Technology_In_Education_ (Summer_2012)

Place for Interactive Whiteboard Lesson Plans

This site could be very useful and time saving for teachers that have interactive whiteboards in their classrooms. This resource is mainly for teachers use as it provides resources the teacher can use in his/her classroom for students. My knowledge is very limited on interactive whiteboards so I am not aware of any similar resources. I do believe this resources would be extremely beneficial for a teacher who recently had a interactive whiteboard installed in his/her classroom. Great site Joel, thanks for sharing.

Interactive white boards and SMART Boards are becoming an incredibly prevalent piece of technology within our classrooms. This site would be extremely helpful for those teachers with this piece of technology in their classrooms. Since these boards have so much to offer many teachers would not know how to use them except as a glorifed screen projector. In this site are sites that give details of games and templates a teacher could use, how to take care of the board, lessons plans, and most importantly training and tutorials for how to use the them. This last one I think is the most important feature of the site because teachers will not use these boards unless they know how to. These boards are primarily for the teachers to use with their students, however I have seen cases where the students were given the opportunity to use them. Other resources that could go with these boards are ipads. Ipads have the ability to hook up with these boards which gives the teachers other apps to use with the board.

I first want to say that I agree that this site will help teachers become better teachers by using this site. As I look at myself, I don't think this site will help me, but this is because I have a fundamental issue with IWBs. The problem I have with IWBs is that they promote teacher-centric instruction. Typically, if the teacher decides to use any of the features of the IWB, they use it to replicate current practices. For example, I worked with a school who held up a Kindergarten calendar activity as the most effective teacher using the IWB. However, this activity looked identical to the paper based activity that was sitting in the back of the room. So while students appear to be engaged, it is novelty engagement which eventually wears off. So for me, IWBs need to be able to bring something new to the table, and really they haven't yet to my knowledge. Creating flip charts or notebooks is great, but really if the goal is to be student centered, IWBs don't get it done. I'll step down from my soapbox now... This resource is certainly one that will be used by the teacher, since this is a lesson planning website. Promethean Planet is another great resource for finding lessons to use on your IWB, but beware. There are many good lessons, but a large number of bad ones. I'd find one that looks good and then make it better by personalizing it to you and your students' needs.

I must admit, I have no experience with interactive whiteboards. However, I thought this site would be an extremely useful resource for teachers utilizing this technology in their classroom. It provides several activities, lesson plans, and much more!