Interactive whiteboards
In this feature we look at the advantages of using interactive whiteboards (IWBs) in the classroom and find out what new IWB products are available from ELT publishers.
The original plan had been to report back from the Frankfurt Book Fair on what the publishers were going to be producing over the coming months. But then I saw the poster for the new iPack on the Oxford University Press stand and I knew the time had finally come to dedicate First Impressions to the new digital resources publishers are producing for their courses. Most of these are aimed at the growing number of schools using interactive whiteboards (IWBs), but the majority of products can also be used with a computer and a data projector.
This time last year I saw my first interactive whiteboard (IWB) product presentation at a SATEFL meeting in Edinburgh. At the meeting, Judith Wells from Cambridge University Press showed us the benefits of the IWB and how it could be used with the face2face course. I had already discovered some of the benefits a few months earlier when I'd given a workshop on using online resources and had been forced to use an IWB for the first time.
As I quickly discovered, an IWB allows you to project resources onto a special whiteboard and then use a special pen (or in some cases, your fingers) to write, draw, click, highlight and move things around. The best thing about IWBs is that they turn the board into something interactive and colourful that students will want to look at. Used in conjunction with the right software, they allow you to combine material supplied by the publisher with your own materials, the students' work and the wealth of resources available on the Internet. They can also be used in the same way as a traditional whiteboard.
The downside is that they can be expensive and, as with most technology, occasionally temperamental. They also require you to invest time in learning how they work and how to make the most of what they offer. Whenever I mention IWBs to teachers, they either rave about them and say how much IWBs have changed the way they teach, or they say that the school has invested in the equipment but that they haven't used it yet. That should change as more publishers produce materials for IWBs. At the moment it seems that most publishers wait until a course is established and successful before producing IWB materials, which makes one think that it must still be expensive to produce the material.
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| Teachers can choose which exercises to display and in which order using the face2face Lesson Builder (top). On-screen audio is a feature of all IWB materials, and with Touchstone you can change the speed. |
The face2face material that I saw in Edinburgh was impressive. Cambridge has worked closely with Hitachi on developing their software. As with all the products we're looking at in this feature, the software includes most of the student's book. This allows you to display a spread from the coursebook on the board. This simple aid makes it much easier to show students what page and exercise to work on. It is also possible to zoom in on exercises and images. A simple text exercise or a complicated colour photo montage looks much better enlarged on the IWB than in the book, and it is a big advantage to have the students looking up and focussed on the board rather than looking down at their books. One of the other great features is having instant access to the audio and video material. When you select the audio icon, the audio player opens and can instantly play the audio. You can also display the transcript and select specific sentences to listen to by simply highlighting them. You can also access the video material directly from the board. Having everything in one place certainly makes class much easier for teachers, and more motivating for students
There are also interactive versions of many of the exercises. This means that students can go to the board and select their answers. The answer key can be displayed instantly on the board as well. You can also highlight or hide and reveal anything on the screen.
For many, these features would be enough to make the investment worthwhile, but there's usually much more you can do. With most of the available products, you can build and save your lessons beforehand and organise the order in which activities appear on the board. You can add your own material and import texts and images from other programs so that you can move from a book activity to your own activity with the click of the mouse or pen. Or maybe you want to visit a website as part of the lesson, which is possible providing you have an Internet connection. It is also possible to add notes to exercises. For example, if you want to extend an exercise, just open the note option and you can display your additional questions.
Cambridge has whiteboard CD-ROMs for face2face Elementary and Pre-Intermediate. Software for Intermediate and Upper Intermediate levels is due in 2008. IWB software is also available for English365 and Interchange.
Across the Atlantic, Cambridge is about to launch four levels of IWB software for Touchstone, an American English course for adults. The Touchstone software has some interesting innovations, such as speech-slowing software developed by the Dublin Institute of Technology that allows teachers to play audio tracks at either 100 per cent or 80 per cent of their recorded speed to aid in comprehension. The software also allows users to type in answers on write-on lines in exercises, which makes it possible for programs that just have a PC and projector to make full use of the software.
The Cambridge-Hitachi whiteboard software can be used with a conventional screen/projector/PC, but it has enhanced functionality when used on an IWB.
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| Handy on-screen icons make the interactive whiteboard (IWB) resources easy to use. With the iPack you can choose the student book spread to display from the menu on the left and then hide the menu to focus on the spread. | |
One of the main selling points of the new iPack (Oxford) is that it can also be used on a range of classroom equipment - an IWB, a computer and a data projector, or a computer alone. The iPack is a completely digital version of New English File and is available for every level.
The resources are divided into built-in resources and "do-what-you-want tools". The built-in resources include the complete student's book with all audio and Practical English video, answer keys, and Common European Framework competences. There is also new material, including revision quizzes, grammar games, vocabulary activities, and a sounds chart with audio.
The do-what-you-want tools allow you to zoom into a page, write and save your own notes, draw on the page, and highlight and hide material. The iPack looks very clear and easy to use. It looks as though Oxford have opted to provide something that any teacher can learn to use fairly quickly, and it should be a great tool for teachers who use New English File.
The fact that publishers are making their IWB material easier for inexperienced teachers to use is very good news. Pearson Longman calls New Cutting Edge Digital the easy jump into IWB technology that anyone can use. This is an interactive version of the New Cutting Edge course - a "one-stop shop" with all the teaching resources available at the touch of a screen. It is designed to make classroom management easier and encourages more varied and effective feedback.
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| Using IWB video gives the teacher greater control of the image and audio. With Total English you can even write and draw on the DVD image. The touch control of the tapescript means that you can instantly move to the moment in the DVD you want to use. |
In December, Pearson Longman launches its new IWB material for Total English. Once again, they have made an effort to make the resource as user-friendly as possible. There's an "easy-use tool bar" on the student's book page that increases accessibility to inexperienced users of IWBs, and there's a new feature that allows you to write and draw on the DVD image, which offers exciting new possibilities for using video in class for vocabulary and prediction work. The hide/reveal tapescript under the screen allows touch control for discreet chunks of language leading to contextualised listen-and-repeat drills. You can also write on the tapescript and highlight parts of it. The touch control of the tapescript means that you can instantly move to the moment in the DVD you want to use.
As it says on Pearson Longman's website, when you use IWB material, "learning becomes more active, more fun, and more memorable. Students love it."
While I was at the Frankfurt Book Fair, I met Julia Glass at the Promethean stand. Promethean is one of the leading names in interactive learning technology and was involved in developing the Cutting Edge IWB material. Their aim is to create products that help teachers to prepare digital lessons quickly and easily.
Julia explained, "Interactive whiteboards work exceptionally well in English language teaching and indeed all MFL [modern foreign language] teaching environments as they provide a highly visual and stimulating classroom environment. It's easy to present, scaffold and expand learning whilst drawing on the wealth of new materials and the Internet to support and enhance the learning experience."
Promethean supplies Activboard and the latest Activboard+2, which it describes as "the world's most durable interactive whiteboard technology"; Activstudio, a software platform for secondary teaching; and Activprimary, whiteboard software designed specifically for use with children in primary school and kindergarten.
The company has also developed personal hand-held Activote response units which provide instant polling and analysis to "promote learning and teacher productivity". With the students' ability to participate in the classroom even more, somehow I feel that IWBs are about to become even more interactive!
If you want to know more about IWBs, follow the links below:
Cambridge
www.cambridge.org/elt/whiteboardsoftware
Oxford iPacks
www.oup.com/elt/catalogue
Pearson Longman
www.pearsonlongman.com
Promethean
www.prometheanworld.com
More information at other sites
- This page at International House Barcelona lists sites that provide
more information about using IWBs.
www.ihes.com/bcn/tt/whiteboards.html - Comments from teachers who have used IWBs and other technology in
the classroom.
www.teachingenglish.org.uk/talk/vote/vote23_technology.shtml