Teachers Planet

1) Interactive-whiteboard is suitable for learners of all ages and allows them to work collaboratively.

2) It looks and can work like a conventional-whiteboard. Thus it maintains the familiarity one has with the traditional-whiteboard.

3) It is a better option than a computer monitor when its comes to classroom presentation. While through a PC only limited number of students can be given presentation at a time, with IWB entire class can be covered very easily as it is much bigger in size.

4) An-IWB allows integration of audio, video, graphics, text and animation (from wide variety of media like CD-ROM, Internet, intra net, multimedia projector, DVD, VCD, student response system, TV, radio etc) with the lessons. Thus it provides not only enjoyment and interactivity but also makes the learning process much more interesting and fun. It enables teachers to adopt different learning styles to meet the learners’ need. Thus it can also help in creating a personalized learning environment.

5) Anything drawn or written on the interactive-whiteboard-surface can be saved on a computer hard disk through a whiteboard-software. In this way teachers can save and share there work and re-used it subsequently in case a repetition is required.

6) Contents from websites, blogs, forums, newsgroups, wikis and other web based resources can be brought on the IWB-surface through a LCD projector. Thus it promotes e-learning.

7) It is an ideal tool for conducting brainstorming sessions and other group activities when used in conjunction with response-systems.

It is much easier to use than a conventional desktop-computer or laptop.

9) It is a very powerful teaching tool as: it enhances modeling and presentation, allows teachers to make effective use of classroom-resources, motivates learners, improve communication and can bring in depth clarity on a topic/subject matter.

10) It can also be used for video conferencing, impressive sales presentations, staff training, meetings, briefings, group discussions etc and is thus an excellent ICT product for corporate sector.

Interactive whiteboards benefits

Stage Level: Primary

Objective: To teach students numbers from 1 to 10

Preparation: Decide 10 activities which children can easily count like: jumping, clapping, stomping etc. Decide an area where you would like the children to perform some activity. Focus your visualizer or video camera on that particular area. Now turn it on for recording.

Ask students ‘do you want to play’. No doubt, they won’t say no. Now randomly pick one student and ask him/her to come forward and jump ten times. Ask students to count the number of times (loudly) the student jumped. Now randomly pick another student and ask him/her to turn around nine times. Again ask the class to count the no. of times the action is done. Do similar activities for other numbers. Randomly repeat the activities if there are more than 10 students in your class. If you come up with some new idea during the session, you can use that also. Make sure that you engage each and every student in the-activities. Probably by the end of the whole session the entire class will be pretty tired.

Now stop recording and give children some time (say 5-10 minutes) to cool down. In the mean while you will have to do little editing with the recorded video. Bookmark those points on the video from where a particular activity (like jumping) starts and give them a descriptive name. For e.g. ‘jumping 5′ for the activity in which a student jumped ’5 times’ or ‘clapping 10′ in which a student clapped 10 times. Now you will have a small menu of all the activities you asked the students to do. Click on any menu item of your choice and display the video recording on the interactive whiteboard surface through a LCD projector (with ‘no sounds’ option turned on). Children would love to see themselves on the interactive whiteboard screen. Ask them again to count the number of times (loudly) a student perform some activity.

Interactive whiteboards lesson: Teaching numbers

Stage Level: Primary

Objective: To teach addition to students.

Preparation: Find images of an ‘apple’, ‘open basket’ and a girl holding a basket from the internet. Reduce the size of the apple in such a way, that the basket can hold at least 20 apples. Copy and paste 20 images of apple on the basket in such a way, they look like that they are inside the basket. You must be familiar with graphic software like ‘photo shop’ to do these things. If you are not familiar, than ask some one (probably a graphic designer) to do it for you. Now project the image of the ‘open-basket’ with apples on the left hand side of the interactive whiteboard and the girl’s image on the right hand side of the board with the help of a LCD projector.

Name the girl ‘Gina’ or anything you like. Ask students that the girl lives in a village and she needs help in putting apples in her basket. Right now her basket is empty. Move the image of one apple from the-basket and place it on the girl’s basket. Now ask students to count the number of apples they see (loudly) in the girl’s basket. Similarly move second-apple from the-basket and put it into the girl’s basket. Now again ask students to count the no of-apples they see (loudly) in the-girl’s basket. Move two-apples simultaneously into the-girl’s-basket and repeat the activity. Then move three or any random-number-of-apples simultaneously or one after the other and repeat the activity. Make sure that-the-open-basket is empty by the end of the entire session.

Interactive whiteboards lesson: Teaching Addition