Pre-blog post from IATEFL
I’m in my hotel room in Brighton now and thinking about the day. I attended Learning Technologies pre-conference event. The talks were on IWB. We started the day with Connie Gutenberg’s brief introduction. She demonstrated how she used it with her class. The texts she chose for the session were amazing. I really loved the ‘Stress’ by Wendy Cope where the writer used words which can be used as verbs, nouns and adjectives. I also loved the poem ‘Big words and little ones’ by Arthur Kudner to teach nouns and adjectives.
The next session I attended was of Luke Meddings’s talk and we discussed how to use IWB with Dogme. I really enjoyed the session because he started with a quick introduction what dogme in elt is and although I had ideas what it is. The introduction made it clearer. He stressed the importance of note-taking in Dogme style teaching. While students are producing the emergent language, you can take notes, brainstorm ideas and save them to continue the next day.
I’m not a big fun of IWB, I still think we can do the same things with other stuff if the school we work for cannot provide it. HoweverMarisa Constantinides pointed out that was that while using IWB, teacher can still write on the board. I’m one of those teachers who love writing on the board. I feel something will be missing if I just explain things from a powerpoint but this aspect made me think a little bit positive about it.
We also discussed during the breaks that whether IWB is more teacher centred or whether there is a possibility to make some teachers relaxed. So what do you think?
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Eva,
Thanks for bringing to Brazil the highlights of the pre-conference event.
I must confess that I’m an IWB lover and advocate. It goes without saying that its main purpose is to take the focus on the teacher and let sts explore a more widely range of resources. I do believe, however, that we can do the same job in a regular whiteboard.
The problem lies on how teachers use the IWB. Some, like you said, might use it to feel a little less stressed and tired, while others even with the whole range of possibilities it can give us, still center their lessons on them. It’s a matter of choice, purpose and willingness to change.
Congratulations!
Eva, thanks for keeping us up-to-date with the convention. Would you believe that I have never taught with an IWB? Most of the schools where I have taught, including a prestigious private university, and the state university here do not have funding to buy them, so I have never had the opportunity. Ellen in Mexico