Using and interactive whiteboard and a piece of chalk

Baldev Singh has taken to the podium giving a good introduction to Web 2.0 tools. His key point at the moment is that we should seek tools for our busy teacher lives which involve little input with big output (I thought that was against the laws of physics, but with Web 2.0 anything’s possible).

His example is superb. His son gets a radio controlled truck and within a few hours it is lying thrown on the side of the living room. Why? Because, his son explains, it only goes forward, back, left or right. This expensive toy is actually pretty monoeducational.

A cheap (£5) tamagochi (sic?) however offers far more learning opportunity. For those not in the know, this is a small electronic toy that ‘lives’ when nurtured by its owner/father/mother. You hatch your egg, will it be boy or girl, give it a name, care for it, exercise it, lose weight, nurse when it’s sick, punish it when it’s naughty, praise it when it’s good, meet new friends via infrared beam…

What has this got to do with classroom technology? Well, I reckon this might be a chance to make myself ultra clear on something I normally mention in speeches or chats. I don’t like interactive whiteboard use. Interactive whiteboards I like, but the way they are used by 90% of the teachers is uninteractive. With the new tool old teaching is reinforced, with more teachers leading lessons from the front and children using the interactive nature for barely 5 minutes a day. It’s like giving someone a shiny whiteboard and telling them to continue using their chalk on it: we don’t see where it’s going, we can’t learn.

So give more training, pay for teachers’ cover so that they can observe good use of this ubiquitous tool, film lessons and put it on the web! These are all great potential solutions, and we’ve made a start on the MFLE, but I wonder how much more can really be done to improve on a pedagogy that has been labouring for around six years to get to a decent benchmark. While keeping boards for those who use them well, the vast sums spent on renewing poorly used IWBs could be money spent on devices such as iRivers, video and sound-editing software, cameras and Bluetooth adaptors for aged school machines would mean a lot more varied resources and activities that lead in an easier way to more engaging collaborative learning. Am I off the mark here?

Comments

[Steve]

I couldn't agree with you more, those who know me consider me antiIWB - but I am not anti interactive technologies. I suppose, as Ewan states, it probably isn't the technology I have an issue with it is its use. Maybe it isn't the teachers fault, maybe they haven't had enough training, or maybe it is too similar to the old chalkboard that they have used before so they teach in the same way as they taught before.