"The Times They are a Changing"

 Monday, I went to Milton-Union Schools in Southwest Ohio to give a presentation for Macmillan Publishing on their elementary music textbook series, "Spotlight on Music". This was the first time that I had an opportunity to use a smart-board. 

I quickly surmised that it  is basically a touch-screen monitor. The jack to plug into my Macbook is the new "female type, so an adapter for the older projectors was not needed.

Luckily, my Mac is automatically configured to handle this. The attachment cord comes included with all Macbook Pros. This is very important, listen up:

Remember to plug in the cable to the smart-board into your computer BEFORE you boot up your PC. I had to learn that one the hard way. 

I had used the system preferences and configured the smart-board to run in in parallel mode. This means that the smart-board was a continuation of the right side of my laptop monitor. I had to drag the open windows to the left until they were not visible on my laptop monitor. I kept scrolling the window to the left and they eventually showed up on the smart-board. cool!

I chose to used my touchpad on the Mac and remain seated to run the powerpoint presentation. Only occasionally, did I get up and drag my finger against the screen of the smart=board to control the mouse. 

The Final Word..........

I love smart-boards! 

I wish I had one when I was teaching. I remember entire classes scrunched around the 14 inch monitor on the only PC in the room to watch computer demonstrations about music technology. Dylan said it best, "The Times They are a Changing".

I, for one, think that they are changing for the better.