Teachers Should Try To Teach With Interactive Whiteboard

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Interactive whiteboards have become popular over the last few years,and it appears that their use will continue to grow exponentially.Indeed, books like The Interactive Whiteboard Revolution attest to the depth and breadth of change that this tool canpromote in classroom practice. For those who may still be unfamiliar with the technology, an interactive whiteboard is a large display that connects to a computer and a projector. The projector projects the computer's desktop onto the board's surface, where users control the computer with a pen, finger, or other device. The board is typically mounted to a wall or floor stand. Various accessories, such as student response systems, enable interactivity. Although many teachers have enthusiastically adopted interactive whiteboards, little research is available on their effect on student achievement. However, in a study that involved 85 teachers and 170 classrooms, the teachers used interactive whiteboards to teach a set of lessons, which they then taught to a different group of students without using the technology. What the Research Found The study results indicated that, in general, using interactive whiteboards was associated with a 16 percentile point gain in student achievement. This means that we can expect a student at the 50th percentile in a classroom without the technology to increase to the 66th percentile in a classroom using whiteboards. In addition, three features inherent in interactive whiteboards have a statistically significant relationship with student achievement. The first is the learner-response device—handheld voting devices that students use to enter their responses to questions. The percentage of students providing the correct answer is then immediately displayed on the board in a bar graph or pie chart. Using voting devices was associated with a 26 percentile point gain in student achievement. A second feature is the use of graphics and other visuals to represent information. These include downloaded pictures and video clips from the Internet, sites such as Google Earth, and graphs and charts. Use of these aids was also associated with a 26 percentile point gain in student achievement. A third feature is the interactive whiteboard reinforcer—applications that teachers can use to signal that an answer is correct or to present information in an unusual context. These applications include dragging and dropping correct answers into specific locations, acknowledging correct answers with virtual applause, and uncovering information hidden under objects. These practices were associated with a 31 percentile point gain in student achievement. What We Saw in the Classroom One of the more interesting findings from the study was that in 23 percent of the cases, teachers had better November 2009 results without the interactive whiteboards. To determine why this occurred, we examined video-tapes of teachers using the boards. These disclosed some potential pitfalls in using the technology: ? Using the voting devices but doing little with the findings. In many classrooms, teachers simply noted how many students obtained the correct answer instead of probing into why one answer was more appropriate than another. ? Not organizing or pacing the content well. In these cases, the teachers incorporated video segments from the Internet or images intended to represent important information in their digital flipcharts. However, they ran through the flipcharts so quickly that students, although impressed with the graphics, did not have time to analyze and interact with one another about the content. ? Using too many visuals. Digital flipchart pages were awash with visual stimuli; it was hard to identify the important content. ? Paying too much attention to reinforcing features. For example, when teachers who had worse results with the technology used the virtual applause feature to signal a correct answer, the emphasis seemed to be on eliciting the applause rather than on clarifying the content. If you are interested in any of our products or being our distributors in your local market, pls do not hesitate to contact us. Xiamen Interactive Technology Co., Ltd Add: Floor 1, No.45 Bldg, Wanghai Rd., Software Park Phase 2, Xiamen, China Tel: +86-592-5902910 Fax: +86-592-5902916 Contact Person: Samantha Woo Email: info@cnintech.com; Samantha@cnintech.com; MARKET@cnintech.com Skype: Samantha-intech; maisie-intech MSN: cnintech6@hotmail.com website: