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Star Trek Ed: The Substance Factor
When considering a new piece of technology for educational purposes, I've suggested that one ought to consider how it can be used, how it should be used, and how it will be used, once the shine factor wears off.
Now, I'd like to introduce the Substance Factor, which addresses how a new piece of technology should be used in the classroom.
Let's take the interactive whiteboard. Having spent two years using one while teaching English, I have at least a glancing familiarity with both the shine and substance of the board.
I went through multiple trainings introducing the various tips and tricks for using the interactive boards, but these were mostly about the shiny. The actual substance pedagogy was left to the teachers.
In implementation, I certainly preferred working with the interactive board to working with an overhead projector and whiteboard. Creating digital slideshows is a more efficient way to create notes than printing overhead transparencies, and I was able to build opportunities for basic interaction (fill in the blanks, sorting ideas or concepts into groups using the pens) pretty quickly.
Incorporating multimedia was also easier, which facilitated, for example, switching between notes about persuasion techniques and clips of advertisements using those same techniques. I think it is fair to say that most of the rest of the teachers at my school were able to use the boards similarly, gaining a slight efficiency advantage over the previous technology.
However, a lot of the additional tips and tricks beyond the enhanced presentation ability (much of which could be replicated – albeit with some quality degradation – by a sufficiently enterprising teacher with a computer, LCD projector, and conventional whiteboard) proved too intensive or unreliable for easy usage. The more advanced techniques may eventually have been adapted (more on the Speed Factor to come later), but most of the substance of the technology came in offering enhancements to material delivery.
Does this justify the adoption of the technology? Maybe. The point is that we should be asking that question when considering new technology. Underneath the shine, what would this actually do to improve instruction?
Posted in Education | Related Topics: K-12 education Classroom Methods Technology
3 Comments
July 29, 2011 at 9:33 am
Absolutely, Andy, and I didn’t mean this to be an attack on the boards. Your point about aggregating multiple pieces in one unit is very well taken.
I think your points about brand and training both being key to the success of any new technology are critical. There is a lot of potential worth to be found in these boards, provided those pieces are taken into account.
My next piece in this series will address the training question and other points around the speed of adoption. The building I worked in for the past two years had these boards in all the classrooms, and—as I’m sure your school has experienced—different teachers adjusted to the boards at different rates. Many were using just a few of the features of the boards, though some were quite proficient.
Thank you again for your comment; please let me know if you feel some of your other points have gone unaddressed.
July 29, 2011 at 8:58 am
I work at a school where these are installed in every classroom. Our teachers love them for many reasons, but the biggest is that that (a) they collapse a collection of diverse technologies into a single, manageable installation and (b) open up new forms of instruction that were simply not possible.
Also, brand matters—these boards are not created equal and some brands are much more effective than others. Training matters too. Even though the word “whiteboard” is in the name, there are a vast range of uses beyond typical whiteboards. If you don’t know them, you can’t use them. (Remember too there was a time when switching away from ink and quill to ball point pens was controversial too.)
Todd Pierson says:
August 5, 2011 at 9:22 am
Michael—I think you are right on in your evaluation of how interactive whiteboards (IWB’s)are being implemented in schools today. I have been instrumental in helping facilitate the deployment and training for IWB’s for a large district. We have done a good job of providing basic training, but like you say, the training has been about the tools of the IWB and less about the way it can be integrated into subjects and content.
Technology integration specialists need to do more with facilitating discussions among teachers about how IWB’s can enhance teaching in their content area. For instance, using the interactive board when exploring geometry concepts is a natural. The boards are perfect for demonstrating with programs like Geometer Sketchpad or Geogebra. Or something like Google Earth comes alive when manipulated at an interactive whiteboard. Its these content connections that will take IWB’s to the next level.