2.

0 Literature Review

2.1 Introduction

As IWB is getting more popular, it raised concern whether the efficiency and effectiveness of
the use of IWBs in teaching holds the abilities to satisfy students with diverse teaching and
learning activities (Shi, 2011). There have been many positive claims made concerning the
benefits of learning through a pedagogy which makes use of an IWB, leading to a rapid
acquisition and implementation of the IWB in schools.

There are many researches had proven that the effectiveness of IWB in teaching are
promising. Swan's (2007) research on the effect of the use of IWB showed that the students
whose teachers used IWB for instruction perform slightly better that the group whose
teachers did not use IWB.

The IWB has the potential to facilitate teaching and learning (Smith et al, 2005). The IWB
incorporates interaction and operation between the whiteboard and the computer. By
touching the screen with special pens or fingers, teachers can write, draw, and operate
software programs in the computer. Teachers can easily learn to teach using the IWB too, as
Betcher and Lee (2009) described the use of the IWB could have in three ways, first, doing
old things in old ways; Second, doing old things but in new ways; Third, doing new things in
new ways. Therefore, the IWB is very flexible and teachers need not to be trained before use.

Recent years, IWB has been gradually adopted in many institutions to help teachers to
perform innovative teaching. According to Smith et al (2005) and Glover et al (2005), using
the IWB as a teaching and learning tool can delivers potential advantages in term of
pedagogy, such as multimedia presentation, efficiency, supporting planning and the
development of resources, modeling ICT skills, and interactivity and participation in
lessons.

Using the IWB as a learning tool can delivers potential advantages in motivation and affect,
multimedia and multi-sensory presentation (Smith et al 2005), and enhancing student
participation and cooperation. The IWB dynamically integrates the audio-video presentation
to improve student attention and learning motivation (Holmes, 2009; Northcote et al, 2010;
Slay et al, 2008; Wall et al, 2005). The technology also appears to consolidate a range of
resources to help students understand complicated ideas (Holmes, 2009; Wall et al, 2005).
The needs of students with different learning styles may all be addressed (Holmes, 2009). In
other words, students potentially have more opportunities to participate, cooperate, and
develop their personal and social skills.

With regard to the teaching of Chinese using Wiimote IWB or any other types of IWB, there
have not been much research done so far. However, in an empirical study by Tozcu (2008), it
has been found that the challenging teaching of a non-Roman script can be usefully supported
by the use of IWB, that the visual presentation appearing to shorten the acquisition period in
learners.

Pang (2006, 2008, 2009), the participant teacher in this study, who has developed and
promoted IWB pedagogy for learning Chinese, reports evidence that as a result of her IWB
pedagogy, students academic results improved, and that she was able to compact the
syllabus, increase pace, and reach learning goals more quickly.


2.2 Affordance of the interactive whiteboards for teaching and learning

Lately, forms of technology resourcing in the classroom have revolutionized. As the second
revolutionary teaching tool after the blackboard, IWB becomes a more significant
pedagogical tool in educational technologies. Many schools are equipped with a high level of
IWBs technology resourcing that linked to teacher's computer. Across the world, 750000
IWBs have been installed in classrooms and over three million are forecast to be installed by
2010 (White, 2007), Personal computer has no doubt continued to have huge impact on
classrooms all over the world, but in most cases it is still more of a learning tool for students
than a teaching tool for teachers (Betcher & Lee, 2009).

The main distributor of the IWBs is SMART Technologies, and its first IWB was introduced
in 1991 (SMART Technologies, 2006). In the late 1990s, primary schools in United
Kingdom began using it (Higgins, Meauchamp, & Miller 2007). According to BECTA
(2004), in its role as an advisory body in educational technologies for British schools, there
were four identified advantages for students: increased enjoyment and motivation, greater
opportunities for participation and collaboration, decreased need for note-taking through the
capacity to print from the screen, and the potential to cater for different learning styles
(BECTA, 2004). A number of studies report significant teacher satisfaction with this
technology. According to Clarke (2004), the United Kingdom government has already
invested heavily (approximately 50 million pounds) in the installation of IWBs in schools
with the purpose of imparting an impact on teaching and learning. Somekh et al. (2007) noted
that IWBs are well adapted to whole-class teaching, particularly in terms of enlivening formal
expositions, including demonstrations of practical procedures and explanations of complex
concepts. Teachers and students can use IWBs to bring together 1CT tools that support
learners production of drawings, tables, graphs, written text, and verbal and video accounts.

Advocates noted that, unlike the personal computer or laptop, IWBs have become very
suitable to encourage collaborative and constructive learning which highly emphasized in
Science classrooms. IWBs will help the teacher to show the concepts of Science in very
simple ways. There is a growing corpus of research that suggests that the use of IWBs
improves teaching and learning for Science (Hennessy, Deaney, Ruthven, & Winterbottom,
2007; Higgins, Beachamp & Miller, 2007; Preston & Mowbrary 2008: Murcia, 2008a, 2008b;
and Murcia & Sheffield, 2010). Scientific knowledge consists of complicated terms and logic
that need to be explained with the help of multi-modal representation styles. In order to
understand the values, language and practices of the Science discipline, children need to
experience multiple representations and explorations in the classroom. Hence, this could be
easier to capture childrens imagination and attention if compared to conventional
instructional methods. Teachers using IWBs in the classrooms believe that the learner is able
to retain the concepts rapidly and provide an apprehensive approach towards Science (Murcia
& Sheffield, 2010). Comparison between contemporary and current scientific knowledge and
practices can be done spontaneously by connecting IWBs with World Wide Web.

IWBs have been used successfully with kindergarten children at Abbotsleigh Junior School
over the past 5 years in innovative ways to enhance teaching and learning and facilitate
assessment in Science (Preston & Mowbray, 2008). The study in kindergarten classroom,
noted the positive impact of IWBs on classroom pedagogy, especially when teaching styles
match the technologys affordances. Teaching young children requires greater emphasis on
metacognitive practices or more simply, how children construct meanings and develop ideas.
Having that, they are able to make detailed observations and demonstrate considerable
constructive thinking and unlike older children, who are already able to read, write and
express ideas coherently.

The Malaysian government has come to an understanding that technology permeates most
young childrens daily lives and social milieu. Prior to the extensive encouragement from the
Ministry of Education (MOE) and related Information Communication Technology (1CT)
organization, IWBs has made a rapid penetration into Malaysian schools since 2007. MOE
has done the pilot test on selected 8 schools (Raja Maznah, 2006). Nowadays, some
secondary and primary schools in Malaysia have replaced conventional classroom tools with
IWBs and teachers have accepted them as a teaching technology for teaching young learners.
The Faculty of Education, University of Malaya (UM) has implemented the IWBs into the
teacher educational training program (Raja Maznah, 2006).

Roblyer (2006) described several other benefits for teachers in integrating technology into the
processes of teaching and learning. They suggested that technology provides educators with
unique instructional capabilities. Many survey studies in developed countries have shown that
it is vital for students to learn the use of technology in order to be prepared for the
increasingly technological workplace (Campbell & Perry, 1988; Cuban, 2001; Cuban,
Kirkpatrick & Peck, 2001). Studies have indeed shown that the use of computers in schools
can have a beneficial effect, not only on the students achievement but also on their
motivation to learn their learning atmosphere in the classroom. Similarly, research
demonstrates that technology-instructional attracts and maintains students attention, thus
allowing teachers to dedicate more classroom time to teaching and learning. The use of
technology offers teachers a wealth of tools for expanding instructional strategies and
increasing productivity.

The literature in the area of educational technology for literacy education clearly describes
the need to provide adequate preparation in the use of technology if we expect teachers to feel
prepared to teach with the available technology (Kinzer & Verhoeven, 2008; Segers &
Verhoeven 2005). According to Yelland (2007), the extent to which people use technology
may depend upon their understanding of its features and their ability to make sense of it.

Kennewell and Beauchamp (2007), Smith, Higgins, Wall & Miller (2005), Mercer, Hennessy
& Warwick (2010) and BECTA (2004) noted that IWBs have significantly improve and
extend teaching and learning practices that provide better display facilities, greater ability to
provide better clarification and visual representation, modeling and explanation of difficult
concepts, as well as engaging and motivating children more effectively, Increase childrens
attention spans and improve focus also been highlighted in use of IWBs in teaching and
learning. Hennessy, Deaney, Ruthven & Winterbottom (2007) reviewed that combination of
IWBs hardware and software could bring a greater tactile connection between learners and
the learning content, enabled modeling and simulation activities to be presented in easier
understanding ways. Besides, through use of IWBs also tools in teaching and learning, it able
to emerge theatrical feelings and captivating learning environment. Their use can also support
the immediate resources for WWW or internet and analysis of pupil inputs in ways not
previously possible (Moss, et al., 2007).

Collaborative communication or dialogic interactivity between teachers and children is now
widely recognized as educationally valuable. This is due to the understanding that education
is seen as a dialogic process. Educational success and failure may be shaped by the quality of
education dialogue, rather than simply in terms of the capability of individual students or the
skill of their teachers in delivering the knowledge to their children. Mercer, Hennessy and
Warwick (2010) noted that IWBs technology encourage and supporting education dialogue
and childrens talk especially in the process of implementing collaborative activity.


2.3 Interactive whiteboard and its pedagogical practices

IWB is a whiteboard that work with a computer. It has a multi-touch, interactive learning
board that allows groups of students to touch, and write together on the board. Through
interactive board, teachers can respond to a broad range of learning styles such as create
different collaborative learning activities for either whole class, small group or individual
learning. These features are very vital when preparing diverse instructions for students who
possess varied learning styles and intelligence such as visual, auditory and kinesthetic.
Besides, through interactive board, kids are able to share ideas in visually, creative ways and
encouraged collaborative communication and thinking. Consequently, new ways of
constructive learning styles can be emerged. Kids can save, copy, manipulate and share work
inside and outside the group. With the help of interactive board, teachers can examine,
analyse and present the material to children by selecting the most effective one out of a
variety of methods.

Indeed, learning becomes more interesting with the use of multimodal techniques in the
presentation. No doubt, children aged five and six years have a short attention span and it is
crucial to design activities that permit physical involvement where young children can go to
the front of the classroom and perform dragging and dropping of the images. As IWBs
screens are large compared to personal computer or laptops, young children can present their
ideas interactively and make their work publicly available to the teacher and other children
across the whole classroom.

If compared with secondary students, young children are having high level of inquisition and
imagination towards whatever that they see and touch. This is where IWBs play an important
role in demonstrating skill and creating excitement about the scientific concepts and ideas.
With the multimodality features provided by IWBs, young children are able to deal with
multiple relations underpin the science concept. Younger children require considerable
scaffolding and teacher modeling which is when the SMART Board becomes effective
(Preston and Mowbray, 2008). Having that, young children are able to predict what might
happen in an experiment and can verbally describe their observations and having them
recording the results is more challenging.