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May 28, 2011

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Interactive Whiteboards can be a nightmare for subs. I vote for blackboards with chalk.

www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1065784140

Spend the money on Laptop computers so that the children have access to the Internet. One or two computers per classroom is useless.

Frank Noschese

Or you could buy 9,000 $2 interactive whiteboards -- one for each pair of students in your district. http://bit.ly/2dollarWB

Great post, as always!

IAppleLearner

Wow?! I couldn't agree with you more. Great points. He could have bought an iPad 2 for each classroom and covered his whiteboard thrill and then some but served the needs of five times as many teachers and every student in his school. How sad he was caught in a vendor trap and impulse buying.

Kevin Hodgson

Thanks for another great post to get us thinking.
Kevin

KDerushia

Wow...I have bought IWBs many times but never paid $3,000/ea. Educational funds are being misspent daily.

EdTechSandyK

Or 45 interactive slates which offer the same technology as stationary IWBs but don't tie the teacher (or students) to the front of the room AND depending on the brand allow for interactivity between teacher and student slates, as well as formative assessment options when integrated with a student response system. Anyone looking at IWB technology should check out eInstruction Mobis (I don't work for eInstruction, but I have used their products and feel they are very education centered and offer high quality integration options.)

Timeoutdad

Until teachers learn how to integrate the technology into their teaching and their students' learning, spending that 18 grand on other technology can still be a waste of money.

iPads, iPod touches, Livescribe pens, netbooks etc. sound awesome to have in the classroom, but if teachers don't know how to transform their teaching and students' learning with these devices, they can easily become expensive toys or dust collectors, rather than tools.

iPads, iPod touches, and netbooks lose much of their value if you don't have good WiFi in your building, especially if you want the students to access the internet with them.

The biggest problem is that we are spending before planning. It takes TIME to really think about how to use these devices for our students' learning.

If there is no active planning on how these things are to be used effectively, then we should buy BOOKS with them. No tech issues to deal with and lots of effective learning can still happen.

Joie

Well said, bold and realistic. I like it. If that was me I would use it to pay for students who are smart but their parents can't afford the tuition fees.

crazedmummy

I am so used to "you can have input, but we already decided" that this does not surprise me. The gap between the words "investigative learning" out of their mouths and the supported practice of silent rows of students in lectures or on fill-in-the blank worksheets (these are the "good classes") is so prevalent, I wonder whether administrators really understand what the words mean.
Sales of these devices should be covered by the same consumer protection, whereby if you sign up for anything at a conference you get to retract that agreement once you come to your senses.
Yay for Livescribe!!

Andy

I agree wholeheartedly with 'Timeoutdad.' It's not about the tools, it's about the connection you make WITH the tools (through proper training) and the ability to use them effectively with what you teach.

Are you arguing that IWB's are too costly or ineffective teaching tools? The former is certainly up for debate, but the latter is most definitely not. There are thousands of good teachers out there who have learned how to make connections with IWB's in delivering effective whole group instruction. Thousands more have taken it one step further and integrated formative assessment into those lessons via LRS devices for even greater gains in student achievement.

I've seen IWB's used as back drops for the morning announcements and I've seen a hundred broken laptops sitting in a tech's offoce a month after a 1-1 initiative was implemented. Fundamentally, it's not about the tools, it's about the teachers and the training.

D Mailloux

We bought on IWB this year, our first . As well we purchased 5 media carts, 5 projectors and 5 sets of laptop speakers for our middle school. The teachers all have laptops already to use with the purchased equipment. The rational wasfirst funds and the best use for the entire population of the school. Technology changes very fast and do we need to be consumers or educators with effective quality tools. It is a good lesson for the students to also see .

Bill Ferriter


Andy---in a comment that echoes the thinking of timeoutdad----wrote:

I agree wholeheartedly with Timeoutdad. Its not about the tools, its
about the connection you make WITH the tools (through proper training)
and the ability to use them effectively with what you teach.


Yall are preaching to the choir here, Andy and Time Out Dad. I couldnt agree more that spending technology monies without a clear vision for how those tools and services are going to support meaningful learning in your classroom. In fact, Ive written about that a bunch of times. Here are two specific posts:

Does YOUR School Have Technology Vision Statements?
http://bit.ly/fSXYAI

Making Good Technology Choices
http://bit.ly/gqeU7T

And thats one of the reasons Im so passionately opposed to Interactive Whiteboards. Nothing that Ive seen done with IWBs----or that I actually did with the IWB that I had in my classroom for a year as I wrote professional development courses for Promethean and Pearson----supports any of my own personal beliefs about what good teaching and learning looks like in action.

I think its important, Andy, to specify that many of the progressive teaching practices that people attribute to IWBs are really a result of peripherals that you can buy without ever investing in a $2,000 board. I have nothing against sets of student responders or the tablets and slates that IWB companies sell. They all support the kinds of teaching and learning practices that I believe it.

But the board itself should be dragged out of our buildings and burned! It promotes a vision of teacher-directed learning that needs to be shelved.

And Time Out Dad: Id support spending the $18 K that my buddys principal blew on IWBs on ANYTHING else. Books, tutoring, teacher professional development, field trips, OR technology. My central point is that IWBs are an irresponsible purchase and a waste of taxpayer cash.

This kind of unintelligent waste makes me want to join the Tea Party.

(I never thought Id actually say THAT!)

Any of this make sense?
Bill

LisaRead

I hear you....oh boy do I hear you.... We have 3 IWBs in our Middle School. One gets used a little. One gets used as a Movie Screen, and the 3rd gets used as a screen for the Overheads (no lie). For the cost of 2 of those boards, we could have gotten LCD projectors for every class. Drives me nuts. Several posts on my blog dedicated to the "Bright Shiny" philosophy.
http://readlisaread.edublogs.org/2010/11/06/smartboard-sure-smart-teaching-im-not-convinced/

Jessica

Bill (and everyone else who commented),
Thanks for providing a physical conversation that I am able to show to everyone in my school. I am the local "Bill Ferriter" in that I am outspoken against IWB where I am. We are considering some big IT purchases in the near future and I will definitely be showing all of these points to the admin before the purchases are made. Thanks for (hopefully) stopping another waste of money on IWB.

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    Bill Ferriter teaches 6th grade language arts in North Carolina, where he was named a Regional Teacher of the Year for 2005-2006.

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