Love when students teach me something. I have to be honest with you, right now I’m feeling like I’m treading water and the water is winning. Having a too much to do & too little time week. Not only are deadlines killing me but things just keep coming up right & left. But on a day like today when at any moment I could have had a break down, I enjoyed my students. Classes were fun and that kept me energized. Kept me laughing. The best part kept me thinking. I selfishly needed that time to “hang out” with the students as well as learning.

At one time we got way off subject and one of the students asked how I felt about the IWB being lowered (before yesterday the top of board was over 6 ft from the ground). I told them I was glad and asked why would I not be. They were telling me that other teachers said it was too low for people in back to see or they had to bend over. I told the kids that those reasons made sense but then said “but it has to be low because it is for you to use.” Before I could finish that sentence those silly kids erupted into cheers. No kidding. That was my “duh” moment. The kids want to use technology. They want to be in charge of their learning.

I have had many doubts over the value of these IWB (read post here and here) Finally I am seeing there are benefits to them. The kids need to use them for the purpose of interaction. It is NOT a $4000 projector. Yes I understand that money could have been spend on other technologies but it wasn’t. So now that technology needs to be used correctly. It needs to be interactive. It needs to be used by the kids. They must be the ones interacting!!

I’m not writing this to bash my coworkers. It has taken me months to figure out best practices for this technology and this is all new to them. I do worry because the professional development opportunities and tech integration support is not there. It’s not their fault. I am writing this just as a reminder what the role of not only IWB but all technology has in the classroom. It is there to support learning. It is there to cause students to think as well as create.

A

***To those leaving comments (which is always welcome): If there is no “anti-spam” word when leaving a comment, click “change users” next to the comment box. I will show the :anti-spam” word! I do not understand why it does this.***