It's over twenty years since SMART produced the first interactive white board to offer touch control. Early interactive white boards allowed documents to be displayed on a screen and overwritten with digital ink, but SMART changed the direction of interactive technology by adding fingertip control so teachers could not only write with their finger but also use mouse controls to open and manipulate software without leaving the screen.

Over two million SMART Boards have now been produced and almost every school in the country has installed interactive white boards in their classrooms. The boards benefit every pupil's learning and are especially helpful for those students with special needs or who learn in a more visual or kinesthetic way. And while the early boards are still useful, the technology has moved on and today's SMART Boards offer unrivalled features that really enhance lessons for both teaching staff and students, such as larger screens, multitouch control and Bluetooth connection. There are many benefits of upgrading your SMART Board - and now is a very good time to do it!

SMART's entry level white board is the 400 series, which offers schools a cost effective introduction to SMART Board technology. It has all the features you'd expect from an interactive white board, including pen and finger touch control to write, erase and perform mouse functions on screen and the ability to save screenshots and digital notes. The key difference is the 400 series is a single touch screen with no pen tray and therefore all of the writing functions are accessed through the on-screen software.

The 600 series has been on the market for over 5 years and is equally easy to use, offering state of the art performance to truly enhance any lesson. Using resistive technology, the SMART Board allows single touch control but through SMART's Touch recognition feature is capable of detecting whether you are using a pen or finger and switches seamlessly between the two, with no interaction required from you. You can write with the pen or your finger, erase using the palm of your hand and move objects - including words and numbers - across the screen using your finger. The specially designed pen tray detects which colour pen you're using and there's also an on-screen keyboard for easy access to websites.

The latest SMART Boards, the 800 series using DViT (Digital Vision Touch) technology, offer everything the 600 does and more. Perhaps the biggest benefit of upgrading your SMART Board to the 800 series is the dual use feature and access to all of the latest touch recognition features in Windows 7. This lets two people use the SMART Board independently and simultaneously. There are no limits on how it can be used - two people can write on any area of the screen and perform different actions at the same time and the enhanced touch gestures let you rotate, zoom and throw objects around the screen. There's also a new pen tray, and rather than using different pens for each colour you select the colour through a single pen, and can also call up the on-screen keyboard or a help service via the pen unit. It's the most intuitive SMART Board available and perfect for the classroom.

Jon Knight is the Managing Director of Smarter Interactive, a leading UK supplier and installer of interactive whiteboards, digital signage and video conferencing solutions. See: http://www.smarterinteractive.co.uk