Engagement

Reading the title itself, some of you might think of I'm getting attached or getting married. Hahaha!!!
Not the case.

What I really want to share here is student's engagement.

Prof. Maznah has continuously and persistently emphasized on the importance of students' engagement in a technology-based lesson.

The use of the smartboard is to interact with your students.

There is a two way communication between the IWB and the students.

Teachers must make sure that all students are engaged with the technology and benefiting from it.

In our 1st lecture, the PLEASE was emphasized which is to "personalized learning environment and students engagement."

Well, as we were designing our activities via smart notebook, we were cracking our heads thinking that
"How to interact with my students via IWB?"
"Is it necessary for my students to touch the board only considered interaction is implemented?"
" Students interact with each other (pair or group work) considered interaction when using IWB?"

Then, we started to doubt the interactiveness of the IWB.

Can the students really engaged in the learning via smartboard?

To clear a little of our clouds......

INTERACTION=ENGAGEMENT

Interaction means you have contact or connection with something.
How to contact?
It involves your senses.

Smartboard is a very interactive technology tool to be used in the teaching and learning process.
Why do I say that?
Students touch it.
Sutdents listen to it.
Sutdents look at it.
Touch=Tactile
Listen=Auditory
Look=Visual
And all of us understand that young learners can acquire knowledge best through senses according to the young learners' characteristics theories that we have learnt.

Do I somehow persuade you that IWB is interactive?

I was browsing through the net to see anyone could convince me with statistics or numerical data about how "powerful" is the IWB in education since I believe in logics and evidence.
There I found a research done evaluating the effectiveness of the use of IWB in the teaching and learning process.
The research involved teachers and students.
They were given questionaires and interviews.
I find the interviews very useful in convincing me that IWB is indeed useful and effective to motivate the students' to learn better.
Most of the students claimed that they have learnt better via IWB.
Of course there are flaws mentioned in the interviews which I think we-teachers should know in order to help lessen the problem while using the IWB.

For example:
1) They felt the board was somewhat difficult to write on because of a shadow effect caused when their hand blockedthe light from the projector.
2) The researcher’s classroom observations noted some had difficulty touching the board
with only the tip of the markers, which caused stray marks to be created on the board.
3) One student stated, “I least like the board when you try to write. When you touch the board with your arm, it makes lines you didn’t mean to make.”

One very encouraging statement made by the student was:
One student stated, “It (IWB) makes me pay attention to the teacher more. When the teacher just stands up there and talks, I get easily distracted.”

Does the use of a whiteboard in the classroom help you to be able to pay better attention?
Most of the comments were related to the visual and interactive nature of the board.
Another student responded, “Yes, because you get to participate
with it more than just regular classwork.”

Positive feedbacks from the teachers were:

“Students’ attention is automatically on the lesson, no matter what the subject. As soon as they enter the room and see the board, they are immediately interested in what you have planned for class that day.”

“I enjoy seeing my students engaged. When I use the whiteboard, I tend to stay away
from lecturing. The whiteboard makes it easier to be a facilitator and allows the students more freedom to teach and
learn from each other.”

I would not give you so many examples and imformation collected from the research here.

You can have a look at the research at:
chiron.valdosta.edu/are/Artmanscrpt/vol1no1/beeland_am.pdf

Allow yourself to be motivated through the positive data and information collected.
It will certainly convince you that using IWB (technology) is worthwhile as both teachers and students benefit from it.

An environment where technology is used in innovative ways leads to improved learning and teaching (Wishart &Blease, 1999).