Enliven the teaching process, sustain higher attention rate and achieve increased participation and interaction with this advanced, new technology teaching aid - the interactive whiteboard, also called electronic board.
Interactive whiteboards are an instructional tool, deployed together with a PC and digital projector, such that the computer's screen is projected to the board. But that's not all. Interactive whiteboards are different for regulat projector screens because once set up, things displayed on the board can be manipulated using the finger as a mouse or with a pen, right on the board.
Such displayed items may be dragged, clicked, copied or manipulated in other ways. The instructor or even student is able to handwrite notes on the whiteboard and all can get saved. You can write or draw on its surface, add annotations to an image, chart or other figure, print out and share the material or save it to computer or still, distribute it over a network.
HOW INTERACTIVE WHITEBOARDS (IWB) WORK:
The full setup of an interactive whiteboard presentation system will comprise a desktop or laptop PC, a projector and the interactive whiteboard, all connected. Once properly installed, whatever that is in the PC can be projected to the interactive whiteboard. What's more, the whiteboard also becomes a medium to control and manipulate what is projected from the PC's desktop. You can write to it on the board, highlight or magnify parts and do other things that help focus attention to highpoints you want to drive home. Things done on the board can also be saved to the PC.
What that means is that rather than invite a class of students to surround your laptop to view what you would like to show from it, you project all that stuff to the interactive whiteboard and will have the flexibility to control it, write to it and apply other illustrative manipulations on the large interactive whiteboard. Students can easily also participate and things done can be save or printed or emailed, as found fit. Simply, it's teaching made easy. Take note that office presentations find value in this tool too.
ADVANTAGES OF THE INTERACTIVE WHITEBOARD
So, what are the advantages of the interactive whiteboard, which is far more expensive than the regular projection screen? Why sink a significant investment in the interactive whiteboard? Here are some benefits that justify the expenditure on this modern educational tool.
- The interactive whiteboard is visual and highly illustrative. Even the most usually distracted or inattentive student will likely be drawn in by the powerful impact of the IWB. Learning is substantially boosted.
- Its multimedia-based technology lends to use of multimedia content to further enhance teaching. Students gain access to more educational content from resources like videos and audio clips, websites, interactive software, etc.
- Interactive whiteboards are great for enhancing illustration, demostration or modelling - drivers for faster learning process.
- With an interactive whiteboard, you achieve easy enhancement of any classroom lesson or other presentation with flexible integration of videos, audio, animation, graphics, annotations or other text.
- Whiteboards enhance interactivity and collaboration in class, with a higher level of student engagement, and resultant faster and deeper learning experience.
- All the work on the board during a lesson can always be saved and archived, providing easy revision or reference material for not just the class but the school.
- This is an easy way to give the entire class access to what is on a single PC screen, with the additional benefit that the class can work on that material, right from the large board
- This is a modern teaching aid, highly technology-based, inherently predisposing both teachers and students to technology-enhanced learning experience and with the potential of creating a technology-positive mindset that can be benefitial in many other ways.
FEATURES AND SPECIFICATIONS OF THE E@BOARD INTERACTIVE WHITEBOARD
e@Board interactive whiteboards offer advanced interactive whiteboard technology, loaded with the following functions:
- Touch-recognition - you can control all the screen operation with the finger or pointer
- Writing Input - edit everything in the PC (word, excel and other files) on the board.
- Real-time record capture - save every work done on the board, meaning that students can concentrate on what is being said or shown, rather than note-taking. What is saved can be printed and shared.
- Auto-save - while saving can be initiated with a touch of an icon, auto-save can also be activated to auto-save all the work in whtever appropriate file format.
- Network conference - advanced use of the e@board whiteboard via LAN or the internet will achieve remote network conference with up to 500 people participating and seeing the same screen and also able to engage in voice communication
Though much of the reference has been to education and school teaching in particular, it should be noted that interactive whiteboards can be beneficially applied to other uses: Enterprise business meetings, business training sessions, hotel conferences and presentation events, product launches and other similar events.
