In Texas, school is getting ready to start. I gave my first tech training of the school year to new faculty - an introduction to the promethean boards in their classrooms.
And at one point, one of the teachers asked, "so, isn't this just like PowerPoint?" It reminded me that that question is symptomatic of many others - isn't it just like.... A mouse? A tablet? A drawing program? A notebook? A really expensive whiteboard?
It's a valid question. (In whatever form, or as a group.) Is the promethean board more than just a nifty piece of technology? Is it worth the money? Are we being hoodwinked into buying expensive tech that does no more than some cheaper alternatives? Certainly, at ISTE I saw evidence that thee is a lot of profit to be made. Just look at all the enthusiastic vendors!
I think that for a first time user, unless they a already a technophile, it takes a semester to a year just to get comfortable with the board. It can be little. O than an expensive whiteboard, at least at first. And that's ok.
But I'm also about to have a training session for some more experienced users, and I have day two of the training ahead tomorrow. I'd like to have more of an answer for them.
So here is what I have so far: a promethean board (or other interactive whiteboard) is more because it is:
Interactive: although you can have static images on the screen, a strength of the board is when you have a lesson where things move. When you have an assorted set of concepts and can drag them around to various categories, and perhaps have a debate about where they belong, that's engaging students with higher order thinking.
Archivable: don't underestimate the power of being able to save what happened in your class and to post it for students to reference later to study or if they missed class.
Engaging: we don't use our boards like this enough in our division. I wonder if it is because of the age of our students - we teach high school- but getting the students to come to the board, to create, to interact with the lesson, to lead the group, to activate the kinesthetic learning style; that's missing right now, and I would like to feel like we are getting more of that going for our experienced users.
Those are the first ideas that come to mind. It is late, and I have class to teach tomorrow. Perhaps my "students" will help me come up with more, or my brain will remember other ideas I had!
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