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Why I Hate Interactive Whiteboards
By Bill Ferriter
I'll admit that there aren't many topics I'm more passionate about than interactive whiteboards in the classroom.
Seen as the first step towards "21st century teaching and learning," schools and districts run out and spend thousands of dollars on these gizmos, hanging them on walls and showing them off like proud hens that just laid the golden instructional egg.
I gave mine away last summer. After about a year's worth of experimenting, I determined that it was basically useless.
Sure, my students thought it was nifty, but it didn't make teaching my required curriculum any easier. I probably crafted two or three neat lessons with it, but there was nothing unique about those activities. I could have easily put together similar lessons using the computer stations I already have in my room and any number of free online tools.
A couple of weeks ago, when I learned of a Twitter Ed Chat about interactive whiteboards, I hurried right over. Even after an appliance meltdown, a minor flood, and a two-hour trip to the laundromat, there was no way I was going to let a conversation about whiteboards slip away.
Thankfully, there was a lot of wisdom in the Ed Chat room. Few people spent any meaningful time praising the instructional goodness of IWBs, and the majority of participants recognized that without time and training, they quickly become nothing more than really expensive overhead projectors.
I'd go even farther, though. I'm willing to argue that even with time and training, interactive whiteboards are an under-informed and irresponsible purchase. They do little more than reinforce a teacher-centric model of learning. Heck, even whiteboard companies market them as a bridging technology, designed to replicate traditional instructional practices (make presentations, give notes, deliver lectures) in an attempt to move digital teacher-dinosaurs into the light. I ask you: Do we really want to spend thousands of dollars on a tool that makes stand-and-deliver instruction easier? . . .
For the rest of the article, go to the url below.
— —Bill Ferriter
Teacher
2009-01-27
http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2010/01/27/tln_ferriter_whiteboards.html?tkn=Q[RFGmQux6XnMebDMl4nddRDutTae13KtmNE
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