Getting to grips with interactive whiteboards

Interactive Whiteboards

In our ICT Session today we experimented with the interactive whiteboard facility. These interactive boards have virtually replaced the traditional whiteboards in the classroom. However from my prior experience they have been utilised to varying degrees in the classroom.

I have encountered some teachers who used fantastic interactive programmes in the teaching of mathematics, for instance using different denominations of coins on the screen for children to count out change, or even in reception as a means of demonstrating the mixing of paints in the making of farmyard pictures. On another occasion I was particularly interested in seeing them used in a year 3 Geography session in a study of the local area where the programme allowed for the creation of a pictorial local village with all the necessary landmarks and important features i.e. roads and river etc which both helped the children to develop an understanding of maps and really partake in creating a mature representation of their area. It is worth considering that perhaps part of the appeal of using ICT for children is to be able to present work in a way that actually is above their years and makes it seem more adult like/professional and therefore purposeful. I have also seen surprisingly young children be perfectly capable of making their own PowerPoint presentations for specific projects or tasks and it did seem that they often took a great sense of pride in this work and immersed themselves more fully in the task.

Other fantastic uses of the interactive whiteboards have been in the teaching of French where I have seen the teacher access online games to help children memorise colours, with images and sound clips to reinforce the meaning and pronunciation. Furthermore I have experienced some fantastic online material be accessed in the teaching of RE where the teacher brought up on the board a slideshow of images of the Christian story of creation and the fall Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, all built in Lego bricks and with captions beneath. This was a really light hearted way of teaching the story, with a real way for the children to visualise it in their own kind of media i.e. children’s toys, it actually really connected them with the story and acted as a talking point to examine the images.

However on the other hand I have also observed teachers who have not been up to scratch with the functions of their whiteboards and have forgotten the ‘interactive’ part completely, instead using them simply to scribe upon or haphazardly selecting symbols which would have been quicker drawn. Obviously there are times when the whiteboard cannot always be interactive, and needs to be used simply to write down, but as they are designed to bring learning alive and engage the children it seems disappointing not to be using them as a resource as much as possible. I do not believe in ICT being used to tick a box or for the sake of being able to say it has been used, instead it needs to be carefully considered as to what an interactive element will bring to the teaching and learning of the topic.

One of the most useful functions of the Interactive Whiteboard I would suggest is the ability to save work to view again later, just think how much time this must save rather than having to write things up again at a later date as so many lessons return to previous work as a means to help the children progress further and recap previous learning. On my placement I have also been impressed by the way that the Interactive Whiteboard also has a function incorporated like the old projectors where documents can be brought up and displayed on screen, so in the study of a text an image of it can be scanned in an then displayed for all to see and then annotated as a class, the example I saw was in the study of a poem on dragons where the children not only looked at the words and took it in turns to pick out and highlight adjectives but also could have a big bold image on the screen of the dragon from which to inspire them to create their own fantasy dragon. I was surprised by some of the new functions I discovered that the Interactive Whiteboard was capable of. These included actually changing the teachers own handwriting into formal text, there being sound clips within the programmes for a variety of things from the reciting of poems and singing of songs to the pronunciation of words in different languages, the huge amount of clipart available on the whiteboard which could allow for very creative presentation of work and the various functions to hide parts of the screen whilst showing others allowing for all sorts of carefully thought out ways of getting children to analyse and image or text using their ideas on small sections of something to predict what it might be like as a whole. Part of what particularly interests me is the idea that you can design the course of your lesson with the whiteboard, rather than just using straightforward resources or programmes it allows you to dip into multiple media and present in a variety of ways where you can personalise the learning to the needs of your class, unlike the old days of textbook learning. It also seems the epitome of appealing to multiple learning styles as it involves the visual, the auditory and the kinaesthetic.

I took this hands on exploration further by watching some clips on Teachers TV about the interactive whiteboard, a useful clip was www.teachers.tv/video/143 which aims to reassure teachers about technical hitches and become more confident with their use. It interested me because it deals with a lot of the phobias teachers have and some of the misconceptions about them. Another interesting resource I found for teachers investigating the effectiveness of the interactive whiteboards is a blog devoted specifically to the use of them www.whiteboardblog.co.uk/ It is a fascinating blog because it is full to the brim of useful ideas and ways to make the most of this teaching tool and is completely abreast with new developments and new media clips and material to use.

11/11/05