Interactive White Boards

    I personally love Interactive White Boards when they are used appropriately! I feel like the only times I saw IWB's used in high school was just as another projection device. (Or as I saw it an unfair tool the teacher got to write on with that special pen that I'd never get to touch). After being introduced to the techniques that can be implemented I wonder why my teachers never used the boards to their fullest! If given the opportunity I'd love to use a IWB a lot in my classroom. Since I want to teach first grade I think the majority of what I would use the IWB's would be for practice. I agree a lot with a constructivist mindset and feel that IWB's can be used to facilitate hands on learning in environments that couldn't before. I think it would help to have students work at problems too before the lesson is taught and then go back and work through them again. The article mentioned how the majority of IWB techniques that work were reinforcer properties. I think I agree with this. It also mentioned that student response systems work well but I feel like this could be more difficult for 1st grade. Although I also think it would help to keep students that are likely to become disengaged tuned into a long lecture. I understand that technical difficulties would prose a big concern but I think that is a silly excuse to abandon such a great tool. Plus if we do not find out these problems and communicate to the distributors then new tools will never be created! So I'm a IWB promotor! I think it will help to add more collaborative, interactive, and hands on learning in the classroom. IWB's will allow for students to construct their own understandings from hands on work and decrease the monotony of teacher lectures.