There were plenty of ‘oohs’ and ‘aaahs’ from students as Lincoln Middle School science teacher Felipe Echeverri zoomed in from a space view of the earth to the swamps of Louisiana during a lesson on coal formation. The dynamic graphics that grabbed the students’ attention was made possible through Echeverri’s use of a SMART Board, a piece of technology that is changing instruction in classrooms throughout Alachua County.

The 4-foot by 5-foot screen, which is connected to Echeverri’s laptop, allows him to display websites, textbook passages, scanned documents, graphic learning activities, even videos. He can operate the SMART Board through the computer or right at the screen. With the touch of a finger or by using special pens that ‘write’ on the board without leaving a permanent mark, he and his students can move, write over, add to and in other ways manipulate what’s on the screen.

Echeverri says he likes having access to a much wider range of materials and activities while teaching his class. His students, he says, love the interaction with the SMART Board.

“When I ask a question now I get 15 hands up in the air, begging to be the one to go to the SMART Board and use the technology,” he said. “It really keeps their attention focused on the front of the classroom.”

“It makes the entire class exciting,” said seventh-grader Esmond Daniels. “When he asks who wants to use the SMART Board, we all raise our hands. It’s really fun.”

Echeverri is one of many local teachers who are taking advantage of SMART Boards and other state-of-the-art technology to boost learning in their classrooms. This year the district was one of just six in Florida to win $1.2 million Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) federal grant. That grant is funding SMART Boards, classroom laptops, teacher training, technology coaches and other resources in 18 Alachua County schools this year. Schools are also using other technology funds, grants, even PTA money to purchase equipment. Sandy Medeiros, the district’s supervisor of instructional technology, says the goal is to teach students skills they’ll need in a global, technological age.

“When these students get out into the workforce, they’ll be working on projects and collaborating with people working in the same building and in locations throughout the world,” she said. “They’ll have to be able to use technology to do that.”

“In today’s world, you have to teach technology,” said David Borsarge, a fifth-grade teacher at Chiles Elementary School who uses a SMART Board and recently had his students create iMovies related to a science unit he was teaching. “The kids aren’t afraid of it, they just don’t know how to use it. If you teach them how to use it, they do very well.”

Renee Meizius, who teaches math at Gainesville High School, is another enthusiastic proponent of the technology. Using something similar to a SMART Board, she can display computations for her students on the screen, even those she carries out on the special graphing calculator used in her classes. She’s also taken the technology one step further by saving and posting everything she does on the screen to her website after school each day.

“Everything I project goes online so the kids will have access to it,” she said. “They can print it or just view it, but either way they can see everything we did in class that day.”

That was a big help to senior Anshal Patel, who is taking Meizius’ pre-calculus class.

“I was absent one week because I had surgery, but I was able to do all the work and keep up with the class,” he said. “I didn’t have to make up anything because I did it all online.”

On the same day Echeverri was ‘wowing’ his class, students in Kristin Brockman’s fifth-grade classroom at Williams Elementary were hunched over their laptops working on an activity about the human body. Already this year these nine- and ten-year old students have created Power Point presentations on recycling—a skill that’s beyond many adults.

“We do a lot of project-based learning, so instead of having a test to prove that they learned x, y and z about recycling, they create the Power Point,” said Brockman. “They can showcase what they’ve learned and they get experience with the technology at the same time.”

“It’s more fun that just using books and listening to the teacher talk and write on the board,” said fifth-grader Michael Harris.

“We like it,” agreed classmate Lynnetta Bryant. “It’s fun to do stuff on the laptops and on the SMART Board.”

Having students more engaged in learning both content and the use of technology has had an additional benefit in Brockman’s classroom. She says she’s also seen a big improvement in student behavior.

“The kids are so excited about using the technology, and they know they have to be on their best behavior to use it,” she said. “That alone motivates them to make the right choices.