• Interactive White Boards: Engagement Is Not Interaction « EdTechSwami

  • Engagement Is Not Interaction

  • Here is where I stand.

    • IWBs are a great tool, but they are a tra­di­tional tool. Make no mis­take; there is noth­ing rev­o­lu­tion­ary about what an IWB does for your instruc­tion. IWB sim­ply enforce the anti­quated notions in edu­ca­tion that have always existed, of one or few act­ing while the rest react.
    • IWBs are a good tool to get stu­dent engage­ment (which we all know is fleet­ing), but they are not inter­ac­tive! Even the best tech­nol­ogy will only allow two points of con­tact upon the board at a time. What are the rest of the stu­dents doing while one or two inter­act with the IWB. This is where my #edchat col­leagues argued that the other stu­dents were brain­storm­ing or doing other activ­i­ties while one or two were using the IWB, and I reply loudly – then what do you need the IWB for?
    • In these times where pub­lic schools are crunched for money I would argue that an IWB is the last thing that dis­tricts should buy. Although they are some­thing that is easy to take a pic­ture of and put in the paper, they are not rev­o­lu­tion­ary. If any­thing they are hold­ing us back.

  • Every sin­gle class­room in my school has a smart board because we got a tech­nol­ogy grant from being a fail­ing school. The fact is that tech­nol­ogy is not what is hold­ing my stu­dents back: the lack of qual­ity instruc­tion is.

  • I really think that rather than tech­nol­ogy schools should be spend­ing much more on hir­ing and train­ing its teach­ing staff: a good teacher will make a les­son far more inter­ac­tive than any smart board ever will.

  • It all comes back to the teacher doesn’t it? What are they doing to engage their class (with or with­out the IWB). What are they doing that is inno­v­a­tive? How do they help inspire stu­dents to learn­ing? The teach­ers who have mas­tered that can do it with or with­out an IWB. In fact, no mat­ter what tools you give them access to, they will have an engag­ing, rich learn­ing envi­ron­ment. Those who lacked that before the IWB will lack it after the IWB.

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