SMART Ideas OESS Assessment

The SMART Ideas Software program is a program that introduces and uses
concept-mapping for students. It is an application that my board required me to teach to my grade four students during the first term of school. This is a program that was new to me, before having taught it last term. In utilizing and assessing this software, I found going to the manufacturer’s website made things a little easier. The Smart Technologies website describes SMART Ideas as a tool to help students “better analyze and understand complex ideas by building multilevel interactive maps (http://www2.smarttech.com/st/en-US/Products/SMART+Ideas/). The following is my assessment of the SMART Ideas program using the rubric created for OESS software programs.

In terms of content, the SMART Ideas software program is educationally-sound and always presents intelligent, thought-provoking, higher-order information. Since it is a tool to make graphic organizers and concept maps, it is clearly more of an educational tool than a game. It encourages users to plug in educational information in order to create higher-level concept maps.

SMART Ideas is a program that caters greatly, and is very relevant to the Ontario Curriculum. It is a program that can help in many different areas, including literacy, numeracy, social studies, science, and more. I was able to incorporate many subject areas in the tasks that I assigned using the SMART Ideas program. For example, my students were studying Canada at the time in social studies, the assignment required each of them to choose a province, and they had to come up with a concept map showing at least six different interesting facts about that province. They set this up using a brainstorm or concept map layout, and they had to incorporate text, graphics, colour, font, and connectors. This is a great program to relate to any Ontario Curriculum requirements.

The attractiveness and appeal of this program is great. It incorporates different colours and graphics, and definitely had my students wanting to explore further. They could not get enough of all the creative things they could use to make their concept maps unique. This program offers many options to cater to every student’s needs.

SMART Ideas does have a help button that is similar to the one in Microsoft Word. If you click the help button, a textbox pops up and asks you what you are needing help with. It will then walk you through the steps to solve the problem. My students were able to utilize the help button and get themselves out of any issue they had. The help button is very user-friendly, and you do not have to be a rocket scientist to solve problems in this program. It is great for experimenting, and if you do something ‘wrong’ or something that you do not like anymore, you can always ‘undo’. Great tool!

In terms of the modernity of this program, the one my board uses is quite up-to-date. There are no references to older ideas or concepts, and the information presented is very current. The people who designed the program were clearly thinking in terms of what teachers need in today’s classroom – and created this! On the topic of upgrades, the website states, “minor upgrades are available free of charge. Major upgrades are released annually and are available to SMART Ideas software customers for a nominal charge”. This is excellent!

Gender and culture neutrality are not even an issue with the SMART Ideas program simply because it is a concept mapping tool that allows the students to plug in the information they want. Therefore, there are no references to places or names. They do, however, provide sample maps (and on the website as well) that incorporate every subject from poetry in language arts, to the human anatomy in life sciences. These are real examples of information students at any age and from any race, will relate to and find very useful. Also, as stated on the website, this program is available in English, French, and Spanish – so it caters to many different groups of people.

The mechanics of this program are very easy to follow. Any buttons or links provided will take you to wherever you need to be quickly and efficiently. As previously stated, it has an ‘undo’ button that my students found extremely helpful, especially when they were initially experimenting with the program to get to know it better. The Windows version of this program includes the standard menu bar that we would normally see in Microsoft Words. The menu bar included ‘file’, ‘font’, etc. – which are things my students found easy to use because of their familiarity with other programs using similar buttons. The SMART Ideas program is completely non labour-intensive, and once you get to know the program, it has a very low frustration level. It is user-friendly and you are able to experiment and explore with ease.

On our school computers this program is very easily accessible. It takes only three to four easy steps to get to this program once you are logged on. Also, the Smart Technologies website states that this program is available for Windows, Macintosh, and Tablet PCs, so no one is left out! SMART Ideas is also available in both Canada and the United States.

The fact that the manufacturer of SMART Ideas has a website is also very helpful because of the services and information it provides. For example, there is an “Already a Customer?” section that offers free upgrades, technical support, downloadable software, training, and product registration. The website also includes live trials, sample concept maps, purchasing information, and testimonials.

Using the rubric I created, I would grade SMART Ideas software program at a Level 4. It is a great program to use as it is user-friendly, easy to follow and understand, it is great for exploring, and fun to use. I would recommend all boards in Ontario purchase the SMART Ideas software program for their schools.