As majority of us have gone through school phase, we have seen our classrooms equipped with whiteboards on which teachers used to write using a chalk or dry erase marker. The research and development in the ICT (Information and communication technology) technologies has led to new genus of whiteboards known as Interactive whiteboards. The critical aspect in a teaching process is the quality of the lessons delivered by the teachers to the students. Nowadays Teachers are using Interactive Whiteboard to improve the quality of the instructions. Interactive Whiteboards make teaching sessions interactive and motivating. Interactive Whiteboards are digital whiteboards which are connected to projector and computer. A projector projects the entire computer desktop on the active area of Interactive Whiteboards. Interactive Whiteboards are used in classrooms at all stages of education as a replacement of traditional whiteboards or flip charts. They communicate with computer using USB or serial port cable. Bluetooth device or Radio Frequency (RF) device is used for providing wireless communication.
Whiteboards FutureUsing the supplied software, Teacher can write, draw and annotate on its surface and navigates the computer functions from interactive whiteboard with finger or pen. Whatever teacher writes on its surface can be saved in the computer as an electronic file in various formats such as Picture, power point, PDF, HTML. These electronic files can be used later for repeated sessions or mail to absent student as an attachment. The software has a built in library of images on different subjects which teacher can use into their lessons. Interactive Whiteboards allows teachers to record their session in video format which can be shared in to their classroom. They have lots of tools for presentation like spotlight, snapshot, reveal etc. Spotlight shapes helps to focus attention on specific part. Reveal feature allows you to hide information and reveal in any direction.
There are different types of Interactive Whiteboards in the market based on technology. An IR (infra-red) interactive whiteboard uses infra red beam to make the board touch sensitive. A resistive membrane board consists of two resistive sheets separated by air gap. Electromagnetic Board is composed of grid of wires, operated with electronic pen called stylus.
Every school, college and university across globe is implementing Interactive Whiteboards into their classroom. Interactive Whiteboards opens up a world of opportunities for teachers to be innovative in their teaching and in student learning. Today interactive Whiteboards have become an integral part of learning environment. It is very important that teachers should be well trained to utilize the new opportunities provided by Interactive Whiteboards to them. Time has come to rapidly push Interactive Whiteboards into the classroom for effective learning and teaching.
