NORTH BEND — Long gone are the days of blackboards and chalk.

In the North Bend School District, children and instructors have graduated to a more sophisticated, albeit expensive, mode of sharing information at the front of the class.

Teachers and children are using SMART Boards in nearly every classroom at Hillcrest and North Bay elementary schools, along with North Bend middle and high schools. These interactive white boards allow teachers and students to access the Internet, play instructional games, write and do a number of activities with the touch of a finger.

Essentially a large tablet computer, users operate SMART Boards with a fingertip or stylus. Images, such as Web-pages, interactive diagrams or real documents are projected on the screen with a LCD projection unit or document camera.