• Best Practices
    Here are some links that may help you integrate your new technology in the classroom. 
     
     
     
    Summary:
     

    This article talks about utilizing an interactive whiteboard as much more than a glorified projector screen (which is how it has been used in the past). The author breaks down methods for using an IWB in terms of Beginner activities, Intermediate activities, and Advanced activities. These activities include group note taking and interactive online websites (beginner), using the IWB as a learning center for a group of students (intermediate), and capturing lessons for playback (advanced).

    “We put our notes, games, reading and pretty much anything possible on the board so we can write on it and manipulate it to fit what we are doing. Also, the students are much more willing to get involved in what we are doing. Many of the students who would normally just sit and listen will be willing to get involved to be able to come up and use the board. If you just turn the board on it doesn't do anything to involve them.”
     
    - 6th grade social studies/science teacher, Mattawan CSD
     

    This article, taken from the online magazine EdTech, introduces five best practices to engage your students with an IWB. These tips include recording video of solving a problem, using screen shade and highlighting tools to help keep your students on task. The author also emphasizes the idea of borrowing, creating, and sharing your lessons with not just the teachers in your school, or even school district, but with online communities and educators throughout the world.

    "Remember that content is king; the medium is not the message. Good teaching comes down to this: being able to leverage the possibilities that an interactive whiteboard brings to the classroom while being mindful that it's the lesson you want your students to remember, not the manner in which it was taught. Be eclectic; do what works."

    - Buzz Garwood, technology teacher, Home Gardens Academy

    The Interactive Whiteboard in Your Classroom

    This article helps educators "think outside of the box" when using Interactive Whiteboards in their classrooms and provides innovative strategies that engage students and make them equal partners in the instructional process. The author offers some strategies for innovation and also advocates for sharing lessons and activities with other educators.

    "Imagine a future where our children are more motivated because they aren't just learning on blackboards, but on new whiteboards with digital touch screens; where every student in a classroom has a laptop at [his or her] desk; where [students] don’t just do book reports but design PowerPoint presentations; where they don’t just write papers, but they build web sites; where research isn't done just by taking a book out of the library, but by emailing experts in the field; and where teachers are less a source of knowledge than a coach for how best to use it and obtain knowledge. By fostering innovation, we can help make sure every school in America is a school of the future."

    - President Barack Obama

     

    This article is directed towards using an IWB in an elementary setting. This teacher aims to answer the overlying question: How can elementary school teachers effectively use interactive whiteboard technology with lower elementary students to help them learn? The author did research on this topic and offers some of her best practices and interactive resources.

    "I chose to research this question because interactive whiteboard technology is new to me since my teachers didn't have the opportunity to utilize this tool when I was in elementary school. I wanted to gather more information on how I could best use this technology for my students and get a variety of ideas to effectively incorporate this tool considering multiple learning styles. The information I've researched and reviewed is collected below, organized into three main topics."

     
Last Modified on February 7, 2023