Interactive whiteboards

[Mario]

What are your opinions on these 'teaching aids'?

Personally, I hate them.

Most of the teachers just use them as slow whiteboards, they just don't prepare lessons to take in their full potential. They don't teach the kids anything about IT, a waste of our budget that way. And the teachers just cannot use common sense to fix the dang pens and calibration themselves, the same teachers calling us up every few periods! They're more trouble than they're worth!

Is there anyway I can get the proffesors to understand the damn things?!

[Geoff]

Get younger teachers. Seriously, the newer ones coming into schools don't appear to be afraid to use the technology given to them properly.

[Mario]

I wish we could upgrade the faculty like we do the kit.

School recently gave out Acer Tablets out to many teachers (over $2000 worth retail each! Why can't Tech Support get that sort of kit?!) and the older staff forget them half the time, or get a whole class crowded round the laptop to watch a cheesy DVD everyonce in a while... but the new teachers coming in have every lesson planned and prepared, always have the thing by their side!!! (Though it does make them harder to "borrow", I'm still fixing one of the Math Professors "virus"... He never used the thing anyway.... )

[djm968]

Welcome to Edugeek Mario! I see you are from over the pond and I agree IWB's are a pain in the ass but like Geoff, I have found NQT's less technophobic although they are sometimes just plain lazy and would rather have a techie do it for them.

I think I would rather be have a moan about IWB's in sunny Florida though, so its not all bad!

[Amir]

Teachers here in London is liking them, but i thinks that the whiteboard can slow down a lesson as they have problems often and because teachers do not understand computers

First post

Mario that car in your avatar is very smart!

[Mario]

Thankyou Amir, she is my baby, spent months on her, needs protecting from our sun.

Sun isn't all it's cracked up to be djm! Try attempting to stop servers frying in this heat! And try hearing yourself think over the aircon in the server room!

[webman]

NQTs are great and love technology. The older stick-in-the-mud's don't like change.

For example, we had a young one started just in September and is using the whiteboard to its full potential and is working on podcasts.

Aircon? What aircon? :?

[Mario]

Yes, aircon... it's not a luxury here, it's a necessity!

Our rusty old 70's box really struggles though... crunchy.

I'm glad to see when people use them properly, but it's ALWAYS a bare minimum of the faculty. And we really need to invest in some software, is there any English software (whiteboard/eductation specific) worth having, as I've been asked to find some, but am struggling...

[Norphy]

NQTs are great and love technology.

Depends on the NQT. We have a couple here who hate it.

[webman]

Just a quick note on English - avoid Qwizdom, it's a nightmare.

[Mario]

Just a quick note on English - avoid Qwizdom, it's a nightmare.

Thanks for the advice webman...

Any positive advice from the masses?


And I missed this earlier, thanks for the welcome djm!

[Amir]

I would say welcome too but I'm kinda new too
Am I thread hi-jacking now? OK i'll stop....

[Grommit]

The problem with whiteboard is that the teachers are becoming very dependant on them and when the bulb blows or the PC has crashed they wet themselves with panic because suddenly thay can't teach..

plus getting calles everyday to calibrate the boards... Lost Projector Controls..

Yea.. whats it with these damn Orange Projectors.. no on off switch so when the remote goes AWOL everybodys stuffed...

and we have 55 boards onsite..

Is there a cheap place to get Sanyo remotes?

[Amir]

Like mario said getting called out to calibrate boards is infuriating especially when you know that some of the teachers can do it perfectly well themselves.
And yeah, when they cant use their board their lesson is ruined because it was all planned on a powerpoint presentation or whatever

[ITWombat]

I was wondering why the site was a bit slow today but after seeing the massive signature images I'm not surprised.

Anyway welcome to EduGeek Amir and Mario.

Hey Mario did you grow up or spend a lot of time in the UK. Your turn of phrase shows British influnces

Anyway, IWB are not as quite important as projectors. Gaining enough experience to use a board as interactively takes too long and adds more to the lesson planning burden.