Smart Ink toolbar mentioning that you can learn about Smart Ink and Ink Aware in Chapter 5.

The author has many links to technical support references for readers throughout the book in addition to Appendix A. A troubleshooting guide for common problems like the Ink Aware menus note appearing is located in Appendix B.

The author gives readers important reminders such as the fact that you can install the software at home, but it is only free for 30 days. Instructions on how to get a product key are included in the book.

The author has abundant screen shots to explain menu bars, software opt and tool menus. Instructions are clear and straightforward in most cases. The author gives users instructions for Linux as well as Microsoft Windows and the Mac. For users running an Autopackage system, the author even includes a link to the Autopackage website.

The author informs readers of different file format options outside of the SMARTBoard app. For example, content created using the SMTARTBOARD can be saved as SMART Notebook files or PDFs. She also gives important software incompatibility solutions, such as the fact that SMART Notebook doesn’t include attachments. She recommends that readers export these files as a web page or PDF file.

The author admits the limitations of the software. For example, when printing, finely detailed files printed from the SMART Notebook will have poorer quality than if printed from PDF.

The author mentions a number of games available that can be played with the interactive white board. The book overly promotes games like Scrabble and puzzles in addition to educational games like the Netrover.com clock7hour game to teach students how to read time.

The author mentions in different parts of the book that the toolbar looks different if SMART Ink is installed on your computer, but does not always give a screen shot of the different tool bar. The SMART Board Interactive Whiteboard For Dummies book does not always give readers a clear view of the instructions if viewed on a smart phone. In the epub ebook format of InteractiveWhiteboardForDummies, the text is large and readable but the screen shots are too small.

The SMART Board Interactive Whiteboard For Dummies ebook is a critical resource for anyone learning to use this presentation tool. Save a copy of the SMARTBoard InteractiveWhiteboardForDummies on a device with a large screen to ensure its readability.