Interactive Whiteboards

I am currently on prac at a school where many of the classrooms are equipped with Interactive Whiteboards and as such, I have underwent numerous training sessions in regards to this e-learning tool. The system used at my learning site are the Active (Promethean) Whiteboards. I firstly have to say that this technology is very time consuming to initially learn and to embed into learning experiences. I have used it several times throughout the year and it is gradually becoming easier to use. However before choosing to embed this technology into my pedagogy, I need to ensure that it will form the basis of a worthwhile learning activity.

After reading over the prescribed website from the Teacher Delivery Technologies page, I now have a few more ideas (as highlighted on the website) in terms of using the technology in my classroom. I thought that the brainstorming (mind map) activity would be useful to depict on the whiteboard as I could move around the suggested ideas according to patterns/issues/sequence of events etc. I loved the idea of the built-in-maps which I would most certainly use for my SOSE classes-it is just a matter of finding these resources on the whiteboard program. Creating a video file and uploading it to the whiteboard when teaching students software applications (such as creating speadsheets or graphs) in my business classes would also be an appropriate use for the whiteboard.

The interactive whiteboard conforms to Kearsley & Shneidernman's Engagement Theory (1999) as it encourages a hands-on approach to technology in terms of students engaging with the learning materials. For a timeline activity, I would ask students to come up the front and drag the correct sequence to its corresponding point on the timeline using the Promethean pen.

Reference:
Kearsley, G & Shneiderman, B 1999, Engagement Theory: A Framework for technology-based teaching and learning, viewed 24 July, 2009, http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.htm.