Electronic White Boards: A Smart Choice for Teachers?
Meg A. Byte, a pseudonym for technology writer, educator, and educational technology consultant Constance Bleiler, is Education World's technology expert.
Dear Meg A. Byte,
I've heard a lot of talk about interactive white boards. What are they, and do you think they would be useful in a classroom?
Mark R.
Dear Mark,
The writing is on the wall. Interactive white boards, also called electronic dry erase boards, are arousing a lot of interest among educators.
The boards first surfaced in corporate environments, where meetings are fast, furious -- and frequent. Such meetings often produce numerous notes and masterful diagrams, created on standard white boards, just like those you use in your classroom. The notes and diagrams created on those white boards, however, are often quickly erased or altered -- and lost forever. Needless to say, that can be a huge problem in the land of blue suit. Electronic white boards solve that problem by saving those complex notes and drawings in a usable and retrievable format.
Basic electronic dry erase boards look very much like standard dry erase boards. On the electronic version, however, the area you write on is really a large touchscreen; special markers are used to create the notes and diagrams. Most models also include a touchscreen menu -- for saving, printing, and so on -- along one side of the board. A computer, and sometimes an LCD projector as well, are connected to the touchscreen. If a projector is used, any application on the computer can be projected onto the electronic dry erase board. Projector-driven models obviously are more expensive, however.
At this point, most electronic white boards save files as graphics; when the image is reopened from the white board, text will be saved as an image and not as easily editable text. The image can be edited, however, with the same software you typically use to edit drawings and photographs.
Certainly, electronic dry erase boards would be a valuable asset in any classroom. Only you can decide whether the cost, which can range from $600 to $5,000, is worth it to you.
Check out the electronic white boards created by SMART Technology, Inc. for more information about using these products in the classroom.
Meg
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