Journal 7 - Classroom 2.0 - Interactive Boards

I chose this technology because I feel that it is rather new being used in classrooms in America (from my previous knowledge) however it is more common in the UK with a lot of the schools in my local area having them in every classroom.

The interactive white board is a board which can be wrote on like any other whiteboard however this one can be used to manipulate things on the screen and you can use it to show the students different things and have them interact with different tools on the actual whiteboard. There are other tools however that can also be used, such as a wireless drawing pad which can pretty much do the same thing. They all come with different software to use, which is pretty much the only difference between them all.

The drawing pad can be moved around the classroom and passed onto the students which can be of an advantage, however the interactive white board has to be at the front of the class, but students can go to the front of the class and they can also take part in the class that way. Therefore meaning that both of them can be used to get the students more involved in the class.

To me any type of technology which allows the students to take part in the lesson and allows then to interact with the teaching and fantastic and all the advantages which are discussed about one system is joined with the same number of disadvantages, I think it just depends which people want and what they want to use.

I feel that no matter what, just having some way in which the students can interact with the teacher and they can take part in the classroom is an advantage, and I would be happy to use any of the systems in my classroom. It is up to the school to decide which one to use and then the teachers would just have to adapt to that one. One is not better than the other and they all aim for the same thing which is to get the students interacting more with each other and the teacher and to get the teacher away from the front of the class and spending more time with the students.

For more discussion on this issue you can look at the forums I visited which can be located at: http://www.classroom20.com/forum/topic/listForTag?tag=iboards