Interactive Learning with Promethean

Promethean – a global leader and innovator in interactive learning technologies looks at the success of the interactive whiteboard, 15 years after it was first plugged into education...

The personal computer isn’t the only revolutionary educational tool to have recently marked an important birthday milestone. Though the interactive whiteboard is ten years younger than the PC, its impact on education is arguably just as great as the 25-year old desktop.

The personal computer isn’t the only revolutionary educational tool to have recently marked an important birthday milestone. Though the interactive whiteboard is ten years younger than the PC, its impact on education is arguably just as great as the 25-year old desktop.
    
Fifteen years since it was first plugged into education; the interactive whiteboard is influencing teachers’ approach to education in ways that couldn’t have been imagined even five years ago. The UK is a genuine world leader when it comes to the adoption and use of interactive whiteboards in school classrooms and by 2008 it's estimated that more than 600,000 interactive whiteboards (DTC Research) will have found their way into UK schools, making Britain the world’s biggest market in this sector. That's a thirty-fold increase in five years.

The recent expansion is partly due to government investment. In the last two years alone the Department for Education and Skills has pumped £50 million of funding to drive the uptake of interactive whiteboards in schools. But even with such high levels of funding the success of the interactive whiteboard wasn’t always a sure-fire guarantee. Plenty of innovative technologies fail to make the big time and end up discarded along the path of history.

“If you go to the Ideal Home Exhibition every year you’ll find someone demonstrates some wonderful product that you wonder how you’ve ever managed without,” says Stephen Jury, CEO of Promethean, the world’s most successful education technology company. “And five weeks later it’s consigned to a cupboard for ever more. Interactive whiteboards have suffered from this. There are some who felt simply by replacing blackboards or dry wipe boards with an interactive whiteboard would suddenly improve learning. The truth, however, is that it doesn’t unless it is used interactively.”

Government investment into this technology is part of a broader strategy to use ICT (information and communications technology) to create a 21st century education system fit for a 21st century economy. After all, a modern education system is a fundamental part of encouraging collaboration, problem solving, innovation and all things that create added value for the modern economy.

   
Engaging unmotivated learners
The first half of the challenge is a student one. Technology, for example, can help reverse rising trends of student absenteeism. And to tackle absenteeism you need to address the common problem of boredom and disaffection. According to the DfES report, Harnessing Technology March 2005, ICT is fundamental in terms of re-engaging unmotivated learners.

However, before you even think about engaging students you need to engage teachers. If you can’t get teacher buy in, you might as well go back to the drawing board. Even in the world’s fourth biggest economy there still exists a deep mistrust of classroom technology amongst certain sections of the teaching community. Their students have grown up in a digital world that, to a large extent, has passed teachers by. iPods, Sony PSPs and Smartphones that hold ten CDs worth of music, all find their way into the playgrounds. Even the familiar 25-year-old IBM-compatible PC seems more susceptible to the charms of the Playstation generation than some 70s-educated teachers. If discipline is already a problem faced by teachers all over the country, surely introducing new forms of teaching based on technology that potentially gives students the upper hand is asking for trouble. Why hand over the keys?

   
Pupil feedback
Mistrustful of their management’s ability to make the right kind of buying decisions in the first place, along with the accountability that comes with classroom technology, teacher buy in is a challenge. Add the intimidating prospect of being shown up by technology-savvy pupils combined with a perceived increase in workload and you find a professional community in considerable need of persuasion.

“The experience of the last two years shows that for interactive whiteboards to make a big difference, they need to be embraced as a platform – a happy marriage of hardware and software,” says Jury. “That’s when things can really take off, especially when combined with a means of providing immediate pupil feedback. The principles of being able to share lesson content and best practice on a common platform electronically opens up a whole world of possibilities.”

If teachers can see beyond the hardware and start using, developing, sharing and even profiting from their lesson-winning classes you get the educational equivalent of Sony Playstation. Get it right and you find yourself with a platform that both educational publishers and teachers want to develop for. Get it wrong and you end up with a Sega Dreamcast or the countless other technologically innovative products that never made the big time.

Tailored teaching material
In principle, the journey from blackboard to interactive whiteboard is a logical one, allowing teachers to move from the traditional to the new, while retaining a degree of familiarity. And in practice most research shows teachers find interactive whiteboards easy to use.

Typically teachers spend a lot of time preparing materials in the first and middle phase of familiarisation with interactive whiteboards. During the first phase a lot of teachers simply use it as a projection screen with the most obvious software tools that come with the whiteboard. Then they start to develop their own materials or modify the ones that come with the schools chosen interactive whiteboard platform. With instant voting feedback from pupils using personal response units, teachers soon ascertain which lesson plans and what combination of teaching materials are working best. In later phases they work collaboratively with their colleagues to specifically tailor teaching materials and lesson planning, in theory, is cut to a minimum.

The Next Generation of Whiteboards
Not only do schools and teachers need to adapt to the new technology, so too must technology adapt to them. A wall mounted whiteboard with ceiling mounted projector is normally the best; however, depending upon the school building itself it is not always the most accessible solution. Promethean are conscious of the need to continually develop their interactive systems and as a result came the launch of the Activboard+2. The new all-in-one system demonstrates the next generation of interactive learning and includes an Activboard, Sanyo short-throw projector and a height adjustable stand.

Promethean’s long standing relationship with Sanyo, the worlds leading developer and vendor of projectors and projection systems, facilitated the successful development of this unique product. The resulting Sanyo XE40 projector, easily identifiable by its orange casing, was designed specifically for use with the Activboard+2 system. Attached to the board by a strong steel arm, and in contrast to traditional projection systems, it is positioned just one metre away from the board and operated by remote-control only, giving teachers complete control. It can also project the customer’s logo at start-up which, combined with the colour, provide subtle security features.

The integrated short-throw projector dramatically reduces the ‘shadow effect’ which can obscure content on the board and the flexibility of the stand’s height setting also means the system can be used in most classrooms and can be simply adjusted to the appropriate height for both user and audience. A set of speakers can also be included as can an amplifier and, for added security, a wall-mounted lockable security cage for the projector.

The combined investment not only represents cost-savings when compared with separately sourced interactive whiteboard/projector systems. It also significantly increases both the ease and speed of installation, minimising disruption to schools and ensuring continuity of teaching time.

“Having listened to feedback from teachers and schools it became clear that we could improve the usability of our technology through integration, and partnering with Sanyo to achieve this seemed a natural fit,” said Promethean CEO Stephen Jury. “The Activboard+2 offers much more flexibility within the classroom and will allow teachers to ensure even more pupils are engaged and motivated when learning”.

Investment
Looking to the future, we need to learn from the current successes using interactive whiteboards in UK classrooms and apply them to the other education systems. Developing countries too are looking beyond last century’s industrialised model of learning, which churned out students for a production line economy as if they were Model T Fords. “From Beijing, Johannesburg and Mexico City to the UK’s West Midlands, investment in interactive whiteboards is increasingly seen as a means of coming up with citizens equipped with the requisite skill sets for today and tomorrow,” says Jury.