(2/2003) - As schools increasingly look to employ technology to improve student learning, interactive white boards can facilitate that aspiration and should not be overlooked in a school's adoption of new technologies. The introduction of technologies that may necessitate significant change to a school's pedagogy and curriculum may not be feasible or even desirable for many schools for a variety of reasons, including economics (hardware, support, and infrastructure costs), and the culture of the school. A process of introducing the use of technology into the classroom that is evolutionary rather than revolutionary may well be more congruent to meeting the needs of schools such as these. Interactive white boards in combination with computers and LCD projectors provide educators with the tools to seamlessly enhance teaching and learning using technology.

At Cranbrook, the technology plan, or educational plan for technology, identified the need and set a goal to convert many of our classrooms into multi‑media classrooms by the year 2003, to provide teachers and students with ready access to a variety of media resources. At first, we envisioned a multi-media classroom to be a room having a television that could be connected to both a computer and a VCR or laserdisc player. However, in a tenth‑grade history classroom a very different approach was being developed. A SMART Board, an interactive white board from SmartTech Corporation, a ceiling mounted LCD projector, a networked computer with internet access and a VCR were installed in the room. These devices equipped teachers with the tools to provide a visually rich and interactive venue where the use of a class website, audio, video, and internet resources could be seamlessly woven into the class discussions.

From the start, teachers found the use of the SMART Boards to be very intuitive, requiring little training. The ability to control the computer from the SMART Board rather than from a corner of the room made the experience feel natural for both students and teacher in the collaborative setting of the classrooms, while at the same time providing real‑time access to a variety of sources of information. The ability to annotate, copy and save pertinent information for later discussion, e‑mailing it to students or posting it to the class website provides new opportunities for both teachers and students in the instructional process. At the same time, it provides teachers, who have varying levels of technology experience, with the opportunity to incorporate the use of technology into the curriculum. They can enhance the learning process in ways that are comfortable and non‑threatening for them, yet at the same time enabling an evolving change in their curriculum and pedagogy.

The SMART Board's uses and applications have expanded beyond all expectations, matching the creativity of each instructor. Depending on the instructor and course, the basic configuration has grown to include computer ‑controlled microscopes, document cameras, DVD players, laserdisc players and TI presenters (for use with graphing calculators). The use of interactive white boards has prompted instructors who saw no need for the use of technology in their curriculum to re‑examine those views and even request and voluntarily attend after‑school staff development in the use of these technologies. It has impacted both pedagogy and curriculum in a natural, unobtrusive way for both teachers and students. After using the rooms equipped with the SMART Boards, even seasoned teachers, some of whom were already using technological resources in their classrooms, made statements to the effect that, "...this has revolutionized the way I teach..." and "I never thought that I would have these types of tools at my disposal in my teaching career." In ways, heretofore not experienced at our school the SMART Board equipped multi‑media classroom has truly led to the "integrated use of technology in the curriculum."

Here a just a few samples of how this technology is being used across the curriculum. In a Human Geography class, the instructor uses the SMART Board's capabilities to illustrate population trend analysis using GIS (geographic information system) software. In Physics classes, students use the program Interactive Physics@ and the SMART Board to create virtual replicas of experiments they have done or will be doing in class, examining a variety of "what if” scenarios that couldn’t be possible in labs due to time constraints. In Chemistry and Biology classes, students examine three-dimensional models, for example the molecular structure of DNA, by rotating and manipulating them at the SMART Board. In a variety of classes, diagrams from textbooks are imported and projected onto the SMART Board, notes are added during class discussions and then saved for later use and review. Student writing is projected onto the boards for critique and annotation in writing classes.

It is important to note that at Cranbrook we believe that a key component to the success of this program has been the permanent installation of this equipment in classrooms, which has assisted in addressing two important issues: availability and reliability. For any technology integration initiative to succeed, it must be easily accessible and it must work. If the instructor is required to check the equipment out, set it up, take it down and return it, the teacher is much less likely to use it on a regular basis. We view this equipment as how chalkboards were once viewed ‑ essential components of the classroom and always available. Thus, the rooms are set up so that the instructors need only to plug in their laptops and turn on the equipment upon arriving in the room.

The interactive whiteboards in the classrooms have served as a catalyst in integrating the use of technology in the curriculum and have resulted in changes in the way that the curriculum is presented. This has not happened as the result of an administrative mandate, but rather through a process of exploration and discovery by the teachers themselves. It has led to teachers becoming much more knowledgeable about technology and better prepared to make good decisions about the appropriate use of technology in their classes. Our experience has shown that the instructors will continue to find innovative applications for these and, as a result, other new technologies, and continue to add value to the classroom experience of their students with the use of technology. We view the interactive whiteboard technology as invaluable for collaboration, discovery and discussion, i.e. the learning that has and will always take place in our classrooms.