Whiteboards: Just a New Way to Conduct Old-Fashioned Teaching?

Photo found at http://www.musicteachersblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/whiteboardimage.jpg

As this second semester begins, I've been thinking about the kinds of trainings I want to offer to my staff. One very popular topic is how to use the interactive Promethean whiteboards and their proprietary software, ActivInspire (formerly ActivStudio). My concern about interactive whiteboards is that teachers don't really use them to their full potential.

I found a post on Michael Gorman's 21st Century EdTech blog referring to the "sage on the stage" syndrome. - that while teachers may embrace this new technology as revolutionizing teaching in the classroom, the same teaching behavior still exists in the classroom. On eHow, an article describing Reasons Schools Use Smart Boards even uses some odd language. The article talks about how, for example, a teacher in Michigan can "deliver material in a way that students are more used to seeing at home." [emphasis added] It goes to quote a teacher from a 2006 study of whiteboard use in the classroom as saying, "...Teachers will appreciate the selection of user templates and other great features that can only enhance their existing instructional methodologies." [ea]

That's the problem, as I see it - the "existing instructional methodologies" is just that, "delivering material." It still takes the position as the teacher as dispenser of knowledge and the students as receptacles. An interactive whiteboard is still positioned (usually) at the front of the room, where the teacher will stand and pontificate.

Don't get me wrong; I acknowledge the fact that there are times when the teacher must provide students with correct information to benefit their learning. But should the 21st-century classroom still be so teacher-centered? Harry Keller over on the Educational Technology and Change blog thinks that given all the glitz and glamour that an interactive whiteboard provides, they may not be as effective as everyone likes to think they are. I'm kind of inclined to agree with him...kind of.

I'd love to hear your comments about how a classroom with an interactive whiteboard can be truly student-centered. One example - and kudos to my math department - is that Promethean also markets an ActivSlate, which allows a user to remotely write on the whiteboard, but is the length and width of a textbook and can be passed around the room. Putting the whiteboard in the students' hands, so to speak. What do you think?

Once I get an idea of how I'm going to deliver this training to my teachers and incorporate using the boards in a more student-centered way, I'll make sure to post it.

Posted in: 21st century classroom, hardware, pedagogy, students, teaching, whiteboards