Playing Games on the SMART Table

I’m a big fan of SMART Board’s SMART Technologies, the Canadian company behind one of the leading interactive whiteboards. Warren Buckleitner, the editor of Children’s Technology Review, attended the National Association for the Education of Young Children’s conference, NAEYC 09, where he filmed a nice bit on SMART Technologies’ new SMART Table.

The SMART Table reminds me of the old Ms. PacMan tabletop game of the 1980s, where two players could square off with one another while seated (and yes, I threw far too many quarters down the gullet of one such machine in a College Station eatery way back when).

It also reminds me of Dr. Merrick’s table top computer portrayed in the movie The Island, which was the brain spawn of an MIT consultant for the film.

Various games and activities are included with the SMART Table, including puzzles, mazes, and arithmetic problems embedded in a fun environment. On one, a money game, kids have to slide representations of coins to indicate the cost of an item. Buckleitner asks the SMART rep, jokingly, “So kids could actually gamble and do poker in preschool?” I had to smile since we talked about poker in school earlier today.

Buckleitner seems a bit concerned about the $8,000 price tag for the SMART Table, but if past success is any indicator SMART Technologies will sell plenty of them. Here’s Buckleitner’s video: