Negative+Position

NEGATIVE POSITION:

Students with last names starting with letters A-K will take the negative position on tpt.

**Are Interactive White Boards worth the investment for schools? Do they benefit the teaching and learning process? How or how not?**

Please make sure you type your name at the very begining of your response. This will allow me to give credit where credit is due.

__**Megan Burpo:**__

When reading about the interactive whiteboards, I can across a few concerns with using this tool in the classroom. I found there are three different types of whiteboards - Touched-based, Pen-based, and Portable Ultrasonic and from my experience, the touched-based is the most common. I did see a few objections regarding the Pen-based whiteboard because it required the teacher/student to use a special pen to interact on the board, so if this pen was lost/broken the white board cannot be used until replaced, which is expensive.

Moving on to the general uses of the interactive white board, another concern are technical problems. The whiteboard itself is very light weight and if bumped or moved the wrong way could cause it to fail. Same with the projection screen and the general set up. It seems this tool is very fragile and has lots of wires attached (if not wireless) and could cause issues in the classroom.

When teaching with the white board, one negative aspect is that it confines the teacher to one spot in the classroom because of its "touch ability". The teacher cannot move far from the board while teaching or interacting with the board during a lesson. Then there is the concern of the teacher doing most of the talking and students doing less talking and partner interaction. Also, during lessons the students cannot read, write, listen at their own pace, which may cause a concern for those students who are at risk. If the students were doing an activity with a partner or a small group rather than on the white board with the whole class, they could, for example, stop and try and figure out what an unfamiliar word means or how it is pronounced.

And finally, the IWB is reported to help increase motivation in students, but there are no reports showing that motivation continues after student are familiar with it and are used to using it daily in the classroom. []