Digital Workshop

We're a small IT training company and have recently been working with a number of interested teachers to develop material for use on Interactive Whiteboards in the classrom.

We've had a couple of training days to get them started using Opus themselves and have just put up some examples on our website.

http://www.swanseaitec.co.uk/education/opusdemos.htm

Some fantastic ideas coming from the teachers themselves. The idea of being able to create custom programs for helping with topics the pupils are having particular problems with went down especially well.

We started off the course with simply drawing out a text box and setting up a button to display it. A dozen or so mouse clicks and they'd created their first bit of interaction!

The ease of creation of the drag and drop type programs was also a big hit. It is possible to make a basic functional sorting game, for example, so quickly and simply it goes a long way towards dispelling the 'fear factor' associated with investing time in learning a new and quite complicated-looking program.

We used examples from the teachers' own lessons plans to focus the training around so they could have some working programs to actually take away and use at the end of the day.

We've already had several keen to come back for more!

Thank's leiafee.

http://www.swanseaitec.co.uk/education/ ... htm#scisim last one on the page.

Using Opus to create a simple 'virtual experiment'.

One of the teachers on the training course I showed this to, described the way the animations and transparency are used to create the illusion of cystrals dissolving in water as "smoke and mirrors".

Nice how simple effects can be used to build up more complicated ones.

Nice examples!

The interactive whiteboards sound great. How expensive are they?
Cheers, Melanie

Melanie, the whiteboards are all the rage in schools now!

Prices vary hugely depending on the type of board, projector and installation/setup but a very rough guideline for a complete from scratch setup with all the basics would be between £2000-3000.

As I say though that varies hugely. Especially due to things like whether you need the projector to work well in full daylight and whether you want a board the kids can hammer without breaking!

Quite a lot of the schools round here (round here being south Wales) got grants for them which sort of kickstarted the enthusiasm for them in the area.

Same in Nottinghamshire (my wife's a junior school teacher). Daylight capable projector and interactive white board plus trolley with 26 toshiba laptops courtesy of grant - still very much a toy though, no 'joined-up' thinking or overall planning!

Rob Kirkwood
www.visibleform.co.uk

Some of the school still treat them like that. What's made a noticable difference in our experience is having the boards as a fixed installation in the classrooms where they can be used for simple everyday things and remove some of the 'mystery' associated with new technology.

When the board is stuck in The Computer Room or needs to be set up by messing with cables and things on wheely stands, I think the teachers tend to see it as a bit more of an ordeal!

We've supplied training on them for a couple of inset days and very much focussed on how it can be used in the curriculum as opposed to "wow look at the whizzbang techology and all the things it can do!"

I've no doubt a fixed installation would be a great advantage, and I'm all for removing the mystery of technology, but in most of the real world we don't use interactive whiteboards - especially not for simple everyday things. In my wife's school fixed installations would mean 8 whiteboards at over £24,000 - you need a very creative head to source that sort of extra funding. They recently built on a new classroom for a similar amount of money.

The 'computer room' at my wife's school used to be a cloakroom, and the whiteboard is on a wheeled stand as you describe. They recently misplaced the data cable for a whole term and couldn't use it at all (no budget for a replacement or spare). It's not uncommon for a teacher to plan to use the laptops in a lesson only to find that the previous user forgot to plug them in for a recharge. OK these are human failings which could be easily resolved, but the net result is an ordeal, a genuine one - and the minimal use the kit gets is simply so the school can tick a box on the Government's agenda ...no disrespect to yourselves, but is this really the way to improve computer literacy among pupils OR staff?

I'm all for using the right tool for the job - but to be honest I'm not sure what job an interactive whiteboard would be the right tool for in a junior school? £3,000 so a child can write their name fairly close to where they intended on a big board (the calibration drifts on the one my wife uses - probably because one of the components moves slightly).

I have a Space Pen - gift from one of my sons - it works in zero-gravity, in a vacuum, under water, upside down, even writes on wet paper, and was developed at enormous expense for NASA. The Russian solution to the same problem was a pencil!

Call me a Luddite if you like, or a curmudgeon if it helps!
Please don't take offence, none is intended - I'm laughing at myself here, because I must be completely missing something important.

Rob Kirkwood
www.visibleform.co.uk
www.theway2go.org

RobK, interesting that--your comments pretty much sum up all the arguments against we used to get from the schools before they got their boards

And they do highlight the problems of having them as a seperate from the normal classroom envrionment. Teachers don't want to have to be IT technicians as well!

It does need some creative funding to invest in fixed installations and some schools are better positioned to supply that than others, although in my experience the keenest schools have not been the same one as the 'richest' schools. Maybe they're the ones who've had more practise at working the funding!

Trouble is that while the teachers may feel like luddites the pupils definately don't and are frequently far more willing to engage with the technology. It can generate a lot more enthusiasm for the lesson through that alone. I've seen a classroom of extremely boisterous kids settle down instantly to await their turn on the board where a simple pen and paper didn't generate nearly the same attention. And this was some time after the boards were isntalled--the novelty factor long since worn off.

Also where there is more and more pressure to incorporate ICT into the curriculum having the board available can make that a lot more seamless.
The 'box ticking' you mention can be done in class in a useful constructive way instead of having to have a lot of extra planning and set specific teachings essions aside for the "IT bits".

Instead of "oh we've got to do an ICT bit in history I'd better get everyone traipsed down to the computer room and find something for them to do" you can have "Well we've been doing activites on the whiteboard all along, looked at a website together, used a drag and drop program to do a bit of timeline sorting" That's the ICT bit done with no extra time or hassle spent.

There's a understandable feeling that having bought the board you've got to use it for whole sessions and to do fantastic high tech stuff in order to get your money's worth.

But the board doesn't have to be the be-all and end-all of the lesson by any means, and in fact probably shouldn't be. But it's ideal for introductions and plenary activites and whole class sessions--which is exactly the sort of stuff you can't do effectively if the board is a mobile or computer-room based one.

Needless to say I'm one of the converted!

You also have an agenda - you sell training, and appear to sell whiteboards too!

I don't share that agenda, but I do have my own:- with breaks, my wife has been a teacher since 1973, 2 years ago she suffered a stress-related heart attack. A major contributing factor to this was the never-ending change and increasing pressure in junior-age teaching - she's fine now, and will be taking early retirement this year ...but I'm understandably against anything that adds to her stress in the meantime.

I run my production business from home, we have a plethora (love that word) of PC's and Macs here, a Xerox digital printer, duplication facilities, digital cameras, DVcamcorders, recording studio and video edit suite - my wife is far from a technophobe (she prefers Macs by the way), and is more tech-savy than many of her peers. However, she cannot see a massive value in using a whiteboard in the classroom - and, as you've pointed out, in her school's circumstances the hassle overcomes any value, and causes her stress in the process (which is the thing that bothers me).

Now, to clarify my position - it's purely the interactive whiteboard part of the equation I see no point in ... I can see the value of a data projector (or plasma screen) being installed within every classroom, and would have thought that this, coupled with a cordless gyro mouse, could achieve much the same things for whole class teaching?

Is this so, or am I missing something significant? ..brain cells probably

I agree in principle with what you say about integration into the normal teaching day - but, given the huge cost, I still feel that an interactive whiteboard in a junior school is a solution looking for a problem.

Rob Kirkwood
www.visibleform.co.uk
www.theway2go.org

To be fair, I did admit that up front. If it wasn't clear enough I apologise, I thought from context and the website it was pretty apparent what I do for a living. I would not have enthused at this length save for the fact that this is the 'show off your stuff' section and I Opus is pretty much perfect for developing whiteboard apps.

(btw the job description says 'technician' not 'marketing' and I'm certainly not trying to present the offical company opinion here, but I personally find the whiteboard stuff fun--hence the evanglising )

I'm happy to agree to disagree...



We have supplied plasma screens instead on occasion so I suppose I should declare an interest there too, but the price of a new one is not dissimilar from a basic whiteboard. And the interaction (my opinion only) is the point. It may be slightly cheaper (sometimes) than a full whiteboard solution but it's a awful lot of money to spend if all you're going to do if run your PowerPoint presentations.

For some teachers and schools the costs vs the benefits may not work out, but many other have and continue to find it has made a positive difference to their teaching and the enthusiasm of their classes. Frequently they find once they start using it for basic things further ideas as to how it could be used come to them.

That said I do believe it's an optional extra at this point in time--plenty of teachers have been in the job a long time perfectly succesfully without the 'bells and whistles' of modern technology.

Obviously the last thing I'd want on our training courses is teachers who aren't interested, don't want to be there and feel pressured into using something they don't want to! But one of the most satisfying parts of my job is when teachers volunteer ideas of how they can use it--and they're generally much better than the examples we try and think up!

Teachers know how to teach, far be it from us to teach professional people their job. All we try to do is supply the technology and the training to give them the tools to use if they want them.[/b]

I was poking fun - I really should know better by now that subtleties like this are lost in a text message.


...and I apologise, I dragged the conversation off at a tangent drawing attention away from your Opus examples.


Class enthusiasm is the one thing my wife cites as an advantage - but I have to ask at what cost; does the effect wear off; and, if so, how long before this happens?

I would hope that disagreement makes us all stronger - because it means we have to re-evaluate the things we do and believe. It's also why we have red cars and black cars.

Rob Kirkwood
www.visibleform.co.uk
www.theway2go.org

No problem--someone needs to invent a 'tone of voice translator' for web messaging! And debate is always interesting.

I know what you mean about the possible novelty factor and time will tell I suppose. I do think kids take technology very much in their stride these days and get used to new things very quickly.

I tend to think that if the enthusiasm was going to wear off it maybe would have already by now but we're not seeing too much sign of that if the market is anything to go by. We've had rather more repeat orders than things tailing off.

We obtained special Science school status, so we got 6 whiteboards when the money came through. When mine was put in, they didn't leave any ordinary whiteboard, so we have to:

write straight on it - odd lines appear because the computer it's connected to tends to join where you are to where you were;
use science software and simulations (usually Multimedia Science school from New Media);
Use my own Opus presentations;
use powerpoints of our own;
use "Boardworks" powerpoints;
Show videos/DVDs

Nothing much really, but if I want the presentaions to do exactly what I want, I use opus . If it's just words, I use Powerpoint (sorry lads)