iwb&MFL

A recent Dutch study 'Engels met digibord of boek' [English with IWB or Book] aimed to research daily practice and added value of IWB-use in primary EFL education. To this end the authors (Marjolijn Hovius, Nico van Kessel, Meike van der Linden) compared the way teachers used the course materials 'Take it easy' (especially designed for IWB-use) with a recently published textbook 'Real English New' which is largely paperbased with some digital support.

Some first observations (from a really quick scan!) and driven by my interest focus on professional development.

1) Let's start with the learning results: not a huge difference in results between experimental  and control groups, but then the period between pre- and posttest was rather short!

2) Pupils loved the IWB supported materials. Teachers, too, are really enthousiastic about using the IWB. FYI, teacher education for EFL teaching in NL primary education is very basic so teachers appreciate very much that the materials can support educational activities such as oral presentation of new content and pronunciation training as they feel less comfortable with those themselves.
And for this reason pupils benefit as their learning space is much improved.

3) More teacher training is needed to actually use the opportunities the IWB materials offer to serve different needs within the pupil groups.

4) At the end of the day the teacher is still KEY, despite the support 'the digital teacher' definitely offers.

The observations on the potential of peer-to-peer learning for teachers match well with findings (Lewin et al., 2009) based on data from a longitudinal research study (the UK Primary School Whiteboard Expansion Project) reporting on the success of informal learning communities in schools.

Which means even more evidence for one of the arguments we put forward in our current application for a European project on IWBs in Language Education. (BTW deadline 31 March!!, I should NOT be spending time writing this post now, more possibly later :-))

Reference:
Cathy Lewin, Peter Scrimshaw, Bridget Somekh and Maureen Haldane (2009). The impact of formal and informal professional development opportunities on primary teachers' adoption of interactive whiteboards. Technology, Pedagogy and Education. Vol. 18 No. 2, July 2009, 173-185 

Euline Cutrim Schmid and I share an interest in promoting the pedagogically sound use of IWBs in language education. We collaborate in many ways, sharing relevant research data and papers. We also develop and run training sessions for teachers. And we are partners in the Utrecht Summercourse team. 
A recent initiative for a short term project, the co-production of a conference paper,  can now materialise as our paper proposal on IWBs in language education was selected for presentation at the EuroCALL 2009 Conference in Spain. Here is the abstract.

Abstract: The research literature points out several positive pedagogical benefits of Interactive Whiteboards (IWBs) in education, such as a) facilitating the integration of new media in the regular language classroom, b) enhancing the scope of interactivity and learner engagement in the lesson, c) supporting the development of so-called “electronic literacies”, and d) meeting the needs of students with diverse learning styles (aural, visual and kinaesthetic) through the use of multiple media. A review of the recent research literature shows that for IWB-use to contribute to the improvement of student attainment teachers’ pedagogical views, knowledge and media literacy are important factors.
As IWBs also gradually find their way into language classrooms across the world, the investment in good quality training on the pedagogical use of this technology becomes increasingly important. The more so since the current, relatively rare documentation and research of IWB-practices in modern language education has also triggered the debate on the potential threat of this technology to the principles of communicative teaching. Central in the concerns expressed by a number of researchers and educationalists is the question whether use of IWBs in the language classroom will lead to a return to the whole-class teaching of the last century?
This paper discusses possible ways of exploiting electronic presentation technologies to support the development of a pedagogical practice based on a socio-cognitive view of communicative teaching, which is in line with the latest developments in language teaching research and practice.
The illustrations are drawn from a professional development project in Germany and a Dutch initiative to remedy the shortage of good practice descriptions and publicly accessible IWB-materials for modern foreign languages. The German study investigates English teachers’ pedagogical needs and developmental paths as they integrate interactive whiteboard technology into the curriculum. The study is being carried out in the form of seven in-depth longitudinal case studies with English teachers at different levels of technology expertise and teaching experience.
The presentation of this paper will be supported by a live demo on a Smart Board.