Anyone care to advise me on interactive whiteboards?

[jamaisjedors]

There was a thread a while ago about them, with some good tips, but it was mostly a debate about the wrongs/rights of them.

We have a little extra money in our budget this year and I would like to get at least one, if not more for our university/college.

I teach English there, as a foreign language, but my department is Business and the accountancy teachers are interested too.

I know the UK is very far ahead of France on this issue so am hoping some of you can advise me on what to look for?

We already have projectors and PCs in most of the rooms I use.

Thanks

I teach in a secondary and we have a mixture of IWBs. Our dept (MFL) has Promethean and I really like those. The maths dept have them as well as they consider them better for maths (not sure why). I have had a go with a SMART board and wasn't as impressed - you only need to walk near it and catch it with your elbow and you've drawn across it or moved stuff.

It really depends on what you want to do with them as well. I teach in various classrooms around the school and am gobsmacked by the number of people who have stuff all over the floor right in front of them so it's really difficult to reach the board. Clearly they haven't got the hang of the concept of interactive whiteboard! So I assume they use them for showing films/clips or just stuff to read/look at/copy. In which case a white wall would have done just as well!

I get lots of pupils out to move words to pictures; fill in gaps; highlight words/phrases; match sentence halves; order dialogues; play games on linguascope or schoolmouse etc. To me the key is getting the pupils themselves to interact with what they see, not watch me do it all the time.

So it really depends on what you want people to do with it.

I prefer Promethean to Smart Boards too.

I would like to be able to do gap-fills on the board, matching exercises, ordering dialogues, highlighting/underlining/circling things.

I also want to be able to save "brainstorming" lessons where we have written things on the board - I would like to be able to flick back to previous boards and save handwritten text.

I tend to use mine to annotate/highlight text or diagrams, fill in blanks on exam papers, etc.

Does anyone know if the software which allows gap-fill etc is whiteboard specific (ie can only be used with THAT make of whiteboard)?

'nother question - I see lots of paperboards on the Promethean site - do they have software templates which allow you to create gap-fills/multiple choice quite easily?

thanks

I am a SMARTboard fan and would choose it over Promethean any day. SMART feels a lot more intuitive to me and I love that younger children can use their fingers to write on the board instead of the fiddly pen that Promethean boards use.

That said, back in 2002 I preferred Promethean but was converted!

Thank you. I think I will have to get a salesperson out to talk me through it all!

Does anyone use the student/pupil "tablets" with their class?

Not quite sure what you mean by "tablets".

When I say gap-fill, I don't mean using gap-fill software. I just type in a text and leave gaps. Then put the words as individual text at the bottom of the page and they move the words into the correct space. (or with a more advanced group, just put the text with gaps and they write the words in.

The other way would be to write the text out in full. Then lock it on the background. Then colour over the gaps. Then pupils can use the 'erase' function to clear it once they have given their answer or you can clear the initial letter etc.

Multiple choice you can do with activote handsets (bit like "Who wants to be a millionaire) but it's a bit fiddly and I haven't got round to doing it yet! (I only work 2 days a week in school.)

I use a Promethean board in my classroom. I'd love to hava a working tablet- I have got one but the software on the tablet isn't as up to date as the board so they are incompatible. Grrrrr.

My Promethean board is fantastic, I used a Smart board six years ago but it wasn't as good. They may be better now of course.

Promethean will let you save handwritten text and do gap fill. I use it for showing text, videos, with a visualiser to show students work, for showing our interactive lessons etc. I wouldn't be without it.

this is what I mean by a tablet, I was thinking that I could control the board from the back of the class with it or hand it to a student and get them to fill in their answer without waiting 30 mins for them to slope reluctantly up to the board!

Cool! I would love one of those but probably too expensive for our school to consider. If you get a cordless mouse, you can do clicking, moving etc with that from around the room. So only if you want them to write would you need the tablet.

Am not sure if it's a special type of mouse (longer distance etc) than a normal one as I don't use one. At school most of them are keen to come out and use the board.

I also use websites like www.linguascope.com and www.schoolmouse.eu to play educational games on the IWB. Schoolmouse is good as you can create your own games and make them relevant to what you are doing and as difficult as want!

Will look at those Tinuviel.

RE: the tablet, I think they are only a couple of hundred euros - would be expensive to equip a whole class but I think one or two would be useful for me, unfortunately unlike secondary/primary there are never any volunteers to come up to the board, it's a torture for them!