Interactive White Boards

Interactive white boards, also known as IBMs, are large boards connected to a computer or projector that have opened up numerous new opportunities for teaching and learning.  These IBMs are being used across the country for projecting, but their main purpose is to give students an opportunity to interact during a lesson.  The boards, provided by Promethean, SMART, and Mimio, have been adopted with much excitement, but still there is little research on their effect on student knowledge.  Research has shown that the success of the students using the IBMs depends on the ways the teacher implements them in their lessons. 

The most effective ways for a teacher to use the IBM in the classroom include highlighting, zooming, hiding or revealing text or photos, dragging and dropping, matching, and using student response systems.  Research studies have laid out many of the instructional benefits of using IBMS, which include improving classroom management, encouraging active learning, providing flexibility in handling lesson materials, enhancing interaction between peers, drawing learners attention to visual media, and enriching instruction. 

According to a study done by Marzano and Haystead, using IBMs brought about a 16-percentile gain in student achievement versus not using them.  The main features that directly linked to improvements in achievement were student response systems, graphics and videos, and reinforce properties. 

Like most educational tools, there are both positives and negatives to their implementation.  Studies have shown that not all teachers use these boards effectively.  This may be due to the lack of teacher education with technology and the IBMs, but research has also shown that even teachers who do have advanced technology skills don’t always use the boards effectively.  In addition, technology is not always reliable, and there will be times when the IBMs do not work the way the teacher was intending.  When this occurs, both the students and the teacher may become frustrated and the likelihood of the boards being used again decreases. 

Overall, the interactive white boards are very useful tools that, if used properly, have the potential to benefit students learning in a number of ways.  I am very interested in using these boards effectively in my future classroom and observing how they can increase achievement with my students.

University of Houston: Digital Storytelling

Digital storytelling is the use of computer-based tools to tell stories or educate.  These stories combine art and storytelling with graphics, audio, video, and web publishing to educate an audience and focus on a specific point of view.  These stories are typically 2 to 10 minutes long.  The use of digital stories extends past the classroom into libraries, neighborhood community centers and even businesses. 

Digital storytelling can be used in many different ways in the classroom to capture the attention of students, increase their interest in exploring new ideas, presenting information, and enhancing current lessons.  Research has shown that using media like these Digital Stories helps students to retain new information as well as comprehend more difficult topics.  The use of Digital Storytelling can also be an effective tool for students when they are asked to make their own stories.  Giving a student the opportunity to create a Digital Story will generate interest, attention, and motivation for technology in the classroom.  This task will assist students in learning how to download images, present their knowledge, and improve their computer skills.  After the stories are made, students could post their work online and have the opportunity to critique other students’ work.  A teacher could use these stories online as a study guide for students or as a way to teach different parts of a lesson.  For example, I would divide my students into eight different groups and assign each of them a planet.  The students would be responsible of making a Digital Story about their planet, and after presenting to the class these stories would be the study guide for our next test.

Overall, I find Digital Storytelling to be a very useful skill in the classroom.  I think that all teachers should experiment with technology like this and determine what works best for his or her students learning.  For more information on Digital Storytelling, examples, and a step-by-step guide, visit The University of Houston website.