Interactive Whiteboards

Jessica Shipman
Laura Wood
Nicole Deaver

Introduction
A lonely rectangular brown cardboard box sits idlely in the corner of an elementary
school library closet. Dust collects along its surfaces, enough that someone can spell
out "U-S-E-M-E" on the gray, fibrous canvas. Teachers bustle past it throughout the
day, never giving it one glance as they check out their laptops, document cameras,
digital cameras, and video cameras for use in their classrooms. The box becomes
wallpaper. Ignored. A library accessory. Wasting money, time, and valuable learning
opportunities . . .

Until one day when a rogue information literacy specialist reviews the budget and recent
school purchases. She realizes that months ago her school purchased a Smartboard
interactive whiteboard. She explores, opening the box, downloading the software, and
installing the board on her library wall. Teachers are, at first, reluctant; but after a short
time, the Smartboard is consistently booked, teachers utilizing it every period of
everyday.

That is every teacher’s hope for technology in their school. The interactive whiteboard,
no matter what brand, acts as an efficient learning tool, inspiring students, engaging
them, and challenging them to perform their very best in all content areas. Gathering
dust, these tools offer no hope in assisting students to meet or exceed the content
standards; however, if used appropriately, they can act as a springboard for learning
that trumps traditional paper and pencil teaching.

Description

Interactive whiteboards come in two distinct types: virtual and

physical. The "virtual" variety acts as a dry-erase board on a
computer screen, allowing learners to view what a teacher writes or
draws on their computer. This type is also called an "electronic
whiteboard" (Brown, n.d.). The second variety is more widely used
and is a large display panel that presenters use in conjunction with
a projector to showcase the display from their own computer on a
large screen. The display board has great versatility, acting as a
traditional whiteboard or a projector screen on which presenters can manipulate the
computer image by interacting with the screen rather than staying trapped at their
desktop with a keyboard and a mouse. Teachers can save images to the computer,
print them, or share them on a network (Brown, n.d.).
How It Works
Interactive whiteboards are comprised of four basic parts: a projector, a computer, a
display board, and interactive software. Brown (n.d.) explains three basic technologies
that allow the presenter to interact with the display board. The first type, a "resistive
membrane" technology, uses two soft surfaces, comparable to vinyl, that have a slight
gap between the two layers, creating a "touch-sensitive membrane." The pressure on
the board by fingers or a special pen tool triggers interaction (Brown, n.d.).

An electro-magnetic board is similar to a traditional whiteboard and can be drawn on

with a normal writing utensil. When teachers want to interact with the board via a
computer, they must use a special battery-driven pen that emits a magnetic field and is
detected by wires running beneath the board surface. Contrastingly, laser scanner
whiteboards have infrared laser scanners mounted on the board to detect movement.
To interact with the board, presenters must use special felt pens (Brown, n.d.).

Interactive Whiteboard Products

Interactive whiteboards come from a variety of companies. The current top brands of
interactive whiteboards are: Smartboard, ActivBoard, eBeam, Mimio, Webster,
Promethean, Interwrite, Numonics, Starboard, and Polyvision. To utilize the
whiteboard, users must install software on their computer. The software allows users
to capture screen images, provides users with templates to utilize for their lessons, and
offers features, such as hiding part of the screen, to enhance lessons. Most interactive
whiteboards also, “allow users in remote locations to simultaneously view a running
application or view someone's drawings on screen. Whiteboards may or may not
provide application sharing, in which two or more people are actually working in the
same application at the same time” (FDLRS, 2009). As teachers become more
proficient using this tool, new and innovative ways to use the interactive whiteboards
emerge everyday. According to a compilation of interactive whiteboard features,
provided by TechLearn (Brown, n.d.), features and uses of the whiteboards include, but
are not limited to:

 Writing over the top of programmes to highlight and annotate points.

 Viewing and navigating the Internet from the whiteboard. Surfing and
displaying websites that the entire room will be able to see in a teacher-
directed manner.
 Promoting group working. Students can approach the whiteboard and add
their contribution to the discussion by writing directly on the whiteboard.
Groups can view and solve interactive problems together.
 Working collaboratively on word processing documents, spreadsheets,
design projects with colleagues.
 Connecting to video conferencing systems.
 Allowing staff and/or students to move around a screen without the use of a
computer because the screen itself is sensitive.
 Offering the same features as a traditional whiteboard such as writing
directly on the board, circling things, highlighting or labeling elements on the
 screen, and erasing errors but able to save or print out the results without
further ado.
 Offering an on-screen keyboard that floats over the software, allowing you to
enter text or data into almost any application.
 Enabling editing on screen and recording of changes or additions.
 Providing an electronic flipchart (up to 99 pages), with all notes and
diagrams saved as an HTML file for later use across an Intranet, allowing an
archive to be easily maintained and displayed.
 Allowing notes to be stored and made available to students who missed the
presentation/lecture.
 Presenting student work more publicly.
 Showing video clips that explain difficult concepts (in any curricular area).
 Demonstrating how an educational software programme works, e.g., an art
programme with students using their fingers and hands to draw rather than
working with a mouse.
 Catering more effectively for visually impaired students and other students
with special needs, using drag and drop exercises with graphics instead of
text to test learning.
 Creating drawings, notes and concept maps during class time of which can
be saved for future reference or issued as instant handouts for the lesson
you have just given.
 Allowing the tutor to monitor/see what each student has on their screen and
choose which screen to display on the whiteboard in a networked
environment.
 Running on-line tests and opinion polls and display instant feedback to the
group.

The uses for interactive whiteboards are endless. As long as students have learning
needs, teachers wish to engage their learners, and teachers have a sense of
imagination and exploration, new ways to creatively and effectively utilize this tool will
continue to surface. Although interactive whiteboards are fairly new to the market,
teachers have adopted them and their many features with vigor.

History
Nineteen-ninety-one marks the year the first interactive whiteboard became available for
public use, brought to the public by the Smartboard company (Teich, 2009). Until
recently, though, educators and administrators have only seen these boards as
novelties, not true learning tools. As districts push educators to enrich students’ “21st
Century thinking skills,” as per the No Child Left Behind Act, and begin holding students
and teachers accountable for technology fluency, interactive whiteboards have become
more popular (Teich, 2009). Due to the burgeoning interest in pushing students'
thinking and heightening engagement in learning situations, educators now view
interactive whiteboards as a necessary tool for student progress in information and
technology literacy. Since the birth of the interactive whiteboard tool, teachers have
provided countless opportunities to cite their students’ progress while utilizing this tech
tool. Teich reasserts that, “research documenting increased learning with the use of
interactive whiteboards have spurred its adoption” (2009).

Since the first interactive whiteboard hit the market, many companies have adopted the
same idea and attempted to tweak it to create the most effective, multi-faceted
technology tool. The National Education Association highlights some of the most
popular interactive whiteboard products on the market today. According to the NEA, the
SMART company still has the leading interactive whiteboard on the market since its
advent in 1991. The Promethean offers an additional software feature called a Learner
Response System that includes professional development. The Mimio system allows
schools and businesses to adapt a traditional whiteboard, giving it almost the same
capabilities as other interactive whiteboard software. This system is a cost-effective
option for schools or companies that have a tight budget. Numonics utilizes
"electromagnetic technology" to access and implement software resources similar to
that of the other interactive whiteboards. eInstruction also continues to act as a leader
in the technology field, specifically with interactive whiteboards, providing an "Interwrite
Workspace" that includes over 4,000 digital K-20 resources for teachers in all content
areas. Additionally, Polyvision markets an eno board as an affordable choice for
schools. This board is plug- and cable-less and produces similar results to other
interactive whiteboards available for purchase (Teich, 2009).

Interactive White Boards and Learning

Interactive White Boards (IWB) have become a leading educational technology since its
inception in the 1990's. The sale of IWB's has increased nearly seven fold since 2004,
selling nearly 700,000 in 2009. Governments around the world are spending money to
put this technology into their classrooms. In 2004 the British government spent 90
million dollars putting IWBs into primary school classrooms (Corcoran, 2009). In 2006,
the Mexican government implemented a program known as Encyclomedia.
Encyclomedia featured new texts that incorporated visual and audio media into
demonstrations. Included with Encyclomedia were IWBs in 200,000 Mexican
classrooms. In 2006 there were 142,000 Schools using IWBs (Smart Technologies,
2006). There is an obvious demand for this technology, and there are many proposed
benefits to its presence in the classroom, but governments and educators alike need to
be sure that this technology is actually improving student learning.

Frank Smith theorizes that there are two different views of learning. The first view is
what he calls the "classical view." This learning is effortless; it is based on self image,
and it is never forgotten. His second view is called the "official view." This learning
requires hard work, it is based on effort, and it is dependent on rewards and
punishment. In his book, The Book of Learning and Forgetting, Smith outlines that
classical learning is something we all do, and our education system was based on it for
many years until the official view, which was accompanied by the ideas of psychology
and science, took over (1998). When looking at whether IWBs are effective at
improving student learning the evidence is much stronger for the classical view, but the
empirical evidence that supports learning as a science is less convincing.

There is an overwhelming amount of subjective evidence that supports the use of IWBs
in the classroom. Most of the evidence is based on survey research, and all of those
indicate that students and teachers alike enjoy using IWBs and feel that they improve
learning. There is also a sense of increasing student satisfaction, and teachers are
reporting less discipline problems (Corcoran, 2009). Before Lambton Kent School
board introduced IWBs into forty of its fifty-three schools, they had low grades and high
suspension rates. "At one point, Devine Street Public School actually had more
suspensions than students, but in this past year it only had 20"(Starkman, 2006).
Obviously it is hard to attribute this decline in suspension to the introduction of IWBs
alone, but the timing of the concurrence cannot be ignored.

Teachers have perceived several effects on learning due to the IWBs. They allow for
more differentiation and longer attention spans. They are visual and dynamic, they
focus on subject matter and not teaching, they increase motivation, and they allow for
better pace and flow which amounts to less wasted instructional time. An important
tenet when dealing with teaching is that we must allow the learner to feel in control (Zull,
2002). IWBs, when used correctly, do exactly that and students find that the lessons
are more interesting because of it (Beeland, 2002). In an Encyclomedia research study
done in Mexico, 80% of 1,497 students stated that interactive content and whiteboards
helped them understand concepts better (Smart Technologies, 2006). One student in
Britain said, "I concentrate a lot harder when we use the whiteboard. It teaches us a lot,
but it's lots of fun" (Beeland, 2002). A motivating factor that allows for students to learn
is activation of the pleasure center of the brain. If students are more motivated, if they
are less afraid and nervous. They will be less afraid and nervous if they are more
involved in the work we are giving them (Zull, 2002). Allowing students to use the IWB
for typically individual and uninteresting tasks makes those tasks more engaging. It
also allows for more collaboration, and the class reaction to this, in one observation,
indicates that most students are thinking and engaged with the activity alongside the
student at the board (Kennewell et al, 2007).

Differentiation is also one of the best observed benefits of IWBs. They allow for greater
differentiation because they are easy to use. Operating them does not require the fine
motor skills that operating a mouse does (Curwood, 2009). Students who would not
normally work on a computer are drawn to IWBs (Smith, 2005). Philip Nordness, a
special education professor at the University of Nebraska – Omaha, found that special
education students were on task 81% of the time compared to 58% in a classroom
without an IWB. IWBs also offer engagement of all the multiple intelligences including
visual and kinesthetic (Curwood,2009). When asked, students felt that they learn better
because of the visual aspects of the teaching. (Beeland, 2002).

The dynamic abilities of IWBs are conducive to applications such as interactive games.
In some studies the use of interactive games along with the IWBs seemed to promote
better decision making and discourages guessing. In addition the ability to use games
and demonstration promotes whole class discussion and can provide immediate
feedback to identify and rectify misconceptions (Smith,2005). Between better decisions
and immediate feedback IWBs when paired with interactive software can promote
learning.

The one element that is missing from all of this data is objective numbers that indicate
that IWBs are in fact improving student learning. In one study about the effects of IWBs
on math and literacy scores the findings support some claims, but they do not suggest a
change in fundamental pedagogy. In this study traditional methods of teaching were still
predominant despite the use of the IWB in the classroom. There was no statistical
significance in the use of IWB versus classes without. However, the teachers being
observed had only two years experience with the IWB (Smith et al,2006). The
technology itself doesn't promote learning; it is the effective use of that technology that
engages students and fosters and environment where learning can take place
(Curwood, 2009).

Implementation
Interactive white boards are being installed in mass numbers in classrooms all over the
country. With the amount of boards going up at once, districts are not always looking at
how they are going to implement them and how they are going to get teachers to use
them. Without appropriate implementation of the interactive whiteboards they can
quickly become a trend of the past and another way for districts to waste their money.
The attitude of many districts is if the boards are in the classroom they will be used.
Well, teachers come to the table of using new technology with a wide variety of different
attitudes affecting the use of their interactive white boards. These attitudes range from,
“Give it to me and I’ll figure out how to use it to its highest level” to, “There is no way you
will ever get me to use that thing.” With so many different attitudes towards the
interactive whiteboards when they are installed it’s important that they are implemented
effectively and with support. The number one group that needs to be ready to support
the implementation of the whiteboard is the building and district administration. The
administration can make the environment of using the new technology a positive or a
negative one. The administration has the ability to provide the time, money and
enthusiasm to the school. These key aspects will help in training and reinsuring the
quality of instruction that is delivered while using the new interactive whiteboards. The
administration is also key in providing continuous support in maintaining and advancing
the ability of the interactive white boards.

Providing quality training to the teachers who will be using the technology is the second
most important aspect to effective implementation of whiteboards in the classroom.
Without training you will find many whiteboards in the back of classrooms never to be
turned on. Although this can help in the cost of maintaining the technology by not
needing to ever replace the light bulbs, it does not support the students’ learning. The
training needs to start immediately after the boards are installed in the classroom.
During this time the majority of the staff has a positive attitude and are excited to learn
how to use it. The training will be most effective if it has a curriculum focus rather than
a technology focus. This means showing the teachers how they can take their current
required curriculum and enhance it with the technology supplied to them. With a
student/classroom instruction in mind the teachers will be able to see how the
technology can be used to help engage the students. As the teachers participate in the
training offered, they should be able to create a product or lesson that they can take
back to their classroom that day and use as part of their daily instruction.

With the training focused on the curriculum rather than technology it’s still important for
the teacher to be comfortable with the technology. This can be supported in a number
of different ways including a series of different staff developments where teachers can
learn how to use the basic applications of the interactive whiteboards. Teachers are
often more comfortable working in small groups our within their own department to learn
and utilize the new technology that is at hand. If the teachers are given time to
collaborate with their co-workers to create lessons together they are more likely to use
their interactive whiteboards more frequently and with higher quality.

Interactive Whiteboard Alternatives

Interwrite Workspace
Interwrite Workspace is an easy to learn digital classroom
device that supports in creating an interactive and engaging
environment with any curriculum or content you wish to use
with it. It has simple to use interfaces that are on your
desktop and available with a single click. (einstruction2009)
Mimio Interactive System

Unlike bulky conventional whiteboards, mimio's technology is

housed in a compact bar that attaches easily to any whiteboard,
converting it into a vibrant teaching medium. The mimio Interactive
Stylus acts like a mouse, so you can manipulate anything on your
computer screen right from the whiteboard. (Mimio, 2009)

Low-cost multi-point interactive whiteboards using a Wii remote

Wiimotes are able to track sources of infrared (IR) light thus
making it possible to track pens that have an IR led in the tip.
By pointing a wiimote at the projection screen or LCD
display, you can create a low-cost interactive whiteboard. In
order to make this work the only
supplies you will need are a
wiimote and a laptop computer with Bluetooth capability.
(Johnny Chung Lee, 2009)

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