The wonderful world of the Interactive Whiteboard!

So here it is blog number 2 for my PGCE ICT lecturer!


During my first 8 week placement I did try and make good use of the limited ICT which was available. The staff were limited to old school IWBs, which required aligning every hour otherwise you would end up writing 4 or 5 cms higher than you intended to, and two sets of about 10 brick like laptops, with only enough battery to allow a child to write their title before showing the black screen of death!!!

I made use of powerpoint slides on the IWB which were really good for adding detail using the IWB pens and were child friendly too. My favourite use of this was during handwriting practice. I put together slides which had the traditional red and blue handwriting lines on them which the children could use to write their letters/words for the rest of the class to see (obviously only using the bottom of the board so that the children could reach!)

I also used powerpoint to show them images and to save internet links to refer to during the lesson.

A few times I did attempt to use the Smart Board software but after spending hours designing interactive slides with boxes of counters, dice and movable numbers and then noticing 2 mins into a starter that all of the objects I though I had locked in place started to move, I decided against regular use and stuck with powerpoint.

During one of the staff meetings a lady came to talk to use about Active Expressions (one of Promethian's inventions!), a "Who wants to be a millionaire" style handheld device resource. The groan which went around the staff did not fill me with much confidence but I did go into the session open minded. This confidence did not last long when the deputy head was required to help the lady set up the software....on her own computer!! I can see why the rest of the staff were looking more asleep than alert!

Once we got going the devices were great and I could really see their potential. The deputy even offered a prize of wine and chocolate to the teacher who is first to use them 3 times! The main criticism from the staff was based on the fact that they take a long time to set up and if the children are not "trained" in setting them up then it would easily take a teacher well over an hour to get all 30 devices ready for use. The deputy promised to set this job for the IT technician to sort out. They decided that rather than having each device named with the child's name that they would number each one and then the teacher could allocate a number to a child. After this session there was a rush to book the two boxes of devices....but was this surge caused by the amazing teaching and learning potential of the new devices....or by the promise of alcohol and sugar????

So ICT can make our classrooms an interactive buzz of excitement but behind the scenes it can also make a teachers life a living hell!! 

Student Teacher