Interactive Whiteboard

From my own experiences in schools, I have witnessed Interactive Whiteboards to be a great tool to have in the classroom. As defined by the US Department of Education, "Interactive whiteboards are used in many schools as replacements for traditional whiteboards or flipcharts. They provide ways to show students anything which can be presented on a computer's desktop (educational software, web sites, and others).

Interactive Whiteboards can be a very effective instructional strategy for students, as it allows for repetition and for students to see material again in circumstances where they were absent, falling behind and for review of topics (US DOE, 2008).

As a future learning manager I wanted to research some possible engaging ways to use such a great technology. My findings include such things like (US D0E, 2008);

• Save lessons to present to students who were absent
• Create video files to teach a software application, a lesson, or as a review to be posted to the server or web. Example- How to create a graph in Excel or hoe to burn a projects to cds
• Use the built in maps to teach continents, oceans, countries, or states and capitals.
• Present presentations created by student or teacher
• Have students create e-folios including samples of their work and narration
• Digital storytelling
• Teach whole group computer or keyboarding skills
• Brainstorming
• Take notes directly into PowerPoint presentations
• Reinforce skills by using on-line interactive web sites
• Creating a project calendar
• Teach editing skills using editing marks
• Use in the 6 trait writing process
• Use highlighter tool to highlight nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.
• Use it with Kidspiration or Inspiration
• Teaching students how to navigate the Internet
• Illustrate and write a book as a class. Use the record feature to narrate the text.
• Use the Interwrite software to create lessons in advance at home or at school. Then save them for future use or to be shared with other teachers

This great tool fits perfect within the frame work of Kearsley and Schneiderman (1999) engagement theory. As stated by Mitchell (2008)"students demand interactivity". This statement therefore supports the many concepts of learning, especially knowing that students must be engaged in the curriculum in order to be effective learners (Kearsley, & Shneiderman, 1999).

References

Kearsley, G. & Schneiderman, B. (1999). Engagement Theory: A framework for technology based teaching and learning. Retrieved August 16th, 2009 from http://home.sprynet.com/-gkearsley/engage.htm

Mitchell, B., (2008). Interactive Whiteboards: Boon or Boondoggle Retrieved 12th August, 2009, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1GQC8obImA

US Department of Education. (2008). Interactive Whiteboards. Retrieved August 16th, 2009 from http://www.fsdb.k12.fl.us/rmc/tutorials/whiteboards.html