Interactive Whiteboards
Written on November 12, 2005 – 2:19 pm | by Sahmeepee
Here’s an interesting article about interactive whiteboards in the Grauniad that nearly passed me by. I definitely agree that there’s an element of buzzwordiness/hype about the whole approach to IWBs by the British Government. As is always the case, however, there is definite educational benefit in there once the technology is sufficiently well-understood by the teacher. Which is why it’s so much more helpful to train all staff on IWB use and have five boards than to train five staff members and have an IWB in every room.
As I’ve read in a few places around the web, it’s important to get to grips with which sorts of activites work well on an IWB and focus on those. The not-at-all-advertised Teacher Resource Exchange allows you to search for interactive whiteboard resources, but unfortunately it seems that a lot of the uploaders tag their resources as useful for IWBs when clearly they aren’t. I’m not sure how long that site will be available, as it’s part of the Virtual Teacher Centre (in turn part of the NGfL), which is due to close on 19 December 2005. As BECTA are involved, I’m not anticipating good things.
On a related note, there’s a new Australian Blog about the use of IWB’s in education: ActivBoarding. They’re using six (I think?) Promethean ActivBoards with ActivStudio. It looks like a good place to watch for a fresh perspective (most of the stuff I’ve seen is very UK-oriented) and interesting resources. It’s a shame there’s not an open/common format between the whiteboard programs (particularly between Smart, ActivStudio1 and Activstudio2) as being able to share flipcharts etc seems to be one of the key benefits of the IWB experience. We’re firmly in the Promethean camp at school, so I’ll be passing these links on to those that can’t when I return to work on Monday.
Still not sated?: There are more resources for Promethean ActivStudio users in the Promethean resource directory and at the Lighthouse for Education.
[via IWB-EFL, Teaching Generation Z]
3 Responses to “Interactive Whiteboards”
IWB’s are very very useful BUT they are only as useful as the training or INSET that has been given to staff prior to their use.
Anyone using IWB’s without appropriate training is inviting problems not only with the IWB itself but also with students!
Many teachers are still way behind the technology in our understanding and use of IWB’s because there is not the TIME to perfect IWB techniques.
It seems to be the case that a half day or twilight course in the use of such technology is deemed to be enough. Sadly only practice makes perfect - not a two hour training session!
Promethean boards are a complete mongrel to install, use, maintain and train upon. Our SmartBoards are intuitive, user-friendly and maintenance free. So much so our staff love and use them, whilst Promethean boards are used for nothing more than projecting DVDs onto at the end of term…
We haven’t found them to be quite so bad. I would say the most important thing is to make sure you get the same type (all Promethean or all Smart etc.) throughout school to cut down on training/support/maintenance time.
The installation for Promethean boards under XP is still surprisingly buggy, considering the main bug (incorrectly recognised Human Interface Device) has been known for years now. Once you know how to install them cleanly (it is documented in the PDFs) it’s not so bad.