As Ana said, ‘The literature about the benefits of IWBs to the learning process is still fuzzy but it points clearly to the danger of classes becoming too teacher-centred.’
Unfortunately, I can think of something even more disturbing than a teacher-centred class – a board-centred one!
Please, do not take me wrong. I’ve been using an IWB and I think it’s something really nice. The flipchart function is extremely handy and in terms of visualisation it’s just amazing. Whichever multi-media activity, video, ppt presentation or website you want to show your students, it looks simply great. However, for this very reason, the danger of having the board as the main focus of everyone’s attention cannot be lightly dismissed.
As for handing out the responsibility for the learning process to students, if the IWB can help in the process, than just fine. Nevertheless, in my opinion, we don’t necessarily need a pen mouse to do that. It can and should be done handing out a common marker, a humble pen or pencil, a blank sheet of paper or even nothing, as long as you give your students time and space to be active agents in the classroom. Again, it’s not a pen mouse that will do the trick; it’s our approach to teaching.
I hope teachers and teacher trainers will soon cease to look at IWBs in awe and start integrating them into their teaching practices, attaining what Stephen Bax calls ‘a state of normalisation’, where technology becomes invisible instead of being at the centre of the stage.
I think IWBs are fantastic tools and that’s the way we should see them, as tools.
Comments are more than welcome.
