Smartboard: Hit or Miss?

This week in class, we looked at the importance of technology within the mathematics classroom.  Education has greatly changed over the past 20 or so years with the use of technology.  When I was in school, the only technology we had was about 10 computers and a few televisions.    In today's integrated classroom, technology can be used everywhere from online games to iPads which enhance the learning of students and engages the class as a whole.
Although there are so many technological tools to enhance learning, we as future teachers need to make sure we are using it appropriately and effectively in the classroom.  Often times, we can overuse technology to the point where it seems repetitive and uninteresting to the students.  An example of this that we discussed in class was the idea of smartboards.  When these first came to the teaching profession, there was a large push for them as they were marketed to replace the boring chalkboards with an innovative and interactive learning tool.  Basically, smartboards are essentially a touchscreen whiteboard computer that students and teachers can write on, move objects around and point and click with the touch of their fingers.  Smarttech.com states that it is a complete "learning system that combines award-winning technologies to produce an interactive whiteboard".  Seems pretty innovative as clearly you could integrate this in a lot of lessons but we have to remember that these smartboards are not cheap!  In fact, according to smarttech.com, these whiteboards range from $3000-$4000 dollars.  Many classes both in highschool and elementary school do have at least one smartboard in the room which means a good portion of the school's money has already been spent on these boards.  This would be fine if the smartboards received great praise for being an extremely innovative tool however many educators feel that it just really isn't worth the investment.  In fact, Lisa Nielsen a teacher in the United States suggests that smartboards don't change the model that's broken they just make that model way more expensive (http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.ca/2010/05/why-smartboards-are-dumb-initiative.html).  Essentially, she feels that even with a smartboard the teacher still controls the content, stands in front of the classroom and has to manage a bunch of kids through a lesson plan they'd rather not be managed through.  She feels that a lot of teachers are using the smartboards to teach traditional lessons because they do not have the required training to fully unleash the capabilities of the smartboard.  I myself do agree with this statement as I too have witnessed a teacher using the smartboard as a basic whiteboard.  While I was doing an observation placement on the first day, the teacher was telling me all about the new smartboards in the classroom.  When I went to observe his lessons all he did was put a powerpoint on the smartboard, stand at the front and talk for 40 minutes and barley use any of the vast capabilities of the smartboard.  Judging from the reactions of the students around me I could tell that the lesson got very dull quick even though he used the smartboard.
Overall, I feel that smartboards can be an extremely useful tool because it has so many capabilities.  But, for the price I feel that every teacher should be trained on how to harness these capabilities and create a creative and fun learning environment for the students.  I have posted a link below which shows some cool things you can do on a smartboard.  Let me know what you think, are they innovative ideas or not so innovative?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0IGg0UaN3Y