Whiteboard or Interactive Whiteboard

In their article Transition in pedagogical orchestration using the interactive whiteboard, Gary Beaucamp and Steve Kennewell ask their readers to consider the differences between minimal use of interactive whiteboards(IWB) in the classroom and optimal use of IWDs and their accompanying technologies. On one end of this spectrum is use of the board as an expensive projector and a blackboard/whiteboard. And while they acknowledge that this does not mean that teachers who use this technology in these limited ways cannot be effective. They do suggest that when IWBs are used to their full potential and become central to or a  “hub” for instruction that they can transform a classroom. Teachers who become fluent with use of IWB technology can better orchestrate student learning by making use of different learning modalities and allowing students to have more control over instruction.

In previous articles Beaucamp has suggest thinking about a teacher’s use of IWB technology as progressing through stages. Initially the teacher controls the board, drawing on it, modelling, utilizing it for classroom and lesson organization,  etc. However as the teacher becomes more skilled he/she can expand the use of the board. Later stages are typified by a “classroom culture” which promotes student fluency with and use of the board, use of the board for multimedia, and use of peripheral technology. In the article they compared similar lessons centered on WWII bombings in England, with differing levels of IWB use. Synergistic and highly planned and skilled applications of the IWB resulted in a lesson in which the students received better corrective feedback from both the teacher and their peers as well as, better organization, more flexibility, student directed learning, and the freedom for the teacher to circulate in the classroom and interact more with individual students.

This article can be read as a challenge. As teachers are we more like the teacher whose IWB use created a dynamic student led classroom or honestly are we more like their stage one teacher making minimal use of the technology. It can be easy to justify remaining at a low level of IWB use. How many of us have heard and/or said something like the following: I haven't had enough training; I have some equipment but not all the equipment that I need; I never have gotten used to the latest upgrade; or, if I could count on tech support I would entrust more of my instruction to technology. There is truth in all of these and yet in the end they are really just excuses and rationalizations. Add to this that we rarely see others teach and as a result neither see much good teaching in action nor are we challenged by others. There is often a tendency to think that we are doing great things when really much of what we do is probably rather ordinary at best. Beauchamp and Kennewell do us all a great service by reminding us what good teaching looks like.