All About Interactive White Boards

Interactive whiteboards are becoming a popular trend in education and early childhood education in particular. It engages the children in a way that may not happen on a traditional whiteboard or large group situation. Chapter 1 of Blanche O’Bannon’s Engaging Learners with Interactive Whiteboards provides a great introduction to the concept.

1.1 Introduction
This page states that there are many resources for teachers at Promethean Planet. This includes pre-made interactive features such as pull tabs and magic revealers. It is also stated that while many teachers have adopted use of these boards in their classroom ye there is little empirical evidence about their effect on children’s learning. There are even third parties who create content for the interactive whiteboards such as the Public Broadcasting Service.

1.2 Effective Use
This page explains many options for use of interactive white boards in classrooms. These include child response systems, videos/music options, shared reading, and drag and drop features. I see a lot of use of the interactive white boards in my practicum placement. Children will often be seen watching videos, playing drag and drop games, signing into class, and writing their letters.

1.3 Instructional Benefits
This section mentions some benefits including options for multimodal representation, ease of getting children’s attention, better classroom management, and active learning. I think that these are true in the case of early childhood education because there is a visual presentation of the concepts. For example, children can watch their noise level with a visual representation of
 the volume

1.5 Instructional Challenges
There are many challenges that are described in this section. Some of which include a lack of teacher knowledge and competency with the board. This means that the teachers are not using the board to the most of the board’s ability. I definitely see this becoming a problem in early childhood education as it is much easier for the children to learn to use the board as a substitute whiteboard than it is to learn to use it in other ways.

Integrating Technology in the Classroom

Historical Context 
 
John H. Jung begins his article by explaining the history behind many of the technological advances in education. He discusses the early days, when teachers began using films and lantern slides. Technology has come a long way since then, with personal laptop computers and tablets in the hands of most students at any given point in the day. The author mentions an ironic quote from Thomas Edison in 1913. “Books will soon be obsolete in schools.. It is possible to teach every branch of human knowledge with motion picture,” he stated according to Reiser and Dempsey in 2007. While I don’t know if I necessarily agree with this, especially when considering very young children, it is interesting that Edison supposedly saw the technological overtaking around 90 years before it actually came to fruition.

Motivation 
 
Jung states that the “driving force” to adopt technology in the educational classroom comes from three places: “nonprofit organization, commerce, and education” (p. 2). Here he is referencing pushes

such as the ISTE standards, the NETS-S standards, and even No Child Left Behind (NCLB) passed by George W. Bush in the early 2000’s. He also mentions that while many teachers agree that we
should integrate technology into the modern classroom, opinions on how it should be executed varies greatly. He mentions that constructivist educators want to use technology for “project based learning, real life problem-based learning, collaborative learning, active learning, and alternative assessments” (p.3). I agree with this. I would not want to incorporate technology into my classroom if it kept children from interacting with one another or working on critical thinking skills. I wouldn’t want to hinder them by giving them meaningless screen time that doesn’t further deep thought and learning. Boise State University has published interesting student work regarding constructivist theory and technology to their educational technology site that I thoroughly enjoyed and suggest everyone take a peek at.

Classroom Technology Samples

In this section of the article, the author explains various examples of technology being used in the classroom. Some of which I have much familiarity with, such as Interactive Whiteboards and Student
Response Systems, and others that I have no experience with in the slightest, such as Robots and
Really Simple Syndication. For use in an early childhood classroom, I see the value in using an interactive whiteboard, as it cuts preparation time down for the teachers (it is MUCH easier to design activity materials on the computer than crafting them yourself) and the children get to explore things that may not be seen without technology such as going on a google maps exploration to see environments and places that we don’t live near.

Concerns about Integrating Technology in the Classroom

Jung describes 5 barriers for technology advances in education. The very first he describes is Unwilling Teachers. I have seen this many times. Older teachers are typically unwilling to change their teaching methods when given new tools, because they can teach just fine without all the “fancy new gadgets”. It’s not needed for them to help their students become successful with their content
material, so they don’t see the purpose. This also points to teachers, like me, who believe that screen time isn’t very appropriate for very young children unless there is a very specific purpose. I don’t want my children engaging with the iPads in the classroom more than the children around them. So while iPads and computers are available to use, they are not introduced until later in the year for a center and are used in very specific ways. There are, however, many early childhood teachers embracing this trend and have found this technology very beneficial in their classrooms.

Recommendations
At the end of the article, the author recommends that teachers who have never included technology before make a gradual transition and be patient. While these are easy ideas to come to terms with, they may be harder than one might thing. Many schools are jumping into technology use; creating online portfolios for teachers and children, and requiring video recordings of children performing skills. Other ideas that Jung presents are educating the children (the users of the technology) about copyright and fair use. I think that this is great idea, as I was never taught about these things other than plagiarizing authors of books. However, I think this may be a more difficult task for teachers of young children.