Using the Interactive Whiteboard

The Interactive Whiteboards (IWBs) we use in school are either Smart boards, or Promethean boards (also known as Active Primary Boards).  IWBs have great potential in schools, providing a vast bank of resources that can be used an alternative to virtually every other classroom resource: blackboards, flipcharts, OHP, maps, pictures, number lines, 'big books', calculators etc.  However, it should be noted that IWBs should not be used to replace all of these resources.  Children still need to see and experience  the 'real thing.'
Considerations using Interactive Whiteboards include: text visibility (try to use font size 20 and above); positioning- children need the board to be at the right height for access and interaction with what is on the board (recommendations for height from the ground: 50cm for foundation stage, 70cm for KS1, 90cm for KS@); light (turn off lights in front of the board for better visibility).
Benefits of using Interactive Whiteboards include: it can be accessed by all children; develops discussion skills by having stimulus on the board (e.g. images, questions, video etc.); develops digital literacy skills; develops ICT skills; allows teachers to create customised learning objects from a range of existing resources, and adapt these to the needs of those in the class; studies have found that the use of IWBs does raise student achievement (Marzano and Haystead, 'Evaluation Study of the Effects of Promethean ActivClassroom on Student Achievement).
Resources and lesson ideas for the Smart board can be found at smart exchange (http://exchange.smarttech.com/#tab=0), and for Promethean board at promethean planet (http://www.prometheanplanet.com/en-gb/).
Other useful websites include:

http://www.smarttech.com/us/Resources/Training/Training+Search

http://www.kenttrustweb.org.uk/kentict/kentict_iwb_home.cfm

http://www.thegrid.org.uk/learning/ict/technologies/whiteboards/index.shtml #resources

http://www.tlfe.org.uk/interactivelighthouse www.tes.co.uk ­ Resources

http://www.fairfieldschools.org/Rogerludlowe/crogerludlowe03/ Smartboard/ smartboard_tips.htm

NB-Smart board and Promethean board are interchangeable- you can import work from Smart board to Promethean board and vice versa.

In this ICT session we explored using smart boards: setting the background, importing pictures, hyperlinking to the internet, and how to hide and reveal text.

How to hide and reveal text (rub and reveal)...

Make sure your text is 'locked' into place, and then simply colour over the text you want to hide using the same colour as your background. Erase to reveal. Unfortunately my sentence wasn't very academic! But you could do this in the classroom during literacy or maths, for example with building up sentences, or revealing numbers within sums.


How to hide and reveal the screen...

Here we can use the whiteboard symbol on the top bar, or right click on the smartboard symbol at the bottom of the screen to access 'spotlight'.


Using the magic pen to make text disappear (sorry about the giggling!)...

Select the 'magic pen' from the range of pens to make your writing disappear!

How to hide and reveal text using shapes...

Simply insert the shapes or pictures you want to use to cover the text.  Type the text or numbers you want to be hidden, and then revealed.  Right click the objects and select 'order', then 'bring to the front' in order to cover text.

I hope this helped some of you! I'll be back next week to talk about a range of ICT equipment we can use to support teaching, including digital cameras, data loggers and more!