Promethean Board Overview | What is a Promethean Board? – Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

Video Transcript

Definition

While it may have a slightly intimidating and mysterious name, a Promethean Board is actually an incredibly useful piece of technology you might find in your classroom today. To put it simply, a Promethean Board is a specific brand of interactive whiteboard that allows you to project an image from a laptop or a computer, as well as interact with the board through touch or specialized pens. There are many brands of interactive white boards and studies show that their use considerably improves learning. Let’s go through some of its advantages in more detail.

Projector

Through a connection to a laptop computer or tablet, whatever is displayed on the device will be made bigger and shown on the blank Promethean Board. This way, you can show your class videos or websites, maybe take them on a Google tour of the Amazon.

The Promethean Board can also come with a peripheral device that resembles an overhead camera. This is useful for working on a page in a workbook or textbook together with the whole class or displaying an image that would be impractical if held up in front of the students.

Interactive Uses

The Promethean Board, while useful as a projector when connected to a computer or the external camera, really shows its usefulness when used as an interactive whiteboard. The interactive aspect of the Promethean Board means that it can use a pen-like device or even a finger to draw on top of what is projected. Either you, as the teacher, or students can write or draw on the Promethean Board (digitally, of course).

This kind of interactivity can be used in creative and effective ways. For example, students could write answers on top of a projected workbook page or to correct something written on a piece of paper projected through the camera. This way, the whole class can edit a document together and see their edits projected on the screen.

Teaching Materials

The activities you and your class can do with the Promethean Board are only limited by imagination and training. There are also a lot of resources on the web that you can utilize to expand the usefulness of your Promethean Board, such as free teaching resources and ready-made lesson plans.

By incorporating the use of touchscreen technology and a computer, a Promethean Board gets students excited about learning and thus increases student engagement.

Lesson Summary

A Promethean Board is an interactive whiteboard onto which you can project images from a computer, tablet, or external camera. Incorporating a Promethean Board into your lessons will help you reach a new level of interactivity between your students and their education. Use it to project internet content, collectively edit documents or explain workbooks. All you need is a little training, research, and creativity.