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Post-Conference Materials

INTERACTIVE COMPUTER-DRIVEN WHITE BOARDS IN LAW SHOOL CLASSROOMS
Thursday, June 25, 1998
3:30 pm - 4:30 pm

Pedro A. Malavet
Assistant Professor
The University of Florida College of Law
352-392-2234
malavet@law.ufl.edu

Smart lecterns are obsolete. You can stand in front of the class, and write on a board while controlling multimedia presentations by simply touching the board itself. You can hand write over anything being displayed on the board, and save, publish or print out the notes at the end of each class. The law professor can use the most sophisticated technology in the same way that teachers have used black boards for decades. Power and simplicity at the touch of a finger.

I have been using two interactive white board systems for the last few weeks and will present the results of my testing at the 1998 CALI conference. Both systems show great promise for classroom use. The Smartboard uses a white board made of touch-sensitive material that
becomes a 60 or 72-inch interactive computer monitor. The teacher can completely control the computer desktop from the board itself, as well as handwrite on the board, even directly over projected computer material, using a virtual writing system. The Tegrity system uses a digital video camera to create a limited set of virtual touch-buttons that control a Windows desktop, and can be activated from the white board as well. It also captures notes written with normal dry ink markers, even if they are made over projected material. At the end of the session, class notes can be saved and be distributed as needed. The classroom technology of the future works like the classroom equipment of the past.

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Session Website (Select the Thechnology In Law Teaching link from the left frame)

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