Smart boards seem like many lazy school boards' way of saying, "Here, now we can say we're up to speed in terms of technology." My high school did the same thing, and they were never used, but always brought up in school presentations.

Investing that money into getting an excellent technology administrator or computer science teacher would have made much more of a difference.

It's not really a step towards progress, it's administrators trying to make it look like they're making progress without actually having to do anything other than spend money.

My aunt teaches at a school where they accidentally threw away all the power cables for the smart boards before they were even used.

At MIT we still use chalkboards. They seem to work pretty well, even with new curriculum.

I think he means Blackboard, Inc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackboard_Inc.

They have probably the worst UX I've seen in a web-app; their discussion board software I've had to use for a few classes- and it's abysmally pathetic. phpBB beats it by light-years. But apparently they have a monopoly thanks to some dubious patents.

Can't you make a smartboard with a laptop, projector and wiimote ... http://johnnylee.net/projects/wii/

Then you might want specific software but I'm sure it's available - tablet-PC software should probably do it.