Interactive White Board in ELT Classroom

Muhammad Farkhan Fauzi

1507042030

Interactive White Board (IWB) is a powerful tool for learning and a great help for the teacher. It makes multimedia, multisensory and multimodal lessons (Edwards et al., 2002; Smith et al., 2005), accommodates students’ learning style preferences, facilitates comprehension of abstract concepts and complex content (Smith, 2001; Bell, 2002), enhances student motivation and engagement (Biondi, 2009; Walker, 2005), and meets the needs of all students Including students with special educational needs (Somekh et al., 2007). Moreover, the importance of the tactile nature of IWB is emphasized for development of sensorymotor skills (Bonaiuti, 2009), although case studies have shown that teachers rarely let students use IWB or because they believe it takes a long time or consider it not very effective for improvement of learning (Moss et al., 2007; Hennessy et al., 2007). Other studies have shown that IWBs have the ability to augment reality and to create exciting opportunities for students to explore and manipulate models of reality, especially when digital resources are used, such as games, and simulation systems (Edwards et al., 2002; Walker, 2005; Kennewell, & Beauchamp, 2007; Smith et al., 2005). IWB can significantly enhance the quality of teaching in a variety of ways. With IWB, the teacher reduces lesson preparation time and can save, store and reuse material presented in class (Kennewell, 2001). Despite a great range of pedagogical possibilities, research suggests that IWB does not have a
particular charge to transform teachers’ established practices and to alter normal patterns of classroom interaction, because IWB integrates easily with existing practices and reinforces a traditional style of teaching (Moss et al., 2007; Somekh et al., 2006).

Introducing new technology does not radically change teaching styles and does not affect teachers' choice to adopt nontraditional methods of teaching for improving student learning processes and outcomes (Niederhauser, & Stoddart, 2001; Olson, 2000; Hoadley, & Pea, 2002; Hennessy et al., 2007).
Research has shown that introducing new technology does not cause radical changes in methods. Teachers adopt technology according their pedagogical beliefs, their conceptions about teaching and learning, and use it for facilitating traditional teaching approaches, at least during the initial phase. In particular, IWB has no affordances that play a key role in improving teaching strategies
and in creation of authentic and meaningful learning environments. It does not have a strong impact on classroom interactions when used to replicate and imitate old functions (Hakkarainen, 2009). Only when technology is fully integrated into teaching and learning process, when it is successfully used, and its interactive component is recognized, does it lead to positive change inteaching practice and intellectual and learning achievements are genuinely augmented.

 The impact of IWBs will depend on the willingness of teachers to implement pedagogical change and overcome the teacher-centered pedagogical style. As claimed by Glover and Miller (2001), teachers need to recognize, first, that there is a significant interaction associated with use of IWBs and, consequently, that choices on how to handle interactivity can transform technology into a catalyst for teacher-directed instruction and a more interactive approach to teaching and learning.
Teachers and change agents need specific training that goes beyond technical skills and improves pedagogical competences for effective integration of IWBs in daily teaching practices. Otherwise, there is a risk that IWBs will be limited to chalkboard functions - to present important facts and principles, to make assignments and announcements, and to give examinations and tests, or worse, to reinforce a one-way communication model of teaching in which this technology is a
multimedia teaching-tool that makes spectacular lectures. For these reasons, a training course was developed for the teachers. The main focus of the course
was to share a pedagogical reflection on affordances of IWBs to renew educational settings and move it towards more interactive and flexible teaching-learning processes (Smith et al., 2005; Calvani, 2009). According to the model of Keeney et al. (2002) for teacher education, it was adopted a methodology based on collaboration and confrontation. First, the teachers worked to
acquire technical skills; in a second phase, they designed and developed digital resources as result of the active production of knowledge in the class.
The course for the teachers has had a dual function. First, it initiated a confrontation between practitioners to promote the acquisition of skills and overcome stereotypes or misconceptions about technology in classroom teaching. Furthermore, it created a community of practice around the shared interest of designing and implementing a digital book using the IWBs. In classes, teachers were able to set up a learning environment to promote manipulation of meaningful concepts and ideas to complete a project that could be called authentic.

Interactive teaching with IWBs is possible with particular patterns of classroom interaction involving teacher, pupils and technology. Central to the model is the assumption that each participant’s activity will comprise multiple actions directed towards some goals (Kennewell et al., 2008, p. 66). Students want to complete the task at hand; teacher want to develop students’ knowledge and skills.
For achieving this objective, the teacher has to design lessons including, teaching materials and other relevant resources so that elements of the learning environment interact coherently with each other as tasks for students. IWB is one element of the learning environment. When we speak of “patterns of classroom interaction”..
environment. It also refers to relationship with the learning tools that mediate activities and discourses. Tools are products of culture and carriers of culture. They strongly influence behavior, thinking, and action (Vygotsky, 1987; Bruner, 1965 and  1996; Lave, & Wenger, 1991; Wertsch, 1991 and 1998; Jenkins, 2006). Within this vision, IWB is more than an aid to efficiency or an extension device (Glover, & Miller, 2001).

In the project “Innovative Education Processes with IWBs”, the IWBs were used to design a digital book, as tangible product of the discussions made in class. The topic was the digestive system. In classes that adopted a collaborative knowledge-building approach, children have participated in an educational experience that builds the concept of knowledge as resource or
knowledge as product, a concept that gives meaning to the work they do from day to day (Scardamalia, & Bereiter, 1999). Through processes of observation, research and formalization of concepts, teachers and students are engaged in manipulating knowledge to reach their learning goals. They process, summarize and reorganize knowledge as an authentic and meaningful task. They are not simply parroting authoritative sources. They are reconstructing what they have read
or heard so that it makes sense in light of what they already know and reconstructing their prior knowledge in light of the new information (Scardamalia, & Bereiter, 1999).
The e-book tells the story of a morsel that walks in digestive system and solves riddles, rebus and crosswords to complete the journey undertaken. The IWB was used to ensure that all the children in the classes were stimulated and encouraged to formulate proposals, discuss and defend choices, draw on their knowledge of the subject, search for information on the Web, and read books and
articles to make an e-book.

This approach improves the knowledge building process and facilitates the creation of a more authentic, immersive and engaging learning environment in which participants co-construct knowledge through social interactions. When IWB is embedded in schooling practices, it becomes a new form of support for “intersubjectivity” (Hennessy et al., 2007) to facilitate negotiation of meanings and ideas, develop an authentic dialogue, prompt reflective thinking and enhance mutual understanding of social norms (Guimarães et al., 2000). In this way, technology can improve the quality of a learning environment, foster deeper and meaningful learning, and achieve an active, constructive, collaborative, authentic and intentional teaching approach. Knowledge advancement is not just about putting students’ ideas into the centre. It depends on transformation of social practices for working with knowledge.  culture which advances knowledge presupposes sustained efforts of teacher-practitioners, collaborating with students and researchers, aimed at iteratively transforming prevailing knowledge practices toward more innovative ones. (Hakkarainen, 2009: 231).

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