By Denise Clarke. Today, students are tech-savvy. They are sophisticated and comfortable with digital technology and they use it every day for communication and recreation.
But forward thinking educators are tech-savvy too. In 21st century classrooms, teachers are utilising interactive whiteboards to engage and involve students with a dynamic, hands-on approach to learning.
Aughnagarron NS in Co Longford is one such sc
hool, which utilises the interactive white board to teach its students in a fun and educational environment. When this reporter visited the school, she couldn't help but notice how enthusiastic the children were about learning with the interactive white board.
An interactive whiteboard is a touch-sensitive projection screen that allows you to control a computer directly by touching the board rather than using a keyboard or mouse, although these can still be used.
The benefits include the ability to
prepare and access saved work that can accessed during the lesson.
This technology requires a computer, a projector and the whiteboard itself. The computer is connected to the projector and whiteboard, and the projector displays the computer screen image on the board.
"It was installed in the school only last week," Ms Irene Farrell, a teacher at Aughnagarron NS told the Leader recently. "The school has a very good Board of Management and they felt this was the way forward for this school. It is complete interaction for all the children."
"It is the same as a desktop on a computer but there is special sotfware also included with it. For example, if I am teaching the children to write, all the students can see the formation of letters better than if I was writing on a normal white board," stated Ms Farrell.
"The other classes in the school also use it at different time periods for certain subjects they are learning," she added.
Interactive whiteboards have many potential advantages in education. The benefits include the ability to prepare and access saved work: graphs, charts, diagrams and text can all be prepared in advance in a suitable software package and accessed during the lesson. This allows teachers to provide models and demonstrate work quickly and efficiently.
The children have access to multimedia files: sound, moving and still image files are readily accessible using whiteboards.
"The range of software available for curriculum subjects is growing and specialist software supports learning in a variety of ways. For many topics, teachers now have access to a wide variety of materials, which can be explored on the whiteboard," Ms Farrell explained to the Leader.
Involvement in the lesson is another benefit of using the interactive white board technology. Pupils quickly acquire the techniques to manipulate the software and actively participate in their learning.
"Interactive whiteboards benefit all students, especially those with learning disabilities. A student whose visual or hearing capacity is diminished will benefit from the large size of the interactive whiteboard along with the zoom feature that permits magnification of the image," concluded Ms Farrell.
A statement from the Board of Management of Aughnagarron NS reads: "Interactive whiteboards require a dedicated individual who can convey their enthusiasm for the subject to students. (Ms Farrell] has an open mind to new teaching methodologies and will be versatile enough to incorporate them into her curriculum planning. The feature of an interactive whiteboard will deliver an effective and engaging lesson that will reach all the students in the classroom, making it a very viable resource for all classrooms in the school."
