What Is an Interactive Whiteboard?
Interactive whiteboards have opened up a new avenue for teachers to interact with their students. The uses of whiteboards vary depending on the brand. Ultimately, however, the possibilities are limited only by the imagination of the teacher using the technology. When properly employed, an interactive whiteboard can allow students to easily engage in a lesson like never before.
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Basic Anatomy of an Interactive Whiteboard
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At its heart, an interactive whiteboard is little more than a touch pad connected to a computer. When you touch an area of the whiteboard, the computer it is connected to can tell where that is supposed to be on the computer monitor. Usually, you project an image of the computer screen onto the whiteboard so if you double click "My Computer" on the whiteboard, your computer knows to open it up.
Simple Uses of Interactive Whiteboards
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All interactive whiteboards come with at least one pen and often more than one. If you have a presentation projected onto the board, you can circle or underline things for emphasis. You can change the color for impact and draw shapes. Students can engage themselves with this technology as teachers can set up questions and they can come to the board and work out math problems or write other answers on the board.
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Extra Peripherals
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Extra peripherals can be attached to the whiteboard depending on the manufacturer. One of the most common is a voting system. The teacher can ask a question and each student with a voting system can answer, usually in a multiple choice format, and the results are quickly displayed on board. For a teacher, this can quickly show how many students are understanding the lesson and how many need more work.
Text messaging peripherals also can be added to whiteboards. They allow students to send messages to the teacher's computer. Those questions can be brought up by the teacher to answer as a group or a message can be sent back to individual student.
More Advanced Applications
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Objects on screen can be resized and moved by both students and teachers. Additionally, teachers can draw a picture or write out a word and that word can be immediately copied and pasted or moved around to illustrate various points. Graphics can be assigned sound files so when they are touched they make appropriate sounds. Movies can be embedded into the whiteboards.
Extra Flash Programs
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Touch screen flash presentations can be purchased preprogrammed to be implemented in class. A biology teacher can have students virtually dissect a frog using a virtual scalpel, and a geography teacher can have students spinning a globe and identifying various countries.
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