Interactive White Boards~ convince me.

The practicality of interactive white boards is debatable. As someone who believes in a balance of direct instruction and inquiry based teaching, IWB’s have a limited use. I think.

My suspicion is that I may be missing something. Used at their most basic functionality, IWB’s are a teacher centered tool. The teacher projects something as thrilling as a PowerPoint onto the white board, they may use electronic colored pens to highlight an idea or key learning. And maybe, just maybe, that image will be saved to be used in material later… or not. But mostly, I have a suspicion that school districts are feeling good about IWB purchases because the mimic their more comfortable predecessor~ the chalkboard…

Oh, the chalkboard.

Here is where I am willing to be wrong. I think the magic of this tool might actually lay in the software. That creating a media rich lesson with interactivity built in for benchmarking student understanding or for student practice might make this pricey fixture have value. Again, I think.

Some of the ancillary tools put the students closer to the learning~ response pads, those little hand held things that at least have choices like A, B, C etc at best allowing for text entry. These give all students the ability to participate in the lesson. Having test entry makes allows response types to include higher order thinking rather than the multiple choice limitations.

So where are the kids? That’s ultimately where this tool falls apart for me.

I know there is much, much more~ but need some convincing. I am a proponent of putting the technology directly into the hands of the students. 1-1 laptop initiatives and project based learning.
Interactive