An interesting discussion was raised in our staff briefing this morning regarding the installation height of interactive whiteboards.  The dilemma, of course, is whether board height on the wall should favour the teacher or the students.

It is hopefully the beginning of a broader discussion of how we will begin using IWBs in our classrooms, and the learning they will support.  To get started, here are some resources to have a look at:

What the research says about interactive whiteboards: a short document from Becta, the UK organisation for leading next generation learning.

Interactive whiteboards - safety first: a single-page pdf from SMART (IWB manufacturer) on how to safely install and use IWBs (which we have sought to match in all our installations).

This is the first of our posts to feedback and communicate what’s happening and what we will have learnt from the 2008 Interactive Whiteboard Conference at Firbank Grammar School in Brighton, Melbourne.

After Anne, Bec S and I landed in Melbourne this morning, we proceeded to Firbank to the afternoon’s proceedings, which included classroom tours and a walk around the exhibition hall.

Firbank has both Junior (Primary) and Senior (Secondary) schools, and we had the opportunity to tour the small all-girls primary campus.  Each room has had an Activboard for some time, and several teachers we met agree that they now could not live without one in their room.  They are using a variety of personally-produced and commercial resources to support the learning in their classrooms.

One of the great things to see was that the school has fostered a culture of encouraging students to grow as learners - they encourage students to be creative, critical, and to take risks; risk taking is something which is applauded in the school.

We also saw in the software exhibition this afternoon some resources that piqued our interest, including new Maths resources from Origo, Literacy resources from Pearson Education, the comprehensive Swark resource, and 2Simple Software.

The conference keynote and workshops kick off tomorrow morning, so perhaps we can feed back some more after then.

Robert