What difference does interactive whiteboard technology actually make in classrooms? Will it make teaching and learning more interactive? What about the effect on pupils’ learning? Will test results go up? What are the lessons for other schools keen to adopt similar technologies?
A team from the Research Centre for Learning and Teaching at Newcastle University undertook an evaluation involving Year 5 and 6 classes in about 80 primary schools. We looked at a number of aspects of teaching and learning in our research. In particular, we were interested in what teachers and pupils thought about the introduction of the technology, whether they made a noticeable difference to the way teachers and pupils interacted and whether they made a difference to pupils’ performance on national tests.
A quick overview is that they are popular with teachers and pupils, and they do change the way teachers and pupils interact in lessons to some extent, but they don’t seem to have a lasting impact on attainment.
The popularity of the technology was overwhelming. The teachers almost all identified benefits for their teaching saying things such as: “Lessons have a quicker pace. It has affected how much goes into each lesson and there is less running around.” “Children are more focused, more on task. They can interact with teacher more.” The pupils too were enthusiastic. Their comments seemed to indicate that they were more involved in lessons where electronic whiteboards were used: “I like it because it helps to get you more involved with the thing you are doing.”
Technically interactive
We also looked at this issue of interactivity in some detail. When referring to the technology, we prefer to call them electronic or digital whiteboards. This is because they can be used in a way that is very technically interactive (dynamic representations controlled by manipulating the touch-sensitive computer screen) but very un-interactive pedagogically. You just have to imagine a teacher who uses all the whistles and bells that the technology has to offer, but who does so during a monologue.
We were less interested in technical interactivity and more in how use of the boards altered patterns of classroom talk, or how interactive the classrooms were, where the technology was in use. We therefore undertook an extensive study of how teaching changed after the introduction of the technology and then what literacy and mathematics lessons looked like once the technology was embedded, about a year later. There were some interesting effects. For example, the amount of whole-class teaching increased by about five minutes in a typical hour-long lesson. Lessons were also faster paced - at least as measured by the number of interactions we recorded. There were also more open questions and more uptake questions where a pupil’s reply was used as part of a subsequent question. These findings are associated with more effective patterns of interaction in educational research. We did not find any differences in terms of impact on boys and girls in these observations, though a number of the teachers believed that they improved boys’ participation in lessons.
Despite their popularity and the changes in classroom interaction that we recorded, however, there was no lasting improvement in terms of attainment in national tests. The 80 schools we studied did perform very slightly better at the end of the first year of the project, but the difference was very small. After nearly two years of use, there was no difference in the results of the schools using interactive whiteboards and the matched comparison schools. We believe that this is an important finding and that when schools invest in the technology there is no guarantee that there will be measurable benefits of this kind.
Learning curve
Other aspects of the evaluation were formative. The schools involved learned a lot about what not to do when planning for and installing the technology. These lessons were communicated through the network of LEAs and their consultants and were used to develop guidance on issues such as positioning and security. These may seem obvious now, but at the time things like fixing projectors securely to avoid constant recalibration were real challenges (especially in older schools with false ceilings). Other issues such as positioning the boards so that pupils could see them easily, were not always straightforward and depended on the size of the boards and how bright the conditions were. Some pupils commented that the font and colour of writing (as well as the size) made a real difference to how well they could follow what was going on in a lesson. A useful finding is that it is important to check with pupils, as they can give valuable feedback to teachers.
To summarise, the technology on its own won’t make a difference. You may get a boost from the introduction of something new, and this is likely to be popular with both teachers and pupils (not to mention parents and governors). But unless you use the opportunity to develop more effective teaching and learning, this impact will be short-lived.
It takes some time to develop confidence and skills in using the equipment. At first many of the teachers that we saw tended to use resources that were relatively easy to manage and control (such as (italics)PowerPoint presentations or the Interactive Teaching Programs focussed on specific teaching objectives that are available on the Standards Site). Over time, they started to develop or adapt resources themselves. This is not surprising as developing fluent skills in teaching with the technology is challenging. This makes it challenging to think about and develop more effective teaching strategies.
After you’ve been using the technology for a while it is important to ask the question “What has really improved?”. There probably are some lasting changes, but which of these are beneficial. One of the reflections from the research team is that it is relatively easy to achieve successful technological change by adopting digital whiteboards, but it is much harder to achieve successful pedagogical change, where the learning of pupils improves.
Further information
Dr Steve Higgins is a senior lecturer based at the Research Centre for Learning and Teaching at Newcastle University. He has undertaken a number of research projects about the effective use of ICT in primary schools. He produced a summary of the impact of ICT on teaching and learning for the British Educational Research Association as part of their series of Professional User Reviews. These are available at: www.bera.ac.uk/publications/pureviews.php
