Next steps in considering Interactive Whiteboards for our (Higher Ed) classrooms

Using a Wii Board & ActiveInspire software to demonstrate IWB’s, at little cost.

In November I started working with a team of faculty members and technologists to learn about today’s Interactive White Board offerings, and I’ve been posting a series of articles about our efforts. This week we reviewed what we have learned so far, and discussed how to move the process forward. An important next step is to demonstrate how an IWB works for our Department Chairs in their next meeting and make sure everyone understands the technology under consideration.

Over the summer I learned about this inexpensive “Wii board” technique for creating an interactive projection system that has some of the essential functionality of an IWB system, for very little cost. By coupling this with the free Personal version of ActiveInspire IWB software (from Promethean), we can demonstrate some of what these systems can do, for little upfront cost. It is also possible that this sort of inexpensive, portable tool may be perfectly adequate for some purposes (I would certainly consider using this for presentations from time to time if it works reasonably well).

Let’s review of some important considerations that have come out of our work thus far:

Enhancing understanding and addressing misperceptions: Until they see the systems in use, it is likely that some teachers and ... [Please click here to continue reading the complete post at EmergingEdTech.com, where I blog regularly and Internet and instructional technologies in education. Thanks!]