XplanaZine

As anyone who has tried teaching in a computer lab will agree, it can be very challenging to reach students when they have the world’s most wondrous and intricate “distraction engine” right in front of them. If the hybridization of technology and instruction is going to succeed in such a learning environment, certain requirements or tools are necessary.
Smart Technologies, a Canadian company, is hard at work developing a software package focused on the idea of taking full advantage of PCs in a classroom as well as trying to cut the distractions down. They have released a software program called SynchronEyes which was developed solely for the computer lab classroom setting.
I recently had the pleasure of testing out this software in different lab environments. Its works on the principle that the computers in front of the students need to be one of three things:

• Experimentation
• Display
• Blank

It achieves this by giving the instructor control. If the teacher needs full attention from the room, with the touch of a button on their own desktop they can blank every desktop in the room disabling the possibility of computer-based distraction. But this alone is only a small help in my eyes in actually using technology to aid in teaching as opposed to simply selectively disabling it.More importantly, the instructor can display his or her own desktop to every computer in the room. This keeps the students from being able to use their own computers so as to cut down on distraction, but instead of just blocking out the screen you are replacing it with a face-front image of what the teacher is doing. Whether this is PowerPoint, HyperCard, or the display of some other application every monitor in the room is now a display unit for teaching as opposed to an eye-trap for distraction.
The software has other functions, such as the ability to pull the screen of any one student and show it to all the others, which has benefits for positive reinforcement or learning from a peer’s example. It has limited functionality for communication between instructor and student, but ultimately its strength lies within its ability to aid controlling the focus of what goes on in front of a student’s eyes.
The software is not perfectly intuitive, but the developers appear to be focused on designing it as to be easy to adapt into a teacher’s style. One special commitment the company has to education is a lifetime access to any updates or upgrades. Once purchased, the company promises lifetime updates to their software sans upgrade or licensing cost. Additionally, to make the software affordable, grants are available to purchase the software through the Smarter Kids foundation bring the price for each lab (limited to 80 computers or less) under $600.
With the functionality and commitment Smart has to instructional software, it’s my opinion that the creation of the elusive technology meets education hybrid is getting ever closer. It certainly is a software package worth checking out if you are teaching in a lab setting any time in the near future.