The Use of Interactive Whiteboards in the Classroom

The use of interactive whiteboards has become prevalent in parts of Canada and the US. Interactive whiteboards are a great tool for both students and teachers, it allows students to collaborate with their peers, and be immersed in the lessons. With the use of interactive whiteboards, teachers can show students multimedia content that can be shown during the lessons. By showing students multimedia contents, it can keep the students engaged in lessons. There are a couple of ways that interactive whiteboards can engage students. For example, interactive whiteboards give teachers the opportunity to present additional information on certain topics, such as infographics. Interactive whiteboards allow teachers to highlight the most important information that they want to emphasize, the function is particularly useful for emphasizing what students need to study for an upcoming test. Moreover, interactive whiteboards can allow students to collaborate on solving problems.

Some benefits of using interactive whiteboards in the classroom include enhanced lessons, which means that students will have the opportunity to learn by interacting with the board by touching it, as well as hearing and seeing. When students are able to learn by interacting with the board through touch, students can remember more content information. Another benefit of using interactive whiteboards in the classroom is it provides students with interactive learning, which means that students can interact with the content information, this is done through writing, drawing, and touching the board. Another benefit of using interactive whiteboards in the classroom is that it is easy to use, in which markers or chalks are not needed. Lastly, another benefit of using interactive whiteboards in the classroom is that it can be connected to the internet, where both students and teachers can have easy access to search for various resources to support their lesson.

Looking back on my experiences in elementary school, the technology used in the classroom was mainly a overhead projector. Most of my teachers used overhead projectors during their lessons. Moreover, some of my elementary school teachers did not use any technology during their lessons, instead they used chalkboards - which later became whiteboards. However, when I was in Grade 8, the teacher began to integrate some forms of technology in her classroom. For example, she began to use SMART boards in some of the lessons she taught; however, she did not use the SMART board in all subjects - she only used the SMART board for math classes. Overall, it is definitely interesting to see how far technology in the classroom has come. It will be interesting to see how advanced technology gets, and how it is implemented in the classroom.

References

Platinum Copier Solutions. (2017, March 22). 7 Benefits of Interactive Whiteboards in the Classroom. https://www.platinumcopiers.com/blog/aquos-board/7-benefits-of-interactive-whiteboards-in-the-classroom/

 

The Growing Use of Interactive White Boards in Schools. (2018, June 12). Donnellon McCarthy Enterprises. Retrieved April 29, 2022, from https://www.dme.us.com/2018/06/12/the-growing-use-of-interactive-white-boards-in-schools/ 

Catherine L(OTECC)@NU