Va. Beach booting chalkboards for tech-board
http://hamptonroads.com/2010/07/va-beach-booting-chalkboards-techboards
Turns out the local school board had funds that they were going to use to pay teachers a bonus of $450. Not sure were the funding came from in these tough economic times but it is admirable of them to do so if they can afford it.
But the teacher bonus didn't get by the board. Instead the board decided to "invest" the money into IWB...interactive whiteboards. The district set aside $7.7 million for the technology. Granted the district has roughly 7700 students but $7.7 million is a lot of money.
So why did they do this? Board members said:
Board members said it was a way to ensure students are ready for the challenges of the future.Really, the future? I am not sure how an interactive whiteboard preps a student for the future. Nowhere in the various 21st century initiative language do I see anything about whiteboards and how students will need to be able to learn from them in the future.
People don't get it. It is not about the tool with which the material is taught. It is about the learning! To think the $7.7 million will lead to 21st century skills for their students is a bit of a stretch. I feel they've been sold a bill of goods. They did what many schools have done....they had money to spend and jumped on the latest trend.
If you do go to this article and you never know how long newspaper links stay please make sure you go down to the comments. The community feedback is not good.
See how much more exciting math can be?
4 comments:
I think it could well be a good thing that your board is buying IWBs, but their reasoning seems a bit off. Furthermore, IWBs are fantastic teaching tools only when used skillfully. (As an aside, I would not want to teach without one. I would buy one myself for my classroom if my school couldn't provide me with one.) Unfortunately, when school boards buy them and dole them out to teachers who may not really want them, IWBs are a terrible waste of money (and space). They often end up gathering dust, or being misused (e.g., as an extremely expensive projector screen on which to show movies while the teacher marks papers). I hope your board will distribute the IWBs to teachers who are willing to get trained on effective use of this amazing technology and implement it thoughtfully.
Nope, not my district....thankfully :)
@CyberSERT, you said, "I would not want to teach without one." I'm honestly curious why? What makes an IWB so indispensable that your teaching would suffer without it?
Recently used an IWB for the first time, giving a 15 minute lesson for one of my Masters classes. I can see where they can be really useful, but in the hands of someone who doesn't know what they're doing, they can be death in the classroom. Many of my classmates had tremendous trouble with the whiteboard, including not being able to use the markers at all. Too often, IWBs are held up as examples of how "tech savvy" the school is, when in reality it's the exact opposite.
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