Let me start by stating that I am an IWB convert. Like many people, I once thought they were little more than an expensive gimmick until I started to use one. I quickly realised their great potential to enhance learning in my classroom.
Like 450 other people, I have just returned from the 2007 IWB Conference at Emmanuel College on the Gold Coast. Well organised and well supported in a location well suited to the event. It is always great to be among like minded people and to pick up new ideas from collegial networking (particularly while enjoying the night view from the top of Q1) and seeing what innovative work is being done by others. There was the usual mixture of people, from the experienced to those on a fact finding mission who come to ask a lot of questions and seek a lot of answers.
Strangely enough one major board manufacturer was missing which makes one wonder why buy their board if that aren’t really interested? An interesting post at http://betch.edublogs.org/ says it better than I could.
So how does an IWB improve student learning? By itself it doesn’t, an IWB is just a piece of plastic hanging on a wall. However, in the hands of a creative teacher it becomes a powerful teaching and learning tool that promotes “engagement” and “interaction” between the participants and the lesson. Yes this can be achieved in other ways but an IWB is a great catalyst for achieving this. Its more about the pedagogy than the tool.
Maybe one person in a hundred will be convinced of their usefulness by talking about them. Maybe 50% will be convinced by seeing them in action. Very few people who have used one will want to go back to teaching without one. I was a classic non-believer in IWBs until I actually used one. It was then that I started to see ways in which I could enhance my lessons using this great tool. In my first day of IWB operation with a class, a bright 6 year old raised his hand and asked “When do we get to use the board?” and guess what . . . he was right. From then on my students control the board as much as I do and this makes our lessons more interective, engaging and realistic. Not everything revolves around the board, like all good tools its use should be left to the tasks it does best.
So stay open minded and don’t just talk to people, go into classrooms and get some first hand experience with them. One thing I will guarantee is that once you start using an IWB you will change the way you teach – and it will be a beneficial change.
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