Interactive Whiteboards - A position statement

I can't get into a discussion of IWBs without giving you some background into my philosophies of educational technology.

I have been the director of technology in our district for over 25 years, starting with just myself and now with a staff of 15.

I have never been a proponent of computer labs in elementary and middle school, and in the high schools mainly for use to support courses that need them like word processing, grahic arts, etc.

We have never had computer specialists outside of our business education department in the secondary schools, again for teaching keyboarding, word processing, etc. I don't believe in the idea of sending kids to a lab to learn technology and then coming back to a classroom to learn science, social studies, etc.

Before schoolwide networks were available, we did have Apple ][gs "labs" in our elementary schools because the only way to network back then was with AppleTalk connectors withing the same room. Even in that case I only installed labs that had 1 computer for every two students, and they were always in or as close to the library as possible. I wanted the labs to be an extension of the "information center" of the library, and used for writing as much as for anything else. We did teach keyboarding using these labs, but the teacher was always with the students (or in the library) any time they were in the lab.

We were able to network every classroom in our district in the mid 1990's, and at that point the focus was to bring the technology into the classroom where it could be used 6/5/180 (six hours a day five days a week 180 days a year - not quite the 24/7/365 we would like for everytime learning). In our district we refer to the "technology rich classroom" and have focused on this instead of a 1-1 initiative.

To meet this objective, with 500+ certified staff and 6,800 students in 19 buildings, we have developed it in phases. First of course was to make sure every teacher has a computer, most chose to have a laptop but some prefer a desktop. They are encouraged to take the laptops home with them.

Years ago we subscribed to United Streaming (now Discovery Education Streaming) district wide. This produced a demand for projectors in the classrooms, which we accomplished over a period of 2-3 years. Once we had the projectors in place, the cost of installing SMART Boards was affordable, around $1,200 per classroom. That has also been accomplished over a number of years, and because of the interest and request of teachers. The teachers who didn't request them were the last to get them, and we did this because we wanted uniform classrooms (equity) not knowing who might be in that classroom the next year.

While in the process of installing SMART Boards in every classroom, we were also installing document cameras, again due to the usefullness of the video projector in the classroom. Some teachers requested a document camera instead of a SMART Board during the implentation stage and we granted that wish. Now every classroom has a SMART Board and those who requested a document camera have them.

Once we had a SMART Board in every classroom where they were requested (still not every one in the district) we started implementing "clickers." We had 30 sets of Qwizdoms, and were satisified with them. I wasn't looking for anything else, actually avoided demonstrations from our SMART representatives until some of my top SMART Board using teachers asked me to take a look at their SMART Senteo systems (now SMART Response) and explained why they would like to have them (integration into SMART Notebook). We arranged to have 25 sets exchanged even up with SMART Technologies (5 teachers elected to keep their Qwizdoms, only one still has their set today) as long as we committed district wide to the SMART Response systems. Today every teacher who has requested a SMART Response system has one in their classroom.

Note: We found out years ago, when we were at 1 TV for every two classrooms, that teachers will not go out of their way to bring a technology into their classroom (TVs then, SMART Boards later) if they have to go and get it and set it up. That is why we installed and mounted the SMART Boards and projectors in every classroom.

Right now we have over 300 SMART Audio systems in our techology warehouse being installed by a local computer company. They will all be tied into the teacher mic, a student mic, the cable TV feed which goes through the projector (no TVs left in classrooms unless the teacher asked to keep it), the sound from the computer, and a feed back to the computer to allow recording of the teacher's voice. This allows the teacher to record their SMART Board lesson and their voice for students who missed class or want a review. Not used extensively yet, but some math teachers at the secondary level use it daily.

To complete our "technology rich classroom" model which is K-12 in focus, we provide new computers equally to elementary and secondary schools based on their number of full time equivilent teachers. Every teacher in the district gets a new computer every 3-4 years, no teacher should ever have a computer older than 4 years as their main computer. However, secondary teachers don't usually request to keep their older computer in their classroom, so these usually migrate down to elementary classrooms (K-6). This allows those teachers to have computer centers in their classrooms. Some schools put these older computers into rooms they call "labs" but they must all be older computers than any a teacher has as their main computer, and computers the teachers don't want in the back of their classrooms.

About 9 years ago we implemented a technology integration - staff development model by hiring five Curriculum Technology Partners to work with the teachers at the elementary level. They work with the teacher in planning lessons that use technology to improve the teaching and learning, sometimes model the lesson for the teacher, sometimes they are just there to hold the teachers hand, but they never take over the lesson and let the teacher leave the room. It is truley a staff develpment model and I could take as much time explaining it as I have this overall explanation of our technology implementation.

At the same time we reassigned three other members of our technology department to become Technology Facilitators and act as technology integrationist at the secondary level. However, they continued to have troubleshooting responsibilities for the three middle schools.

The criticisms of IWBs seem to be centered around a) the cost and b) the teacher-centric model.

In regards to the teacher-centric model we work hard to get our teachers to use the SMART Board as a tool and not at the center of their instructional day. We encourage them to have students at the board, to have it be another center in the room, or to have a device (iPad) where the SMART Board can be controlled from anywhere in the classroom.

In regards to the cost - over a period of five years we are investing over $250,000 (salary and benefits plus the cost of the room, supplies, heat, etc.) in a classrom. Spending less than $5,000 on the technology that goes into that classroom ($1,166 for the SMART Board, $589 for the projector, $470 for a document camera, $1,000 for a laptop, and $969 for a sound enhancement system) is under 2% of that cost. If we can make the teacher more than 2% more productive we have achieved a posititve return on our investment!

There are other savings that can be taken into consideration: fewer videos purchased and rented, no large classroom maps, no "big books," etc.