How to get an IWB in our district

This is the second year of a multi (6?) year plan to install projectors, sound systems and interactive white boards in all classrooms in our district. We have the budget to put in 62 more this year. We have about 100 teachers who have indicated an interest in them this year.

We ask teachers who want this equipment to submit a proposal for the installation. It's a one page form that simply asks the teacher what s/he is planning to do with equipment, if there is anything unique about the possible ways in which the equipment will be used, and if the teacher is willing to put in the (paid) hours for training.

An interesting proposal came in this morning. It included not only the completed one page application, but also:

About 30 pages of research, links and ideas of IWB use (including a good article from Mary Ann Bell) titled "Why Use an Interactive Whiteboard?" along with

A very clever digital movie demonstrating the Top Ten Reason's Ms Rogers' classroom needs an IWB, and

handwritten letters from students asking for the equipment.

How do they know I am such a sucker for this sort of thing? Were it solely up to me, Ms Rogers would get TWO IWBs.

This technology has been more popular than I had imagined it would be. With the teachers, of course, but also with the kids. My reports are that kids are requesting teachers based on who has a SmartBoard in their room.

I like any technology that gets kids excited about school. Not profound, but true. 

Comments

[John Pederson]

I have a really hard time getting past the skeptic in me about Smartboards. I've been back and forth. I understand the power of having a projector in each classroom...I wouldn't teach without them...but is the Smartboard really worth the cost? I'm confused.

[Danita Russell]

How funny! Not only should she get a SmartBoard, but maybe a technology position. Love the creativity!

[Mike Curtin]

I'm with you, John. My jury is still out. I think they have value for some teachers who see them as more than just fancy blackboards but I worry that for the unimaginative and/or untrained, it just reinforces an outdated instructional paradigm, and does so at a high cost. I'm always nervous when I hear a district has decided to put one in every classroom; I'd rather work with individual teachers to identify their needs (and, more importantly, their students' needs) and to find appropriate tools to meet them - Smartboards or otherwise. Like you, however, I feel that projectors are useful in many more situations. To me, the projector holds 80% of the value in the whiteboard/projector combo.

On the other hand, I think that SmartNotebook is what PowerPoint should be. From the ground up, it assumes that a meeting/class is an event where there is back and forth between presenter and audience. PowerPoint, on the other hand, is all about shooting a firehose of content out at the audience for them to passively absorb (or not). I wish it had all kinds of dynamic vote-recording, ordering, mind-mapping and note-taking objects that could be placed on the slides and manipulated in the middle of a presentation.

Well, I'm getting off topic here, but I guess the point is that the whiteboards themselves don't transform a classroom. It takes a good teacher who knows what he/she is doing and good interactive content to drive the class.

[Jay Monson]

An IWB was just installed in my room after I was deemed a “Power User” in the Duluth Public Schools. After teaching for 13 years, all with technology infused in my lessons, this is finally a tool that brings it all together for my teaching and my students learning. Though I’m just learning how to utilize my IWB, I see the potential for bringing a whole new dimension to my direct instruction and my students’ interaction during lessons. Gone are the days of using toxic whiteboard markers, messy and often lost overheads, and dusty chalk. Not to mention the added benefit of saving every note, strategy, or bit of learning that we interacted with for the day.

Example: Just the other day while reading the book Hatchet by Gary Paulson we located an “L” shaped lake in Northern Canada using Google Earth and still refer to it during each literature circle. We interacted with the controls of a Cessna 406, the plane that Brian Robeson crash-landed when the pilot had a heart attack. We researched survival techniques in the North woods while highlighting important vocabulary directly on the web page. Could this be done with paper resources or just a projector? Sure! Would it have the same impact? I doubt it…

Now I can’t wait for my document camera to come. It will open up another new world of presentation and interaction for the kids. Can you tell I’m excited?