IWB enthusiasm
I still have some misgivings about the value-for-money that an IWB adds to education, but each time I have a session like today’s at William Brookes, the enthusiasm of teachers for the IWB starts to erode my negativity.
I mean, if that’s what it takes to get ICT into the classroom then it can’t be all bad can it? Even though most of the work is done on the laptop, and the projector shows it all to the class, the job of the whiteboard is only to be a Big Interface to replace the mouse - but it does more than that.
An IWB adds little to the lesson. There, I said it. But if a teacher has a projector and is reluctant to use it because the software on their laptop is too difficult for them to learn, or it doesn’t do quite what they want to accomplish in displaying work to their learners by means of highlighting, placing content, adding and editing etc, then the projector represents as much of a dead investment. So then, if the IWB and/or associated software encourages a teacher to develop and compile rich-content resources then the investment is somewhat justified, surely?
Once set up, an IWB is easy to use and the associated software allows the easy compilation of resources. The things it does are familiar to a teacher and they can work in their comfort zone quite happily. The software tools add to the things that they do with their black/white board anyway - and add enhancements that they sure can use but didn’t know they needed. ICT-shy teachers, who don’t have the time (or inclination) to learn all the fancy graphics and word processing packages, are led gently into the world of preparing rich resources on the whiteboard that include hyperlinks, screen captures, annotated video and the like. They look forward to using this element of ICT improve their practice as a result; when they find something that it can’t do they go and find something that will do the job they want and they belnd it with the IWB software, becoming more ICT capable in the process.
This happened today. With a group of IWB new recruits, I gave a brief demonstration of the basics and then let them loose on the software. It wasn’t long before I was hearing the noises of delight as they found new tools that they could use. Occasionally I would demonstrate a tool that somebody had asked about, or we would discuss the ways in which it could be used but the session became very busy as teachers engaged with the IWB software (it was Smart 9.01) and decided what they were going to do with it to enhance their lessons as they compile rich content for pupils to use. We discussed the ways that they could import text for subsequent highlighting (handy hint: the text highlighter in Adobe Reader doesn’t add all the extra paragraph marks when you copy and paste into Smart, unlike pasting into Word) and saving or exporting flipcharts for subsequent use. I suspect the most widely-used tool will be the screen capture as people worked to master this and could instantly see the value of it.
In all, a very successful session I felt, and judging by the responses the delegates found it valuable too.