There is a fine line between the balancing of technology, necessity, practicality, true interactivity, and cost of Interactive Whiteboards. The video lessons reviewed in this unit showed differing levels of interactivity. Some did little more than have the students answer questions for the teacher to manipulate data. Other lessons did more. The presentation on electrical circuits allowed the students to interact with the content and they were also given the opportunity to physically create circuits instead of relying solely on the simulated content. At the end of this video (in reference to the WB in my interpretation), the teacher commented that "...it just gets all the children involved...allows me to check the understanding...bringing the fun in and keeping the children enjoying science." While all of this may be evident in the lesson, I contend that this had more to do with the scope of and overarching activities planned by the teacher than with the presence of a WB.
In my view, much of what is done using IWBs can be done without them; teachers can used physical items rather than virtual ones and the interaction could be just as effective. In other cases, a projector, a computer, and other pointing devices can be used to achieve similar results at a fraction of the cost of an IWB.
Additionally, while IWBs are considered 'interactive', students typically interact with the board rather than actually interacting with other students, therefore true interactivity is limited. Also, IWBs encourage the setup of having the teacher at the front of the class in a lecturing style, as opposed to making the room learner oriented.
IWBs, in my opinion, are nice to have but not necessarily worth the expense, especially in countries like mine where funding is quite limited for projects such as these. Such monies can be spent on other technologies/equipment that can have greater impact for students.
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