Interactive Whiteboards in Action

I coordinate three peer tutoring labs at a huge Florida university (did I just give which school away?) where I oversee 40+ student tutors who work in these learning labs.  We were very fortunate to recently acquire three new interactive Promethean smartboards (or activboards as they are officially called).  With every blessing comes an adjustment period and while we are loving having these new amazing boards in our lab, we are also having to adjust our tried and true tutoring techniques, as well as our physical space, to incorporate use of this new technology.  This adjustment period has come through a lot of group and individual training on these wonderful boards.  

Thankfully, Promethean Planet online has a ton of great resources and we also had a k-12 expert from the College of Education come by to give us an overview.  Training since has been fairly organic with one tutor helping another and me providing paid training time for the tutors to practice learning more on their own.

Before I proceed to let you know how my staff feels about these new boards, it is worth discussing the incredible range of possibility an Interactive Whiteboard brings to a learning environment.

Source

You can read an overview of the pros and cons of Interactive Whiteboards (IWB) from circa 2010 here and here.  The jist of what IWBs are, is these are giant whiteboards that can written on with a "pen" or your hand.  They can be used to bring to life web content, write over images or websites, play videos, create interactive powerpoint slides known as FlipCharts, poll your students and generally engage them in the process of using a whiteboard.  Of course, with all of this newness comes a time of learning to USE the newness to support learning outcomes.  

So far, the majority of my student staff have enjoyed using these new tools, though there are certainly a few of my tutors who prefer good old whiteboards and dry erase markers.  As I mentioned above, there have been a few interesting turns in our IWB experience.  The worst being, despite giant signs indicating not to do so, a few students (non tutors) commited the cardinal IWB sin of writing on one of our boards with a dry erase marker... the board no longer responds to an electronic pen or to touch but is now merely an expensive computer monitor.  We have also been fortunate to use the IWBs for various non-educational purposes in the learning lab such as movie night and to play our holiday fireplace dvd during our Thanksgiving party last week.  :)

We're on FIRE!

I asked a few of my peer tutors to share their thoughts on the new learning lab technology after a recent independent practical I asked them to complete.  As it is always best to hear the story from the horses mouth, here are a few of my staff's feelings on our new technology:

Old School and New School Tutors... Side by Side

Chelsea

"I think ActiveInspire is a great program. I enjoyed learning new ways to test student understanding and to present concepts. As I continue to create more flipcharts I believe the programs will be easier to work with. The first 30 minutes of my time was spent getting used to the program and figuring out where everything was but after that I was able to come up with an idea and make it come together with ease. The program for free download definitely lacks some tools that we are able to use through the paid software at work. If I plan to create any future flipcharts I will be sure to create them on campus just so I am able to take my creativity to its full potential. All-in-all I really like ActiveInspire and I am very glad that I was given the opportunity to figure out the program as a training, otherwise I may have been discouraged from spending the time. Hope to hear the other tutors enjoyed the training as much as I did." 

  
Sarah

"Pros: They are extremely versatile: they connect to the Internet, they have a program called Active Inspire that allows you to use it as a regular white board or use pre-made materials that gives a session structure / organization, and their touch screen (which gives a tutor session that Razzle Dazzle / Star Trek / Futuristic appeal).  Cons: They require a significant amount of practice and individual time with someone who knows how to use it. I was lucky to have Manny who volunteered his own time to help. The layout of the Promethean boards is awkward.  In General: Overall, I think having the Promethean boards gives tutoring sessions structure and "appeal". I think whatever class you're tutoring for, the Promethean boards by default make the material seem more interesting."

Chad

"I had trouble getting magic ink to do what I want... I'm still not really sure how it works. The training was helpful but I think it'll be an ongoing process of learning this.  I've got everything else down pretty well though. I liked the way the objects come together nicely with the ability to move work easily around on the board."

My staff during our recent training

Ana

"For me, Active Inspire is a work in progress. I learn new things about it all the time; though, it definitely takes some getting used to. My biggest challenge is when I'm using it during a session and it starts to have a mind of its own. For example, when I am writing a problem on the smart board and it automatically changes my writing into print. Since it doesn't know I'm writing chemical formulas, my writing changes to something that is incomprehensible. Overall I feel that I understand the basics of it and it helps my sessions be much more productive."

The best trainings there are... students showing student samples of Flipcharts!

In all, it seems to me a positive to expose my tutors to this new hardware to use in their sessions and to feel comfortable going out of their zone of comfort.  Though most probably would not have used the system if I hadn't required them to complete a training, I now see tutors who were previously timid to try anything new in their sessions radiating toward this new tech.  I see at least one of our three boards in constant, daily use and this makes me confident that the tutors are not only learning and growing but are keeping up with the technology that their students are a lot of times already familiar with from their high school classrooms.

Mentoring my tutors is the highlight of my job at the university so tough loving them into use of this new tech has been a fun experience for me.  I have a lot to learn still about IWB but I am pleased my tutors can assist me along the way and I can do the same for them.

I love my tutors and cry when they graduate!