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How do teachers use their interactive whiteboards?

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This post was originally sparked by a Twitter comment that language teachers don't use their interactive boards. This surprised me. While it's no doubt true that a vast number of IWBs were installed in British schools in the higher spending era of 2000-2010 and that plenty are little used in many subjects, I was curious to find out how many language teachers actually use their boards interactively, not just as a projector screen. For the record, I used to use my pen-based IWB with atantot.com, languagesonline.org.uk and Boardworks.

So here are some of the responses I got from a thread on the GILT (Global Innovative Language Teachers) Facebook page. Note that these responses came from teachers in various countries, but predominantly the UK, I believe. I've very lightly adapted them.

Overall, of the 270 or so who responded in the poll, roughly two thirds said they use their IWB interactively. (Don't take this as a reliable poll.) Some commented on the lack of availability of boards or their unreliability, particularly with those which need calibration.

Plug: GILT is a great place for sharing ideas with teachers from around the world.

Only use it interactively for Language Gym - Boxing Game. Gianfranco’s famous “running game” as his former students call it (NB No actual running involved! Just a team effort to get as many answers correct).

I have a Promethean Board and when we do sentence structure activities, the students go up to write. I also have team games for them to complete on the board and a few games.

Games, match-up exercises.

Maybe not so much as I used to before I got iPads but it was brilliant for doing essay plans as I then had separate pages for the 3 bullet points that I could flip back to and saved it, whereas it obvs had to be rubbed off my whiteboard. Triptico great for IWB.

To write on (both myself and students), interactive games and with Flipchart.

Highlighting key words, pointing out grammatical patterns, games.

Word order, highlighting key elements, building sentences, gap fill with quick answers, matching, students’ writing, modelling written answers, class dictation, connect 4 ... random word/question/picture generator ... I could go on?!

Flipcharts.

Matching tasks, writing on the board, highlighting when using software like Active Teach, old Echo and Expo software games, Task Magic, many more...

I use it every day. Task Magic, rolling custom interactive dice, dragging and dropping, students writing on the board (me too), highlighting...

Vocab matching, sentence-building activities, calendar.

Everyday for all my 12 different classrooms. Mine saves all my writing from one week to another and gives you QR codes too.

I've mostly used it with classroomscreen.com.

I design games & activities for students, import objects and Web sites that interact well it, and use the software to present the lessons in unique ways.

I use mine (SMART) with the software that goes with it. I create matching, drag and drop, rearranging sentences, and lots of other activities. Some of them can be done as whole group or Individually on chromebooks through a login.

Triptico games that involve kids moving things round the screen.

I was trained to level three on Promethean’s ActiveStudio - could do all sorts on it from making boxes only accept text boxes if the answer was correct, to hyperlinking, to working with different layers.

Thankfully ditched the smart board and am now learning how to use an interactive led screen! Am loving it so far!  

Mainly in 2 ways. I love the smart pdf viewer and the way you can work with texts as a teacher, highlighting things as you work through a text with pupils.Also love interactive games with younger learners - Spellmaster games still work, though there are lots more out there too now.

Smart notebook software, Plickers, visualizer and annotation etc. I use mine all the time.

Just recently created some clock faces with movable hands where kids could listen and set the clocks to the various times they heard.

Smartnotebook software. Kids love connecting to board activities with iPads vis hellosmart.com. We do Monster quizzes, matching pairs, flashcards etc. I use mine all the time with primary/infants French.

Children come out to do interactive games, we use it for Skype, we play team games.

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