How much do your IWBs get used?

[brad82]

Hi All,

 

Just a little survey... A while ago we were pressured by the SMT to install IWBs in most rooms. There is at least 3 IWBs between each department, and maths are fully kitted out with Promethean Boards (the rest are Smart). Maths tend to use theirs every day, credit where its due! However I never see any other members of staff using theirs other than a projection screen.

 

Are your experiences similar, or do your staff use IWBs to their full potential?

 

We are a secondary school, I notice primary do tend to use them much more.

 

Cheers!

[sonofsanta]

As a single sex grammar school - not many use them, in my experience. IT do, but other than that? Not the right place for them.

 

Primaries? Brilliant. Comprehensives? Brilliant (or at least - the comp I worked at before). Grammars? Just a tick in a box.

 

Projectors I'm all for, IWBs are a waste of money a lot of the time - a lot of "me too" purchasing.

[MatthewL]

When I left school in 2005 most of the class rooms had them and they were used all the time as the normal chalk/white board has been taken out so they had to use them. There was just 1 or 2 areas they had both but cant remember which. Always used as a board in most lessons but things may have changed in the time since I have left.

[elsiegee40]

We're a primary and they are in constant use in every classroom; used instead of standard whiteboards.

 

At the secondary where I'm governor, I'd say they have about one third IWBs, but there are projectors in most, if not all, classrooms. The projectors that don't project onto an IWB, project onto standard whiteboards.

[Oaktech]

it would appear that about 90% of ours are utilised as IWB. Our staff scream blue murder if something happens to them.

[ToyHeartsFan]

Our staff scream blue murder if something happens to them.

^This

 

Have your staff had training on the software? We had a teacher with us for a short time that knew the software inside out and that gave the other teachers the push they needed to make better use of the boards creating interactive flip charts etc rather than using them as glorified black boards.

 

 

Also I would suggest that having more than one type of board is a bad idea as the software is incompatible.

[brad82]

Some are trained, the ones that aren't seem to be the ones that have picked them up just by playing with them (admittedly this appears to be the NQTs!).. I find that the guys that have been trained seem very reluctant to use them.

 

We don't even get them using them as whiteboards, they don't even pick up the pens! I spent a good few weeks ensuring all the boards were up to scratch, repairing damaged ones etc. I even received a request from a staff member to explicitly fix her board (IO Board had been ripped out by a student tripping on the cable, but lets keep that quiet from management!), yet again I have not seen that board used since it was repaired.

 

The SMART boards were installed before I arrived, I would personally use Promethean every time, hence why maths has them.

[Sylv3r]

I would say around 75 - 80% of our staff use them for it's purpose. We gave staff very little choice and don't install standard dry wipe boards in the rooms anymore to force them to use them.

[AngryTechnician]

Up to Year 4 they are used extensively in most classrooms. From Year 5 up they are almost always simply projection surfaces, with the notable exception of Geography, because our Geography teacher is an ICT legend.

 

All classrooms have dry-wipe boards for use, so no-one is forced to use the interactive boards.

[rad]

I believe they are used as a projection board with the integration of tapping to move powerpoints on.

 

Most of the time teachers use Powerpoint over the Smart software, they use whiteboards to write on over the smartboard writing pens, and refer to their "board not working" when they really mean projector.... grrr personally a waste of time/money which could be spent on a decent projector with a white board and wireless presenter to move through powerpoints.

[Michael]

In my experience, the majority of teachers do use their whiteboards - however, how many of the resources do they actually use?

[GrumbleDook]

I used to make departments justify them before investing. It might be that one went into the department and would be used by one teacher, with two others dropping in to try things. Once the department was happy then it would be rolled into the refresh plan for the school.

 

They had to show how they were being used to a) make more of existing resources, b) help develop new resources, c) get students directly engaged with technology and d) how it could not be done by any other means (making some folk become quite inventive / innovative).

 

I didn't always say it explicitly to them to them but that is how it ended up.

[Oaktech]

our staff are pushed to use them better and better by CPD... we have a couple of techers who are just legends at using smart software, they are using visualizers, the senteo response kits, allsorts. We are slowly pushing more and more teachers to be fully conversant in the software. we use bought in resources from people like heineman and pearson that encourage the interactivity functions as answers are written into the software by the IWB.

[witch]

I work in a primary and a middle-deemed-secondary and in both schools there is an IWB in every classroom. Some teachers use them interactively a lot, and I know this from the school with Prometheans as they are forever running to me and complaining that the 'pen doesnt work' when they actually mean that the board isnt interactive!

I don't think that ANY of them are used to their full potential - the staff have no training on them and IMHO they are a terrible waste of what could be a brilliant resource.

[Guest Guest]

<10% usage I'd say in my comp. Makes my life easier though since Promethean seem incapable of writing drivers for their own kit.

[gshaw]

All day every day and using a mix of SMART Notebook and Internet

 

When I walk down the corridor now I look out for the Smartboard and PCs to see if they're being used and in the last couple of years the usage went up hugely. I'd like to think that's down to us providing consistent kit across all the rooms, how-to guides for all the staff and running CPD from within the IT Services team so tutors can be confident in the technology and know that there's someone there to support as and when required.

 

Put the same strategy into play with Moodle and seems to be picking up similar results.

[exim]

Only mainly the IT teachers and the odd others use IWBs to their full potential here.

The rest are only ever interested when being inspected because use of ILT (not always rightly) is a major factor these days.

[ToyHeartsFan]

<10% usage I'd say in my comp. Makes my life easier though since Promethean seem incapable of writing drivers for their own kit.

 

I've never had a problem with a promethean driver other than when they stopped installing the serial part by default. There is a simple change you need to make to the msi when deploying it via AD to get the older serial boards working other than that I've never had a problem.

[Bezwick]

I would have to say, the Maths, Languages, Sciences and ICT departments use them a lot. The rest of the school just uses whiteboards, we stopped installing IWB's about 2 years ago unless someone specifically asks for one.

[Guest Guest]

I've never had a problem with a promethean driver other than when they stopped installing the serial part by default. There is a simple change you need to make to the msi when deploying it via AD to get the older serial boards working other than that I've never had a problem.

 

We've got it installing the serial part, it just randomly stops working every so often. Reinstalling or installing v4 sorts it but come on, its a driver, it should just work.

[ToyHeartsFan]

We've got it installing the serial part, it just randomly stops working every so often. Reinstalling or installing v4 sorts it but come on, its a driver, it should just work.

 

V4 is quite old now so it might be worth you updating the driver we are using v5.7.22.1 (modified so serial still works when we deploy it via AD) with activinspire v1.6.44682. One thing that has caused us problems in the past is USB extensions, they are best avoided if possible.

[Guest Guest]

V4 is quite old now so it might be worth you updating the driver we are using v5.7.22.1 (modified so serial still works when we deploy it via AD) with activinspire v1.6.44682. One thing that has caused us problems in the past is USB extensions, they are best avoided if possible.

 

v5 is the one which randomly drops out. v4 works flawlessly. Like I said its not an issue as hardly anyone uses them.

[ToyHeartsFan]

v5 is the one which randomly drops out. v4 works flawlessly. Like I said its not an issue as hardly anyone uses them.

 

We have 30+ of them and the only time they dont work is when they break the pen or forget to switch the board on. Over the years I've had to replace a couple of power supplies, a serial cable and a couple of controllers got replaced under warranty but on the whole they have been very reliable. They are great bits of kit and with the limited money we have to spend on ICT it would really bug me if they were sat there not being used when we could of spent the money on something else.