(IWBs)
Or the ‘Smart Boards’
Once and when I was all in the process of checking my inbox, I stumbled over an e-mail of which title goes as: ‘IWB’. Well, as a matter of fact, there wasn’t only one e-mail of such a title, there were plenty others a thing that triggered my curiosity. I tried to guess its meaning and I failed. I read the e-mail and I didn’t get it. Desperate, brain frozen and frustrated even, I tried to personally decipher the meaning of that acronym by digging it. And you know what did I find? It simply stands for ‘Interactive White Board’.
Caption: An Interactive Whiteboard
In one of the recordings related to our subject, Sara Walker, 7 years of experience in ICT, defined the ‘IWBs’ in simple terms: ‘(the interactive whiteboard) looks like a huge computer screen on your wall. It’s slightly bigger than a normal whiteboard that you would write on, but it just looks like a flat computer screen stuck to the wall. The screen is top sensitive.’
Technically speaking, ‘An interactive whiteboard is a device that interprets a projected two-dimensional surface that interacts with a computer's desktop. A typical use is as an electronic whiteboard but it is generally an interactive type of computer screen.’
(Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Dazzling, isn’t it? Let me succinctly rephrase all of this for you!
An interactive whiteboard consists of two items: a computer and a top-sensitive whiteboard (that’s why it is called ‘interactive’ for its being sensitive to touch). Interaction, here, is three dimensional in the sense that the whiteboard interacts with the user and then with the computer’s hard disk. In other words, whatever you have got in your computer can be manipulated by you using your fingers or a special pen on the interactive whiteboard. Thus, your digital teaching resources, activities, videos, songs, graphics, drawings, even dictionaries that are stored in your hard disk are made available for your in-class teaching purposes. Even other facilities like the Internet are accessible. The News, TV shows also can be used as authentic materials. In brief, it is the world outside getting inside your classrooms ladies and gentlemen!!
To conclude it, watch this video and you get everything you need to know about these ‘Smarties ‘.
Remember that there must be a pedagogy behind everything we do in class; even when using a fine technology as fine as the Interactive Whiteboards.
By: Nouamane ERRIFKI
4 comments:
Another intersting post by si Nouamane.
Let me just add that "Smart Board" is now a trade mark for IWB owned by, I think an American company. Smart Boards are sold along with the necessary accessories and softwares.
For the pedagogy of using IWB in the classroom, the thing is still in its infancy stage. Only big organizations like BC offer their teachers adequate training and access to facilities to use it. Here is a link from dogme SIG by G Stanely about the problems IWBs slove in the classroom:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dogme/message/11194
(reading this requires subscription)
Do you think one day we will be able to give it a try??
Hello Mr.Nouamane!
Dazzling and astounding! I never knew there's something alike. But, this is an example of what technology may afford us. If only there was something similar here in Morocco; teaching would be then much easier, successful and very fruitful.
Nevertheless, I am sure,one day, it's going to be a reality.
Thanks deeply for your nice blog and all the great things that you have made there.
PS. While surfing on the web, I came across an approach named E-S-A
which belongs to someone called Jeremy Harmer. The initials stands for Engage-Study and Activate. Do you have any idea how this teaching method works? I'm looking forward to using it in my classroom because it sounds so much effective than the PPP approach. Thanks for all.
Khalid
brainfiller2000@gmail.com
ESA is not an approach to teaching language but a technique (as far as my pedagogy goes).
If you haven't checked the BBC site you can find a booklet about it following this link:
http://teachingenglish.mtk1.com/perl/mtk1.pl?download=Creative_Ways_pdf&file=http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/download/books_notes/creative_ways.pdf
Or go to this page and dwonload "Creative Ways"
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/download/books.shtml
Enjoy,
http://yassine36.wordpress.com
just to clarify!
ESA that stands for Engage-Study-Activate is neither an approach nor a technique. it is simply a paradigm for lesson planning and presentation. it is akin to the famous three Ps (PPP) and the lexical approach paradigm of HOE, Observe-Hypothesis-Experiment. of course, every of these paradigms cater for certain needs.
There are also so many other paradigms that the Task Based Approach came up with. a quick reading in the methodology literature would clearly set it clear for you.
Thanks
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