EU

This item in the April issue of the EU Schoolnet newsletter struck me:

A European Schoolnet interactive whiteboard working group intends to find common areas of concern, sharing experience, highlighting policy and identifying examples of innovative use of interactive whiteboards in the countries represented by the group (Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom).

The working group will publish a set of case studies on the introduction and use of interactive whiteboards, highlighting examples of:

• current best practice
• the challenges faced by schools in countries that are at an early stage of introducing these technologies
• schools that have implemented similar pedagogical approaches using a range of alternative technologies.

During its work, the group will also:

• examine different strategies for the professional development of teachers in relation to interactive whiteboards
• encourage interactive whiteboard vendors to make content more widely available via the European Schoolnet's new learning resource exchange service for schools
• investigate how issues related to interactive whiteboard use can be addressed more coherently at a European level.

I intend to find out more about this initiative as I think these are welcome goals and also because I am curious to find out why  the Netherlands, where IWBs are currently rapidly gaining popularity in Education,  is not participating. 

Commisioned by Kennisnet, the Dutch national e-educational service provider for schools, I participate in a programme of the Faculty of Education of the Hogeschool Utrecht to introduce school ICT-coordinators to the pedagogical use of IWBs.

As these trainings take place across the country naturally I am confronted with a variey of IWB hard- and software. Consequently I try to include materials developed for various file formats in my presentations. Hence I keenly follow the interoperability issue with regards to IWBs. It is with renewed hope :-) that I pass on the message published at opencourceschools below:

European governments and organisations are helping to make it easier for schools and colleges to share resources and use interactive whiteboards.
Becta has made a technical specification available for a common file format for interactive whiteboards, and a viewer application and further support will follow in autumn 2009.

Check out the full post here

NB. Next to a course on Web 2.0 for Modern Languages we also run an international course on the use of IWBs in specific disciplines.