Lit Review 2: The Interactive White Board

I just read an article called Interactive Whiteboards: Creating Higher-level, Technological Thinkers written by Jan Lacina and published in the Childhood Education Journal in the summer of 2009. This article discussed how to properly use interactive whiteboards. The article started off with a short vignette about a teacher in Texas who had an IWB but was not being used, instead she continued to use the overhead projector. She explained that this was the case because her classroom computer was not compatible with her IWB. This may be the issue or it may be because she does not know how to properly integrate the IWB into her lessons.

A major issue of using technology such as the IWB as stated in this article is that most teachers don't have the training that is needed to use these tools in the classroom. Jan stated in this article that school districts are realizing that teacher's need professional development on how to use technology like the IWB. There are youtube videos and blogs that were created to help teacher's understand how to use technology to make the classroom student-centered rather than teacher-centered.

Some of the benefits of IWB's that they listed in this article are: it is engaging, it meets the needs of visual learners, and it uses a variety of multimedia such as video, pictures, diagrams, and websites. Some of the drawbacks of IWB's listed in this article include: the cost of the IWB's is very expensive, the IWB requires a LCD projector, compatible computer, new software, and you need technological support. I feel that the benefits would out way the drawbacks if the teacher uses the IWB correctly.

Jan discussed how she observed many classrooms such as the ESL (English as a Second Language) rooms use the IWB for whole-class lessons. One class used the IWB to have student's correct sentences and she observed that the student's really seemed engaged in the activity and seemed to really enjoy using the IWB. She did however mention that the classrooms she observed had small class sizes so the wait time between students interacting with the IWB was minimal. I believe that if the wait time was longer the student's would not be as engaged in using the IWB. Student's want to be interacting and participating all the time during class instruction and with a large class size the interaction with the IWB would be lessened.

This article gave the pro's and con's of IWB's. After reading this article I feel that the IWB could be very beneficial if the teacher has the right training on it and uses it in a small class size setting.

You can read this article as well! Here is the link: http://proquest­.umi­.com/pqdweb­?did=1705200601­&sid=1­&Fmt=3­&clientId=49311­&RQT=309­&VName=PQD

Class Websites

I just watched a great K12 Online Conference video by the presenter Cyndi Danner-Kuhn. It was all about the importance of teachers making class websites. Cyndi gave many benefits of a teacher class website. One plus of a teacher webs page is that it can help gain teaching time. Class websites can also be a great resource for students and their families. By having a class website the communication channel between teachers and parents is opened. If a child is out sick a class website with all the assignments posted can keep the students caught up on their school work.

Cyndi mentioned a few website creation sites you can use to create a class website. These include sites like wix.com. Google, or kompozer.net. Cyndi said that the site needs to be user friendly and everything on it needs to be easily located. She also said that a menu should be found on each page of your website.

Cyndi showed examples of various teachers class websites. Many of these teachers used the sites to post newsletters, blogs, week by week assignments and lessons, students work, students projects, class rules, grading policies, and homework. Cyndi made it very clear that all teachers can and should create class websites because they are easy, cheap, and very beneficial.

I believe strongly in class websites and that they can really help students and also keep parents in the loop as to what their child is doing in school. I want to someday use a website in my class to keep in contact with my students families and to show them the various projects and assignments that the students are partaking in.