The effective use of Interactive White Boards (IWBs) shape and are shaped by their context. The paper Quality Teaching and Interactive Whiteboards: Using Activity Theory To Improve Practice written in 2010 by Trudy Sweeney uses activity theory to work through the emerging tensions created by teachers changing their pedagogy to incorporate IWBs into everyday practice.
Many teachers who use IWBs do so only at the 'Entry' level of the model of instructional change. They use the IWB as a teacher directed instructional tool. The goal is to get teachers transforming their pedagogies and operating the IWB at an 'Invention' level. (Prestridge, 2012). Although IWBs can be an effective teaching tool, their effectiveness is shaped by their context (Sweeny, 2010).
This week's task was to create a virtual interactive field trip using the Active Inspire software for a Promethean Smart Board. Mine is below:
This field trip was designed to provide students in a grade seven class with experiences they cannot normally obtain in school and was relative to the SOSE unit on sustainability. The field trip is highly interactive and is underpinned by a constructivist learning theory. Students through experiencing the field trip construct meaning internally. Interactive Field trips help bridge formal and informal learning, and prepare students for lifelong learning (Tuthill and Klemm, 2002).
Students would experience the field trip in small groups using the interactive white board. Some features of this trip include activities that help them remember what to bring, links to search engines, photos, videos, animations, interactive maps, graphing/classification activities (drag and drop) and interactive sustainability/pollution learning activities. Students after completing the field trip will participate in a classroom wiki conversation reflecting on an experience they had during the field trip.
By experiencing the field trip and then collaborating in a reflection of their experience students would be Operating ICTs and Communicating with ICT (DETA 2012). Teachers who implement a virtual field trip into the classroom would be fostering students independent use of ICTs and providing them with opportunities to direct their own learning. Students would be operating cognitively at a higher level than if they were to watch a documentary about sustaining life on the barrier reef. The students would be participating in some deep dimensions of intellectual quality including problematic knowledge, metalanguage, substantive communication and higher order thinking (Sweeny, 2010).
I believe strongly in the use of activities that promote deep intellectual quality in students and the effective use of a virtual field trip does just that. I will definitely use them in my classroom and I implore other teachers to do the same and to use their IWBs for more then just an assistive teacher directed tool.
References:
Department of Education and Training, DETA (2012). Smart Classrooms: Student ICT expectations, retrieved, 15/04/2012 from http://education.qld.gov.au/smartclassrooms/enabling-learners/ict-expectations/prep-year3/index.html
Prestridge, S. (2012) A Transformed Pedagogy: Model of Instructional Change, Week 5 Lecture notes, Retrieved 20/04/2012 from Learning@Griffith.
Sweeny, T. (2010) Quality Teaching and Interactive Whiteboards: Using activity theory to improve practice. ACEC2010: Digital Diversity Conference, Melbourne: Australia.
Tuthill, G., & Klemm, E. (2002). Virtual field trips: Alternatives to actual field trips. Proquest. Multimedia Schools l(29), 453-468.
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