I borrowed a colleague's MOBI this week to check it out, and WOW! This interactive whiteboard is super cool! It has a wireless transmitter that plugs into your USB port on your computer, then you can walk around the room with the tablet and write on a white board or computer image that has been projected onto the screen. I usually feel tied to my document camera, since I'm recording whatever we're discussing or completing, and this allowed me to stand anywhere in the room and still write on whatever was up on my screen! I can see this also being used by students - rather than having them leave their seats to write on the board or projector, I could walk it by their desk and they could contribute their answer/thought! It's a little difficult to navigate with the mouse/pen at first, but after using it for even a day, I felt pretty comfortable. I'd like to continue playing with it to see what else it does. Think of all the paper and overheads we could save if we could just pull up digit copies on the desktop and write on them using the MOBI!
http://www.einstruction.com/products/mobile-interactive-whiteboards
The Mobi sounds very interesting. It sounds like it is a very useful tool, though would the school provide one for each classroom? What's the cost for these? I've never personally used a smartboard, but I've seen one in a computer lab in the Education/Social Work building on campus. From what I understand, they are pretty expensive. Would the Mobi be difficult for students to use if they don't have time to practice like you did? It would probably be impossible for all the students to "practice" with it if not all the teachers used them regularly. Also, it might be difficult to give every student a chance to use it during class time every day so some students could end up getting more usage.
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