Interactive Whiteboards (IWB)

Over the past decade, Interactive Whiteboards have become increasingly popular as a tool to assist teaching practice and learning. It has been suggested that these Interactive Whiteboards promote numerous benefits to primary school classrooms, including increased student motivation and higher teacher enthusiasm.

Much research has been conducted into the relevance, benefits, and issues associated with IWBs. One researcher, Robert Marzano, suggested that the use of Interactive technology in the classroom leads to immediate and sustainable improvements in student achievement, citing the IWB as an effective tool to help tackle and reduce the gap between child achievement. 

“I think the advent of this new technology… will change the face of teaching in terms of how we interact with students and what we use as content. I think this technology will help add a whole new set of strategies that were never available before” 

Robert Marzano, 2008 

The benefits

• The interactive element means children can learn in a fun and stimulating way. This is otherwise known as 'edutainment'.
• By providing a stimulus for discussion on the whiteboard (key questions, videos, games, etc...) children's discussion skills may be developed.
• Allows for a multisensory approach to teaching and learning (visual, auditory, kinaesthetic).
• Acts as a supportive tool for SEN and ESL children, providing stimulating visual learning cues.
• Helps develop children's ICT skills.
• Encompasses a large variety of resources. Pre-existing resources on-line can be used or adapted to personalise it for a class. Similarly teachers can make their own resources at low cost and l with less time constraints. 

 video showcasing the endless possibilities of the Interactive Whiteboard

The negatives

While interactive whiteboards have been shown to have numerous positive impacts on teaching and learning, there have been some concerns regarding its impact in classrooms. These concerns are outlined below:

• Interactive whiteboards may promote a more teacher-centred style of learning where students sit facing forward, passively watching the teacher at the front.
• This may result in an increase in TTT (Teacher Talking Time) and thus, a decrease in STT (Student Talking Time).
• 'Bored of board' - if an interactive whiteboard is used too extensively, children may become uninterested, less engaged and bored.
• Loss of 'the personal touch'. Teachers may give more focus to the whiteboard than to the class, removing the face-to-face, personal relationship teachers should have with their pupils.

However, I would argue that these concerns are not directly the fault of the whiteboard, rather they stem from the ways in which teachers interact and use the whiteboards as a resource. If the interactive whiteboard is used to directly assist purposeful learning, and is valued as one of a number of teaching resources, used to interact with the children rather than for rope learning, then these concerns may be rendered invalid.


Applications of the IWB

During the IWB workshop the class was split into groups. Each group was asked to create a teaching resource based on certain applications available on the Interactive Whiteboards. These applications included the following:

• Balloon pop
• Checker tool
• Erase to reveal
• Magnifying glass
• Pull tabs
• Click to reveal
• Magic tunnel
• Page recorder
• Random number generator

My group was lucky enough to be allocated the random number generator, an application which does pretty much what it says; generates random numbers.

The random number generator allows the user to customize the range of numbers it can pick from. By clicking the edit arrow in the bottom-right corner of the tool, you can input a minimum and maximum range value you want the tool to generate numbers between. 

My group decided to use this tool to create a useful numeracy tool. By creating empty sums (as seen below) the random number generator can be used as a fun way to complete sums:

This tool enables teachers to quickly generate different values rather than writing them out individually. It similarly enables students to gain interest by interacting with the SMART Board interactive whiteboard.

Similarly there are other random generator tools, including random domino generator, random letter generator, random cards generator... In this sense the random generator tool is vastly flexible and can be utilised in numerous cross-curricular contexts.