The University of Newcastle in their study and report for Becta confirms something that many of us already knew. Namely putting old wine (i.e. cheap teacher-centric chalkboards) in new bottles (i.e. expensive teacher-centric whiteboards) doesn't improve the taste.
A recent story in The Guardian reports that the introduction of interactive whiteboards has had little or no impact on exam results.
Millions of pounds have been spent on providing schools with interactive whiteboards in the belief that they could act as powerful aids to raising attainment, yet the boards are having no discernible impact on children's test scores.
That was the surprise conclusion of a two-year study covering six LEAs carried out by Newcastle University and published by the government's ICT agency, Becta, earlier this year. It found that pupils in schools with whiteboards scored no better in key stage 2 Sats than pupils in schools without boards. Failure to make a difference was underlined by the fact that those teachers surveyed were deemed to be using the boards interactively and creatively. Moreover, around 85% of teachers believed the whiteboard would improve children's scores.
Steve Higgins, director of the research project, says one issue may be that while whiteboards help with the flow of lessons - the sense of control, the pace, the positive feedback and enthusiasm of pupils - this might get in the way of developing understanding and picking up when pupils have not wholly grasped a concept or idea.
"There is a tension between direct instruction, which benefits Sats results, and developing understanding over the longer term, where a slower pace and longer responses are needed," he says. "Possibly the way boards were deployed meant teachers tried to do too much at once - faster pace and teaching for understanding, though I'm not sure we can know from this research."
http://education.guardian.co.uk/elearning/story/0,,1801077,00.htmlSo it wasn't the teachers and learners that did well out of whiteboards then.
I wonder if there is anything to learn here for those promoting mobile learning or will it just be more expensive kit thrown at teachers who don't want it anyway and certainly don't want to put the learner in control?
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