The Truth About Interactive Whiteboards.
Today in the mail I received a pamphlet from my child's school district, Anna ISD (not the district of my employment...thankfully), bragging about it's newest move toward "21st Century Learning." As an educational technologist my interest was piqued. So I read on as they began to explain
that they had purchased over 100 brand new Promethean
boards. A Promethean Board is a type of interactive whiteboard (IWB). The district claims these boards"will help our students to be able to compete in a global, technology-driven community."I have used an interactive whiteboard in my class and love what they can do for education. It's a good sign that this district is making the effort to bring technology into it's curriculum, although, their efforts are misinformed and therefore misguided.
Interactiv
e Whiteboards, sometimes called "Smartboards" have been around since about1991. Since then they have grown in popularity. One thing these devices have going
for them is that they are uber-
cool. I mean, they turn your
whiteboard into a touch screen! What isn't to love?
I'll tell you! How about the fact that they are ridiculously expensive, out-dated, and there are much cheaper
solutions that do the same things? The honest truth is that I don't know why this district purchased these dinosaurs, but the fact is that there are lots of educational institutions doing
the exact same thing. I say it's time we get over the cool factor and learn what this device
really is and compare it to modern technology available today.
An Interactive Whiteboard is, essentially, a whiteboard surface on which a projector displays images from a computer, running software that captures annotations.
Here are some of the features that are common in most current IWBs:
- Annotate over any webpage, image, PDF, or doc file
- Change page color, pen color, etc (very useful for visually impaired students)
- Move characters or images around the screen (
- Insert annotations on to word, ppt, & excel files
- Capture images
- Create screen capture videos while annotating for how to tutorials.
- All work can be exported to ppt or PDF to be later used for students via the internet or later lessons.
- Connect multiple devices for multi-user input.
Here are some of Cons of a traditional IWB:
- Can only be written on while standing at the whiteboard. As a result the teacher mustremain at the front of the classroom.
- Still requires a data projector
- Projected image size is limited to board size (See slates below for solution)
- 80"-100" models start at $1500-2000/ea (not including the price of the projector)
- Many teachers who acquire IWBs for their classroom end up using them just as they would a regular whiteboard except they can put the internet on it.
- Training teachers to use an IWB is a slow process, and even after training, many teachers continue to use the tool as they would a normal whiteboard. (My daughter told me that her teacher uses his Promethean board to show movies).
- IWB technology is 20 years old
- There are newer, more cost effective tools, emerging that can accomplish the same tasks and more.
The real power of an IWB is not in the hardware but rather in the software. Ultimately the hardware is nothing more than a pointing/input device that allows you to interact with the software, in other words...it's a mouse! A $2000 mouse! You can use IWB software with any keyboard and mouse on almost any computer, it just tends to be easier to have the mouse in the form of a pen. So what are our options?
New Technology
I don't have to tell you that technology has improved since 1991. When you consider Moore's law or the life span of a typical technology company, IWBs should have gone away almost as fast a 5 inch floppy disc. Today there is technology that can turn an existing whiteboard into an IWB for half the price. The Mimio and eBeam, create devices that can attach to any whiteboard. When you project your computer image onto that board it works like any other Interactive whiteboard. It's like turning an existing whiteboard into a touchscreen for half the price of a tradition IWB. Most of the pros and cons of IWBs still apply to this device, minus the $2,000+ pricetag.
Mobile Slates
- $300-$500 each (as opposed to a few thousand)
- Mobile - teacher is able to walk around the classroom and write on the board from any where. Device could also be passed around to students. This is very useful for students with disabilities.
- Screen size is not dictated by the IWB. Now your screen can be as large as your projector setup allows. Much more information can be displayed on the screen at once.
One of the disadvantages of a slate compared to a traditional IWB is the loss of physical touch with objects. Some students are tactile learners and benefit from seeing and touching the objects on the screen. With a tradition IWB this works great. With a slate the student touches the pen the pad while looking at the image in the screen.
Tablets
Now, with this new age of mobile devices and tablet computers, there are new solutions coming around that will change interactive whiteboards as we know them. In fact, tools like IWBs are now getting pegged with a new title, "single function device." With a tablet computer you can purchase your IWB app for a few dollars and still have a device that can be used to accomplish 100's of other tasks.
Here are a few apps that can transform an iPad into an IWB:
The bottom line, interactive whiteboards can be useful and every teacher should know how to use the software. However, the device itself is over-valued in education and school districts should have a plan for purchasing IWBs that includes slates and/or tablet computers.
When one can buy 4 or more slates or tablets for the price of 1 IWB I wouldn't have more than 2 traditional IWBs on any campus. In fact, until tablets become more main stream with better IWB apps, I would be very cautious when buying any interactive whiteboard product. Not only would this policy be more cost effective, it would also be much more responsible with tax funds that have been given to your school district.
(Revised from a previous post)
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