My college has started to roll out smart board installations to the classrooms. Some of you are probably cheering. I might be myself, if not for the circumstances. I'm most definitely not a technophobe. I like using computers in my classrooms. I like being able to show things in a presentation style or to link to things on the internet. I almost certainly make more use of computers than many of my colleagues.

The trouble is that the powers that be have decided that where they install smartboards we no longer need either OHPs or whiteboards. So they are taking them away. There is so much wrong with that it's hard to know where to begin.

The first, and most blatantly obvious, thing is that if the technology breaks we are left without any kind of back up. They tell me the technology won't break. I have enough experience of IT (I was in IT for twenty years) and teaching ( a mere ten years) to know that that's nonsense.

The second is that I don't want EVERY lesson to be focussed around computers. For a start computer lessons take much longer to prepare. When I use computers in a lesson I also use all the other techniques.

I discussed this with someone who suggested that I should prepare every lesson as a Power Point Presentation. That's fine for lectures. I don't lecture. I teach English. I am flexible to the demands of the classroom. If it becomes apparent that some essential point that I thought the class knew is causing problems I go off plan and cover it.

I could never anticipate all the eventualities that might crop up.

Another problem is that the smart boards are approximately half the size of the white boards they are replacing.

Another problem is that I often want to write information in a corner of the board and leave it there for the whole lesson while I change everything else. That's also pretty tough to do using a smart board.

I like smartboards and I want them in my classrooms but not if it means every other tool is being taken away from me. It's like giving a carpenter an electric drill and taking away his hammer, his saw and all his screws and nails.

In my view technology should always be used with two things in mind

i) new technology should augment old technology, not replace it

ii) you should always consider carefully whether you are using the right tool for the job.

Has anyone else had any experience of this blind faith in technology to do everything? And if so did you manage to persuade your powers that be to leave a few of the old tools lying around?