Interactive Whiteboards in Today's Classroom

Interactive White Boards or IWB, have become increasingly popular over the last few years. One reason for this could possibly be the fact that we live in the 21st century where everything is technologically advanced. This is also true in schools as well. In order to keep up the the new inventions and gadgets in the classroom, schools must spend millions of dollars on these new fancy boards. All through High School I had the pleasure of using these IWB as a part of the everyday classroom. However, they were mostly used to take notes on or watch videos. We never actually did cool things with them. Now, in college and learning about all the neat things you can do with them, I see that they pretty much just replace a chalk board or white board. On the flip-side I do think that they made PowerPoint's and word documents much easier to use. The pen it comes with allows you to write on the document and take notes. This is better than a teacher standing and talking for the entire class. Although, in many of my classes that's exactly what the teachers did. They would put up some slides and continue to talk the ENTIRE time. This leads me to my point, do they really help student achievement even in the slightest?

According to an article about Whiteboards, I'm not the only one that thinks the boards are expensive and probably not helping students. The article talks about how most students aren't engaged. They're still simply bored and uninterested. But in some cases the whiteboards did seem to increase student performance. It all depends on the teacher. If you use the IWB to its full potential and not just as a chalkboard, then yes maybe student performance will rise. But until then students will be treating them as just another gadget. New things are constantly being invented and improved. An interesting slideshow shows this to be true. The IWB is just another "slate" to be added to the rest until something better comes along.

IWB also target differentiation in a few ways. Most children now-a-days are technology geniuses. They use technology everywhere to learn and even play games. So having it in the classroom helps a lot. A teacher could create a lesson that has many components that are tailored to his or her students. There are so many activities that can be done on the boards, you just have to know how to find them and apply it. I'm not saying  that we should eliminate paper activities or learning materials, I'm just saying that children can relate to technology a lot better because of its unlimited resources and advantages. Another article discussing the pros and cons of IWB says the same thing, it keeps students engaged to a point. The "novelty" as the article says, might wear off and the boards will become just another tool in a classroom. This is true for students in high school settings because they don't go up the board as much as elementary students to begin with. So in closing, some may say the IWB  has some advantages that are both teacher and student centered, but in most cases they are just seen as an expensive chalkboard that is "essential" to classrooms today.