Post Proficiency

It would appear most teachers become highly proficient with the board’s application software after about a year’s use of the IWBs.

They then begin looking to new ways to create even richer teaching experiences and to enhance even further the quality and rate of student learning.

Those teachers are ready and confident to build on their expertise, to use a range of third party software and hardware and to begin transforming their boards and indeed their classrooms, into digital teaching hubs.

The IWB becomes the centrepiece of that hub, the axis through which most of the activity is channelled.

The signs from the path-finding, whole of school deployments around the world are that IWBs have proven to be the Trojan Horses that open the way for all the teachers to become wise users of an array of digital technology.

Towards the Digital Hub

The challenge is to channel that new expertise to create an ever- richer teaching/learning situation.

IWBNet’s suggested educational solution is to transform each classroom in to a digital teaching hub that can in turn be linked to the other hubs in the school, the region and elsewhere in the world.

IWBNet’s concept of the digital hub is one where the boards act as a large screen digital convergence facility that serves as the hub, the axis, for an array of digital facilities. The hub becomes the major medium for teaching and learning within the classroom, for the student’s work, for the input from other digital sources in and outside the classroom, for access to the digital ‘storerooms’, for communication and interaction with the desired folk anywhere in the networked world and the connection to an array of classroom management and school administration operations.

The desire is to create in each classroom an immensely rich teaching and learning environment where the teacher and the students have at their ready disposal a suite of powerful, integrated digital tools that can assist to continually enhance the quality and appropriateness of teaching and learning.

Opportunities

The potential parts of the digital hub, even at this dawn of the use of IWBs are virtually unlimited. In many respects the major limiter is the human mind set. Teachers are now realising that they have the opportunity to incorporate any digital facilities they wish in their classrooms.

Seemingly daily new digital facilities appear.

The consumer electronics industry – and in particular the associated games and digital creation markets – are going to provide teachers an endless array of possibilities.

The challenge for schools is to include in the hubs those elements that will best enhance learning for the particular group of students.

Classroom Reality

The reality however is that teachers only have the time to use a portion of the offerings available and they’ll use only those facilities they believe will enrich learning, are simple to use and hassle free.

If one looks at the tools of teachers highly skilled in the use of ICT they work with a core set of software and hardware. Their students have a similar core set of tools. While the number of tools in the kit is probably growing the tools are limited.

The same will undoubtedly occur with teachers and students highly proficient in the use of IWBs.

In seeking to create digital hubs the teachers are likely to create a core tool kit and over time add and dispense with parts.

The quest will be to find those tools that are particularly applicable to the selected board, for the students and the area/s of the curriculum being taught.

Customising the Digital

Undoubtedly a crucial part of the tool kit will be those tools that allow the teachers to rapidly customise and make their own existing digital teaching materials and in particular multi-media teaching packages.

Where some of us can remember the great breakthrough that came with the facility to cut and paste photocopied sections of books into typed assignments, teachers proficient in the use of IWBs will want to swiftly edit various digital sources and create their own teaching resources.

Where the rush was to use the photocopier before the first lesson the new rush will be to create high impact multi-media lessons in a few seconds.

Student Input

They may be a tendency with some teachers new to the IWBs, particularly in the early days when they are building their proficiency, to rely on the excitement and undoubted impact of the boards and to continue using a more teacher centred style of teaching.

The hope is that by the time they are proficient with their board they will have had the support and guidance, and developed the confidence, to shift to a more student centred teaching approach, to encourage high student interaction and most importantly to have the students create much of their work within the digital hubs.

Digital Hub Technology – The Options

Below are some of the current options teachers can consider using in the creation of their particular digital hub.

We all understand that within months these options will need to be updated as other digital offerings emerge.

As you would appreciate the tools ultimately selected and used will be strongly influenced by the brand of IWB chosen, the computer platform used to back end the board, the age and nature of the students, the area of the curriculum and the particular strengths and interests of the teacher.

It is important to bear in mind that all the IWBs can work with both Macs and PCs and readily interface with virtually all digital software and hardware. There is simply not the technical need to standardise the technology in the way argued with both desktops and laptops.

Generic IWB Software

• More and more teaching software is being developed specifically for use with IWBs. Generic in nature and thus able to operate on all IWBs, the software is invariably designed for whole of class use.

• One can anticipate across the world that as the IWB take up grows so it will spawn an associated IWB software industry. While many of the current offerings are UK developed, in time, comparable teaching materials will be developed in all the major languages for teachers in all parts of the world.

• One can also expect teaching packages to be developed for use on specific boards.

Development Tools

• Much of the creative software developed for personal computers lends itself brilliantly for IWBs and large screens.

• All of the IWBs add another dimension to Microsoft’s Office suite.

• Indeed the path-finding IWB teachers are finding that much of the seldom used, exotic functionality within Word, Excel and PowerPoint takes on a new life when used with the large screen of the IWBs.

• Simple to use, inexpensive but immensely powerful digital creation software like Apple’s iLife suite is ideal for both the teachers and the students and can be readily used with all the boards.

• Continue to make use of the software you have found works well on the personal computer. On the large screen it invariably gains another dimension.

Revitalising the Old

• This same impact is to be found with old seemingly archaic software.

• Indeed the large screen of the IWBs and the facility for ready group interaction has added a new lease of life to much old, often discarded educational software.

• Old number and word games designed for the small personal computer come back to life on the large screen.

• Check out the storerooms and the disposal trays in front of the games’ shops and you are likely to find some excellent teaching material.

Subject Specific Software

• The amount of quality, rich multimedia teaching material is growing by the day.

• Most is available on the Web for a small charge or it is free.

• Most teachers will know what is currently available in their particular teaching area, be it applications software that helps the students create their own work, or topic specific software.

• The challenge is to remain informed of the new quality offerings.

• Your information services staff ought to assist here.

Google and the Search Engines

• Central to any digital hub toolkit will invariably be Google, or another of the immensely powerful Internet search engines.

• Long gone is the need for teachers to scour through the library and the bookshops.

• Google can reveal what is available in a few clicks.

• The reality is that every classroom can become a state of the art library.

Email

• Central also is the desirability of the class being able to readily communicate by email with the wider school and networked world.

• Schools that have a database driven communications system, operated through personal portals, can integrate that technology with the IWBs and swiftly and inexpensively communicate with anyone, anywhere in the networked world.

• One can readily communicate with the parents, sister schools or indeed with the many thousands of individuals and organizations who can assist the student’s learning.

Telephony and Messaging

• A powerful and inexpensive aspect of digital communication is voice over the Internet telephony (VOIP) and indeed instant messaging.

• A service like Skype (http://www.skype.com), which is a free computer-to-computer telephony service, that comes bundled with an instant messenger, ideally lends itself to class-to-class interaction via the IWBs.

• With a little outlay schools could well make use of products like Macromedia’s Breeze Live to play a similar, albeit more sophisticated role.

• To get the best from these facilities broadband is needed.

Video – conferencing

• For years video- conferencing has been mooted as the ideal educational tool. In theory the possibilities are considerable.

• Enter this area with considerable care and a sizeable bank balance.

• Often the rhetoric does not match the reality. The quality of both picture and sound can be poor and the costs considerable.

• While the compression technology is improving, IWBNet’s recommendation is that you do your homework carefully and be aware of the challenges to be confronted.

• The audio challenge for class interaction is considerable.

• At this stage video conferencing is probably not an option for the average teacher or the average school budget.

Mass and Tailored Communication

• Networked wisely the digital hubs throughout the school can be used for mass and tailored student and class communication – be it via text, graphics and the various multi-media configurations.

Web/Intranet Creation

• Every class can have the facility to readily create its own web material and post it to either the Internet or the school’s intranet.

• Whether you want that to happen and how it is to happen, is a matter for the school.

• A school can now opt to use fully ‘point and click’ web creation and content management systems where none of the users need know anything about HTML, XML or web authoring software.

• Alternatively, one can use the array of web authoring tools now available.

Games

• The large screen, ease of use and interactivity of the IWBs is ideal for game playing.

• As indicated above, discarded games – such as Where in the World is Carmen Sandiago, the Sims and the various Flash number and word games – are given a new life when used with the IWBs and a surround sound system.

• The newer, more sophisticated educational games undoubtedly have an even greater impact.

• Indeed IWBs, like plasma screens, are likely to stimulate the development of interactive educational games specifically for the boards.

Hardware

• You can integrate most digital hardware and indeed much analogue information and communications technology with the IWBs to create the desired digital hubs.

• The working combination is yours to select.

• However the components of that combination are likely to change as new technology becomes available and as prices drop.

Student Work Technology

• All digital hubs should however provide the students the ready facility to undertake their own work, whether individually or in groups and then to present that work.

• This can be done using networked desktop computers, laptops or tablets.

• With a little imagination the same can be done using various hand held technology, such as PDAs, MP3 players, slates and even what we knew as ‘phones’.

Flexible Teaching

• A range of technologies be they Bluetooth, wireless or infrared, enable the various technologies to be operated remotely and thus provide flexibility and assist more dynamic and efficient teaching.

• The developments with wireless in particular should soon provide both teachers and students the capacity to input material from anywhere in the room.

Multi-Media Creation

• The digital hubs should have the tools, the cameras, the video and sound recording equipment, the networked input and editing facilities needed for both the teacher and the students to create digital multi-media.

• Much of that technology has already been mentioned, but it is important the teacher and the students have ready access to:

- A digital camera
- A digital video camera
- Reasonable quality sound recording equipment
- A selection of microphones
- A CD and DVD burner
- A digital editing facility.

• In time, with a reduction in price and increase in performance it would be advantageous to have use of a large storage, combo DVD/VCR recorder.

• Each class does not need all of the above, simply the facility to borrow when required.

Surround Sound System

• It is easy to forget the fundamental importance of a quality stereo or surround sound recording and playback facility.

• The ever reducing price of surround systems should allow in time each classroom to have its own, permanently installed system, ready to get the most from the DVDs available.

• Linked should be a reasonable quality recording facility for both individual and group work.

Television

• It is also very easy to forget to tap the immense resources available on pay/satellite TV and the capacity to use the IWBs for large screen playing.

• The resources available to schools on digital television, invariably as parts of special deals, are now considerable. There is not only the packaged material of the Discovery, National Geographic and History channels, but also the immediacy of the specialist news channels.

• Consider replacing the small television screen with a cable/satellite feed to the IWB.

Communication Opportunities

Ideally the digital hub, through the board, should allow both the teacher and the class to readily communicate with:

• The students’ homes – individually and in bulk

• Other schools and selected classes

• Other parts of the school

• The school website and/or intranet.

The challenge will be to develop a school policy that allows this to happen while at the same time addressing the concerns that communication with the networked world brings.

School and Classroom Management

Used wisely the IWBs can enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of both classroom management and facets of school administration.

One can for example link the boards to:

• Rolls/attendance database

• Student assessment and reporting system

• Canteen ordering facility

• Discipline records

• Excursion operations and the collection of monies.

The key is the wise integration with increasingly smart software.