Well the event has been good so far. Some great networking and solid presentations. Presented myself this afternoon on our journey toward 1 to 1. Good response for the first time I have done this presentation. Things to work on but that is for next time….
My rant though…. What is with these flaming IWB’s…. Almost enough IWB’s for a 1 to 1 IWB program to launch!! After my presentation I sat back and just observed the IWB stands…. We had a bunch of people playing with the “touch” screen to view the twitter feed, another person playing their iTunes library on a massive screen and another playing multi guess games with “Who wants to be a millionaire” style gadgets!! So I started tweeting to see what the general thinking is for the use of IWB’s. No response beyond “Kid’s can use it – up to 4 at a time” and “well we need to present sometimes and it is great for that.”
Yesterday I gave the demo folk a chance and sat through an entire session with this. Within 2 mins I was disengaged, bored out of my brain and trying to work out how I could do something cool with the response remote – BTW you can’t!! We went through a number of different multi guess questions followed by some exciting clip art created diagrams of volcanoes and some more questions. Then the corker came for me – quote presenter… “What a great way to see if kids are ready for the test.” Oh so we are going to take technology and use it to prepare kids for tests? All for the low cost of what?!?!?!
What is the point of these contraptions and further more where is the evidence they are doing anything more than making some corporate folk $$? I have asked for the evidence all conference of some great work done with these devices…. NOTHING has been sent…. some thing promised (get back to ya) but nothing with substance….
So what is going on with this tool? Happy to accept that you can use it for a nice presentation but don’t see the true value… Our government grants and happy times for bussiness is coming to an end sometime and we need to spend wisely!! Please someone justify the expense…. Or please more people start questioning what we are doing here!!
That is my rant…. Something more structured soon!
Great presentation Brett, and thanks also for your time yesterday. I’m sure I’ll be in touch to pick your brains more as my school travels on this journey.
Am with you 100% on the IWB debate. I visited one of the IWB trade stands the other day, introduced myself as an IWB skeptic, and gave them an opportunity to sell me. The best the guy could come up with was “you can have the students respond to questions with this clicker thingy, and you get feedback immediately!”
That’s it??
That’s the best I can do with a (now at the bargain price of $4000…) new IWB.
Wow….
…seems like there’s a growing consensus here.
Sure there are some useful ways in which IWBs make some sense with, especially, higher level mathematics and physics (Cl 12 and tertiary). Aside from those examples, however, I too have yet to be shown their usefulness.