Interactive Whiteboards in Today's Classroom

One of the latest trends in classroom technology is interactive whiteboards (IWB). With any new technology, or any technology at all, it is important that we look and see if they truly are beneficial to teachers and students or not entirely necessary. Personally, I find that like all things it has its pros and cons. Certain aspects about the IWB are great while others, not so much.

First lets take a look at the benefits and pros of the IWB. In "The Journal" they talk about how certain features on these IWBs allow for recording lessons and changes on them in a video format, which can be extremely useful for students that may miss class, or even for teachers who are absent and wish to know what the class did if they used the IWB. With the technology basically at the fingertips of the teacher and students it enables the lessons to be taken in many directions. For instance say that a student has a question about what actually a session in the British Parliament is actually like, the teacher is able to immediately pull up YouTube or another video search engine and project a clip of it on the IWB.  These interactive whiteboards also cater to every type of learning styles, whether it be auditory, visual, or kinaesthic. This allows for a teacher to incorporate differentiation into his or her lesson plans and teaching methods. In "The Journal" it mentions that the ability to use the IWB for games and interactive activities with the students was a plus, that students also reported that it helped to increase some students' self-esteem.  The IWB encourages and promotes classroom interaction, especially in the lower grade levels. With all of these pluses to using the IWB in today's classrooms, its cons tend to get overlooked.

While the interactive whiteboards are all the rage in schools that doesn't mean it doesn't have its fair share of drawbacks.The first drawback simply being that they are expensive and not exactly feasible for all schools to put one of these in every classroom. While they can allow for greater interaction and more resources, the "Washington Post" warns that the use of these may not really open new doors to teaching in a different way, but simply regurgitating old lessons in a digital way. These also are not the easiest to use all the time, they tend to need realigned frequently which is quite a process to do.This is something one has to be cautionary of, I know in my high school many teachers used it for little more than projecting videos or PowerPoint on it simply because they could do that without having to take 10 minutes out of class to align it and get it set up. Not to mention that when using it there was always a shadow of the teacher because of the projector, now the newer ones fixed that. In all reality though, like the student quoted in "Washington Post," there is really nothing that different than white board or a projector. Is the cost worth it?

While interactive whiteboards do have its pros, like allowing for easier ways to incorporate differentiation in lessons, and its cons, such as the hassle of operating it, it all comes down to preference and what will work best in your classroom and with your students. I for one do not see the hype about it, but then again my experiences with its use in the classroom haven't been all that impressive.