Learning to Unlearn

Learning is necessary only if we want to grow. I don't know about you but I want to grow. Not only do I want to grow, but I want to excel! In this light, I have realized that I have some unlearning to do for growth to take place. And I never really thought about needing to unlearn something in order to learn something. In order for me to grow as an educator I have to unlearn the concept that I have that I can't learn that much from people over the net as I can from people in person. I'm seeing that this may just be reversed. I have always kind of been against social networking in general, but the idea of connected learning is something that I can't ignore! As much as I need it to grow, my future students will need it just as much if not more than I do.

I see that some challenges on this journey of learning to unlearn is just in the realizing that there are things that I think or do that aren't effective and need to change. I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking that that stings a little. But that's the cost of learning. To leave things behind that don't promote the future-even when it hurts to leave them behind.

Interactive Whiteboards in today's classroom

Interactive whiteboards or IWBs are an interesting breed. They seem like they would be great tools to use in classrooms because of their great boasts, but I'm not so convinced. First off is the cost. For a new IWB, a good one (with good reviews, including a projector), your looking at spending close to $2,000, upwards of $3,500 to $4,000. Now if we're talking about including these in every classroom, we're talking a SMALL school, we're looking at 30-40 classrooms. That's a whole lotta cash! So this first becomes an issue of, "do IWBs produce enough bang for the buck?" PCs kind of have the same issue. If you have to buy 30 $2,000 IWBs to suit all class rooms, how many $400 laptops will you have to buy to suit every student? Or most students?


Another thing in consideration of IWBs is do they really do what the companies say they do? The article, Interactive Whiteboards and Learning, made by Smart technologies concerning studies that were done to show the effectiveness of Smart's IWB, it makes some big claims. The two most interesting benefits the article spoke of were increased attendance and differentiation. Their research showed how the use of IWBs could improve attendance with the extrinsically motivated students(uhh ok, until they get bored with it... maybe...), and changing formats to suit different learning styles (totally agree). It was a good article, and I want to go buy one right now...not so much...

I have to admit, the article was more on the side of being convincing, however, it was produced by Smart. Of course Smart is going to make the cost seem worth it. If ABC company just produced a product and needs to sell it, they're going to get the research to promote it. They're not, however, going to show any of the negative research results. To be politically correct: DUH! But other non-IWB-producer (article from Washington post) research is showing that IWBs just simply reinvented the wheel. They take teaching methods and strategies and place them in the context of an IWB. So this issue of cost vs value boils down to teacher motivation and skill. Students are still distracted, sleeping etc. Once the novelty wears off, IWBs become a more colorful chalk board that you can watch movies on.

I graduated back in 2000, so I have no experience with these personally, but they seem like they would be a good way to get students to interact, but I think that age is going to play into that a bit. I'm sure that elementary students would be much more interested in using them than high school students, simply because most elementary aged students can still be mesmerized by technology.

One thing I do love about IWBs is there potential in differentiation. Their good for all the learning types because students can see, hear, and touch what their learning. For that I have to like them. That's a great set of options for a teaching tool. And I would say that that almost equates to the cost.

The bottom line here is this: IWBs can be great. I'm not contending with that. But how great? Great enough for the cost? Great enough to buy these instead of laptops? Let's see more studies from independe
nt sources that aren't funded by the producing parties and maybe then we'll see...