Death of the Interactive Whiteboard

The Death of the IWB.

For those of us that work in schools, or have a familiarity with classrooms at least, take a moment to think about the first things that a teacher says they want in their classroom.  I've asked this question of people a few times and, while it sometimes may take a while to think of an answer, more often than not the answer they provide is the same.

Assuming one doesn't exist in the classroom already, most teachers will ask for an Interactive Whiteboard - or "IWB".  

Now I could use the more common name that people use for them.  I could call them “Really Intelligent Boards” but that name actually refers to a specific brand of IWB.  Kind of like how an iPad is a specific brand of tablet or a MacBook is a specific type of laptop computer.  The “Really Intelligent Board” is actually just a companies product name for their model of IWB.  

So…being as how this post talks about the death of a technology and NOT the death of a company or specific companies product, and how I really would like to avoid any kind of backlash related to misinterpretation of what I am talking about, I am going to use the generic/proper name, IWB, so that people don’t think I am singling out “Really Intelligent Boards” or their company “Really Intelligent Technologies”.  

I’m not talking about them.  I am talking about the concept of IWBs in general.

Old Faithful....

Don’t get me wrong.  I like IWBs.  I think, in their time, they were a cool technology that held a lot of promise for increasing student engagement.  So cool in fact that all the cool kids wanted one.  I don’t think that anyone that has purchased an IWB has wasted their money.  I know of teachers that have spent a lot of time and effort utilizing them and exploiting them as much as they can.  I think that anyone that has an IWB will continue to get good use out of it.  And if anyone is completely committed to purchasing an IWB in the near future I am sure that the investment will be well realized.

The concern I’ve always had about them though is their inability to engage all students at the same time. 

While they certainly have a positive effect on a classroom, the concept of interactive software and the boards they are used on has the potential for so much more.  

Couple that concern with knowledge about technologies that are available now and/or coming down the pike and I predict that attitudes related to the urgency of getting an IWB in the classroom are about to undergo a dramatic shift.  

My advice is that anyone that is about to invest in an IWB may want to wait just a little bit longer and see what happens with what I am about to speak to below.

Disappointment and Frustration.

I’ve talked to many teachers over the years about what they think of IWB’s and each and every one of them has said they love them.  When asked about how much they use them though, almost each and every one of them has said “not as much as I would like”.

Wait….what?  Not as much as you would like?  Isn’t that your choice as a teacher?  Once you have the IWB in your classroom, is it not you who decides how much you use it?

Most people may think that but, in reality, the luxury of choosing how much the well loved IWB in the classroom is used doesn’t completely lie in the hands of the teacher.  How much it is used is, for the most part, dictated by the limitations of the technology itself.  As much as IWB’s are a cool tool, and as much as teachers work hard to integrate them into the classroom, hard limitations to their functionality and application most definitely exist.  

Most of the older IWB’s only allow one person to interact with them at a time.  Some of the newer IWB’s allow multiple users to interact with them.  Either way though, it is still a limited amount of people that can use an IWB at any one time and that is a source of frustration and disappointment to teachers; not to the degree where they don't do their best to get what they can out of an IWB.  Just to the point where they wish they could do more.

Think about an average classroom.  Lets say there are 26 students in that classroom.  To have all 26 students interact with an IWB you would need to have them line up and, one at a time, assuming you aren’t lucky enough to have a multitouch model in which case you could have maybe two students at a time, have them approach the IWB to take their turn doing their thing.  You might as well forget about keeping the attention of the 25 kids standing behind the one at the board - there’s no way they are going to remain focused as that line slowly inches forward.

No - that’s definitely not the way to do it.  Too time consuming.  Students get distracted while waiting.  Not a good use of class time.

In an effort to maintain class momentum, most teachers will use an IWB with only one or two students at a time.  The next day they will have another one or two take a turn.  The next day another one or two and so on.  That's all they have time for in their increasingly busy days.  So…in about two weeks every student will have had a chance to do their thing at the IWB.

That’s what the teachers mean when they say they don’t use them as much as they would like.  They can’t have all their students use them at once in one day.  It takes too long.  They have to stagger student use over time - often many days - and that’s not a great way to engage an entire class at once; let alone make good use of the investment made in the board.

But no, you say, there are the cool things you can do as a teacher with an IWB - hide and reveal, etc, etc.  Well yeah there is that.  Sure, they can watch as you drag the grumpy cloud away to reveal the smiling sun but in all honesty you can do that with a PC and a projector.  In fact you can even do some of the most basic things with a whiteboard/chalkboard and two pieces of paper.  You don’t really, absolutely, need an IWB to do that stuff.  

The most value for an IWB is in the student engagement and interaction potential.  But the unfortunate reality is that such a thing is very limited in its application.  These limitations are, of course, something that can be overlooked when better alternatives do not exist, but times are changing.

What's Really Wanted?

So when I was talking to teachers about these limitations I asked the following.

• “What if you could do the same thing, the interactive exercises, with your entire class, every student at the same time, in parallel, and all of them working on their own instance of whatever it was you were doing.  How much appeal would that hold?  How much would your students engagement increase?  How much time would it save in the classroom?”

Unanimously the responses were ecstatic to think of such a possibility.  Answers came flooding in with phrases like:

• “My lesson time would be cut dramatically allowing me time to do other things with my students”
• “That sounds too good to be true - my kids would absolutely love it”
• “I would be so excited to be able to do something like that - my lessons would be so much more creative and engaging”.

That concept is what people who purchased IWB’s many years ago desperately wanted to achieve but, because of the limitations of that technology, they were never able to quite get there.  They wanted to be able to elevate the levels of engagement via technology in their classroom, not just with a few students at a time but with the whole class at the same time.

Heeeeere's Johnny!!!!

Such a thing as I described to those teachers has arrived.   

It’s called "Cloud Based Interactive Software".  The idea behind it is that a teacher can project an interactive lesson to the “cloud”, which is just a fancy term for the Internet really, and any student with an Internet capable device can access it, at the same time, in parallel.  

If that Internet capable device is a touchscreen capable device, like a tablet or a touchscreen laptop, then all the better.  What that means then is that the student using that device can interact with the software much like they would if they were standing in front of an IWB.  Imagine a teacher throwing interactive slides to all students at once and having each of them undertake an exercise with it at the same time.  No more "One at a time come up to the board" or “Johnny and Mary - it’s your turn today” stuff.  

LOTS more "Ok - everyone do this now".

I think a concept like that is truly transformational.  Fully inclusive, synchronous, classroom engagement in interactive exercises.

I think a concept like that, in a school where every student has access to a touchscreen, internet access capable, device when needed, will truly change the classroom as we see it today.  

• By the way - I say "when needed" because this doesn't mean a school has to have a one device per student ratio.  Just as long as the students have access to them when needed.

If you think about it, in a school where every teacher and every student has access to a touchscreen, internet access capable, device when needed, and where the teachers are using cloud based interactive software, then the need for that touch capable board, or IWB, at the front of the classroom is eliminated.  You can project your slides via a projector onto a simple whiteboard.  The interactive stuff is done on the touchscreen devices.  No need, ever, to touch the board again.

With that in place suddenly teachers are now using something far more engaging and infinitely more inclusive.  And they don't need to purchase an IWB to do it.

Are We There Yet???

Frontrunners in this new concept are SMART Technologies, and Promethean.  They have been developing, and recently released, their versions of cloud based interactive software; SMARTAmp and Classflow respectively.  

Coincidentally those same two companies have also been the frontrunners in the IWB market.  Maybe they’ve both read the writing on the wall!  The IWB is dying.....soon to be dead.  

People soon will not be interested in a touch sensitive board.  Not when they, and their entire class, can interact in a lesson via touchscreen personal devices.

We are piloting this very concept, thanks primarily to the EFW, this coming school year with our 5th grade Washington Elementary School classrooms.  We love the EFW.  They help our teachers truly expand their professional creativity and also help the district investigate directions which it should take.  The teachers involved in the project are both excited and committed to it and we, as a district, are extremely interested in analyzing the academic impact it will have.  

This may truly affect future purchasing decisions at the district level.  Dependent on the results we may see a very different classroom environment in the district in the next few years.