Irreplaceable white boards

From Teacher Jimmy Astley, one more collaborator and co-author of this website, a food for thought about technology in the classroom.

Doubtlessly machines will never replace teachers. Even in online courses, based on moodle platforms, a teacher is needed to guide and assess students. However, nowadays the Interactive White Boards have been in the spotlight of the ELT field. Not only because they seem to facilitate teachers' lives but also because they are now being seen as the new great thing which should be used all the time by everyone.

It's important that we reflect on the use of such marvellous tool in our classes. IWBs are not interactive themselves. They do boost students' motivation as long as they are not there as a board on which they will only see beautiful backgroung images and objects disappearing when we click on them with our magic pens.

The link to the Internet, for instance, is a great advantage of the device. Youtube videos, online games, blogs and pictures are only one click away. Won't we forget why they are there: to promote interaction amongst students, to serve as an stimulus, to help us ignite the fire within their minds.

Interactive White Boards are great indeed. But they are only one more tool which will help us reach and involve our students. A recent theory concerning learning styles defined as 4MAT states that there are four types of learners: imaginative, analytic, common sense and dynamic. According to it, only imaginative and analytic learners would enjoy the sort of activities which have been made by teachers for the IWBs. How do we expect to reach all our students by using one tool as the main resource in our lessons?

Despite the introduction of technology in the class, it is still necessary to use a variety of resources and activities. It is common that when new things appear every conference, meeting, training course and internet website will make their point on it. However we should always remember that technology is only one more way to make students interact and learn. It is our job to make it useful, meaningful and effective because it will not work on its own for the purposes we expect.

More on 4MAT in www.aboutlearning.com


Jimmy Astley