Interactive Whiteboard Research

I reviewed chapter 1 of "Engaging Learners with Interactive Whiteboards" by Blanche O'Bannon and Misty Anderson. The purpose of an interactive whiteboard is to enhance your students' learning environment by having interactivity during your lesson. Although many school systems have started using interactive whiteboards, there is little research on the effects they serve in engaging students. The three main interactive whiteboard companies are Promethean, SMART, and Mimio.

Effective Use
It has been proven that an effective use for student learning is having the interactive whiteboard features combined with sound instructional strategies. Some important features that ensure effective use of the interactive whiteboard in enhancing students engagement is having students highlight, draw by circling key words or phrases, annotate, or zoom throughout the lesson. Students can hide and reveal answers, drag, drop, or match items such as definitions that make learning fun. Pictures and multimedia content can be helpful in engaging students. In addition to this, collaborative problem solving by shared reading and peer teaching is an effective way to use your interactive whiteboard in the classroom. Teachers are able to provide visual feedback by using interactive whiteboards to fill in the correct answer or visually work through a problem. Students are able to have a response system that is used for classroom purposes such as surveys, polls, and quizzes.

Instructional Benefits

Several students using the interactive whiteboard to fill
in the food chain.

Research that has been done on interactive whiteboards within the classroom have concluded that there has been improvements in the following areas:

• active learning 
• classroom management 
• lesson organization and flow 
• flexibility in handling lesson materials 

Instruction can also be enhanced by various techniques and strategies that increase students' attention, motivation, participation, and collaboration.

Student Achievement 
There have been some inconsistent findings when research has been done on interactive whiteboards and student achievement. However, one study that was conducted  by Lewin, Somekh, and Steadman (2008) revealed that there were positive gains in literacy, math, and science for students ages 7-11. These findings were related to how much time was spent teaching with the interactive whiteboard, and the gains were from children average or above average ability. There was little effect on lower achieving students. In 2009, Marzano and Haystead conducted a study and concluded that three features of the interactive whiteboard were statistically linked to achievement:

1. student response systems 
2. graphics and videos
3. reinforcer properties

Although there have been some inconsistent findings, these are two great examples of student achievement using the interactive whiteboards in classrooms.

Student using the interactive whiteboard to fill in the time.

Instructional Challenges
Although many teachers now have interactive whiteboards in their classrooms, not many teachers use these boards effectively. The most common issue is that teachers only use these interactive whiteboards to project information or materials, and disregard the interactive aspect that students can engage in and benefit from the most. Another challenge is when the interactive whiteboard fails to cooperate with the lesson that the teacher has planned due to technological issues. This can be frustrating and time consuming to get fixed during class. Because of this, many teachers stop using them because of the risk of technological malfunction. Many school systems lack the technology support staff that helps teachers when they have questions or problems with their interactive whiteboards.

Teacher Training
Teacher training on how to use and incorporate interactive whiteboards in the classroom is the key to overcoming instructional challenges. Teacher training and professional development is fundamental on the effective use of interactive whiteboards. Training should start in teacher training programs and continue into the school setting. Teacher training should include the use of online manuals, videos, and webinars. The frequent use of interactive whiteboards is positively related to teacher competencies. The more teachers use interactive whiteboards in their classrooms, the more research will be done on the effects on student learning from this type of technology.

Midterm

The article I read by Jong H. Chung, Integrating Technology into the Classroom, discussed the advances of technology through six different points. These points are as follows:

• historical background
• motivation
• examples of classroom technology 
• concerns about using technology in classroom
• discussion of the author's recommendations for using technology

Historical Background

The historical background that he discussed gave examples of previous forms of technology used in education. First, there were visual aids which included films, pictures, and lantern slides. Next, there were motion picture projectors, sound motion pictures, radio, and television. Then, there were VCRs, computers, and the internet were all introduced. When the radio was first created, many audiovisual enthusiasts thought the radio was going to revolutionalize education. In today’s society, internet and personal computer usage has become common in classrooms because of the convenient speed of it.

Motivation

The motivation behind integrating technology into your daily routine stems from three parts: nonprofit organizations, commerce, and education. Nonprofit and governmental organizations have been actively proposing guidelines for using technology in the classroom. For example, the ISTE provides guidelines to promote technology use within the classroom. In commerce, companies have begun training their employees on computers in order to expand their knowledge. In education, most educators agree that we should adopt technology extensively into the classroom environment; however, the ways in which we should use technology varies significantly. The constructivist approach is applying technology in order to enhance the new learning paradigm. The new paradigm is envisioned by ISTE and promotes learning that asserts that knowledge is not passively received but is actively created inside the mind of every learner.

Classroom Technology Examples

Examples of using technology within the classrooms vary by educator. Interactive whiteboards are one of the more recent devices that teachers are using to engage their students in the lesson. Students can touch or draw on these boards that have access to the internet. The interactive whiteboards can serve many different purposes in engaging students. Another way educators can use the interactive whiteboards is through the student response system. Many classrooms use clickers to take quizzes or follow along with the lessons by asking a question where your students respond often. This strategy keeps students engaged and actively using their brains. Classroom management software is where you are able to project a student’s desktop onto the wall where the rest of the class is able to see and develop a better understanding. Classroom blogs are where students post blog posts on the classroom blog site on the internet. Educators can grade these blog posts as daily or weekly grades. This technique is beneficial because it exposes students to typing while practicing their writing skills.

Concerns with Technology in the Classroom 

Although there are benefits to using technology in the classroom, there are also concerns. Teachers who are unwilling to use technology in their classroom is a main concern. This prevents their students from expanding their technology skills. Because of this, these unwilling teachers could hinder their students and the students could potentially not be as engaged during class. Another concern is technology dependency which is where teachers would solely use technology and neglect other aspects of the classroom such as interpersonal relationships between students in group activity time. In addition to this, there are many teachers and students who have not been properly educated on copyright violations. Because of this, it is risky for them to be using technology since there are copyright laws in place.

Discussion

The author had several recommendations listed for the proper usage of technology within the classrooms. However, I have chosen three that I feel are most important to this topic. They are as follows:

• Try one technology concept at a time; master one technology concept before you try another one.
• Use technology to help students to visualize, simulate, solve real world problems, collaborate, research, and design whenever possible. 
• Identify fundamental technology skills at all levels of education and make them part of the curriculum or develop courses that teach them.  

I think that all three of these points are very important. I think as an educator, you have to learn how to use technology one program at a time in order to gain full knowledge about the subject. I think technology helps students learn because it offers more ways to learn that paper offers. In addition to this, I also think it is important for students to learn how to use technology on a basic level as they continue to grow.