You Need
Interactive whiteboards have rapidly become a 'must have' classroom resource in schools and colleges around the country. Teachers and students are benefiting from the new teaching and learning opportunities this technology has brought to the classroom.
One area where interactive whiteboards is arguably having the most impact is with those students with more severe or complex learning difficulties. For these students, interactive whiteboards can help deliver the highly motivating, multi-modal, personalised learning that really motivates and engages.
In the rush for interactivity, people often overlook the fact that interactive white boards can be used simply as huge display devices and as such they are the perfect tool to use when working with children at an experiential level. Imagine immersing your very special learners in an environment of ever changing colours, patterns and sounds. Simple programs like Windows Media Player can be used to create fantastic visual stimulation and tracking activities or try using SwitchIt! Maker and images from a digital camera to make personalised slideshows of familiar images and sounds.
Can there be a more intuitive way to experience and develop cause and effect than by touching with your hands and being enveloped in the effects you have created. Interactive whiteboards work like huge touch-screens enabling traditional cause and effect programs like Big Bang to take on a whole new life and of course everyone in the class gets to share the results. For many learners, IWBs can help bridge the enormous chasm between the concrete and the abstract that so often stalls learning.
Much of the Interactive Whiteboard
training around assumes that your learners are able to accurately target and
drag and drop objects around the board. For many of our students, these are
skills that need to be learned and generalised. IT Mouse Skills breaks down
these skills into smaller, easier to manage steps. Targeting, drag and drop and
even double clicking can all be practised in a fun, engaging way building
useful skills and in the process widening the student's access to other
software.
So often, pupils with learning difficulties struggle to use a mouse. Many lack the hand to eye coordination necessary to move the mouse pointer and click the correct button. Interactive Whiteboards free learners from the rigours of having to use a mouse enabling them to concentrate more fully on the task in hand. Nowhere is this more apparent than when producing artwork. Whether drawing with fingers or the IWB styli, many learners produce work of a much higher standard, they learn to choose colours confidently and really begin to think about their composition rather than on manoeuvring a fiddly mouse. 2Paint, part of the 2Simple Infant Video Toolkit is an ideal first tool to use to create artwork on the IWB.
It is easy to underestimate the power of
digital video. Children that may struggle with a pencil can use digital video
to share their knowledge, ideas and opinions in a way that is meaningful and
relevant. The Digital Movie Creator
2 is an affordable yet powerful system that can be used to explore the
potential of digital video in the classroom. Interactive whiteboards make the
complex process of editing digital video accessible to almost all. Learners can
drag and drop their chosen scenes into a timeline, previewing and redrafting as
they go and with a single touch of a button, their video is written to a CD
ready to share with school, friends and family.
Don't forget to use a Variable Friction Arm with a camera mount which will easily allow you to mount the camera for wheelchair users or to position the camera for making stop frame animations. Paint a background, make some characters from play-dough and you're ready to make your first cartoon.
Interactive whiteboards are changing the way we as teachers teach and the way our students learn. They have the potential to include and engage whole groups or individuals at every stage of learning from the most profoundly impaired experiential learners through to our highest achievers. They help us meet the often idiosyncratic learning needs of our students delivering whole body learning in a fun and highly motivating way that guarantees greater retention.
Inclusive Technology can help you get the very best out of your Interactive Whiteboard through unique courses carefully designed to meet the training needs of your staff and the learning needs of your pupils.
For more information about interactive whiteboard training call Ian Bean on 01457 819790 or email him at ianbean@inclusive.co.uk