Teachers’ Knowledge and Skills
Having an IWB in the classroom, however, does not necessarily open a lesson to higher levels of children’s interaction. IWBs require an investment of time, and some degree of training. Low confidence in use of IWBs
could hinder teachers to use IWBs in their daily teaching activities. Training in the technical and pedagogical aspects of IWBs should be viewed as a continuous process. Glover and Miller (2001) claimed that the
interactive nature of IWBs requires new approaches to both pedagogy and professional development for
teachers. Successful integration of any technology into the classroom requires more than simply acquiring that
technology. Closing the digital divide requires much more than buying equipment, it requires the knowledge and skills of teachers using the technology, and access to digital tools in the community (Riel, Schwarz & Hitt,
2002, p.147). Indeed, the introduction of an IWB does not in itself transform existing pedagogies (Moss, Jewitt,
Levaaic, Armstrong, Cardini & Castle, 2007). For teachers who may not be confident or lack basic technology skills, the IWBs can be a hindrance to their teaching and learning process during the lessons.
Although the participating teachers have high enthusiasm towards their developmental needs, they revealed that they want more training development programs. A desperate teacher commented, “We can go to our colleagues or websites for extra information, but we need more…more training”. Whilst others said; “We had training during the day of the installation, but it is not enough”. But, one statement proved that teachers were taking prompt actions to have more sharing of resources among colleagues. One of the interviewed teachers said “in fact, yesterday, in the staff meeting, we have discussed having 10-15 minute use of IWBs in every session”. These actions could provide ideas for broader usage and generally offer additional techniques for teaching science using IWBs among young children. Advanced skills were needed by some participating teachers. One enthusiastic adopter of IWBs commented that: “…I need more advanced knowledge and skills, such as layering, sequencing, converting and inserting video or sound…all these are very crucial for me to create interactive lessons for my kids”.
CONCLUSIONS
This paper has described the results of a study that was designed to understand the perspective of Australian teachers of science using IWBs with children aged five to six years. In particular, this paper has tried to determine the pedagogical practices, benefits and challenges of using IWBs in teaching and learning for young
children specifically for the science learning area. Despite findings reported in the literature to date about the use of IWBs for teaching and learning, much of the data gathered during this study had proven the merit of the affordances of IWBs in science classroom for children aged five and six years. There was evidence from
interviews that participating teachers had changed both preparation and style of teaching in order to be fully engaged with IWBs, compared with conventional classroom teaching tools. This was because they believed that IWBs could lead to the learning of investigative science, critique in science and responsible actions in science.
And although not mentioned as a major theme in previous studies, findings from this study revealed that participating teachers did use IWBs for supported didactic, integrated interactive activities and guided assessment. These summarised that, in teaching science for younger children, IWBs could be used to improve whole class teaching and learning processes, especially in lesson introduction, children-teachers’ interaction and promoting group or individual evaluation. The findings also highlighted the affordances of IWBs in science classrooms. Promoting authenticity and connectedness, multimodality and versatility, and efficiency were the factors that most frequently mentioned by participating teachers. These characteristics encourage children to be engaged actively in the learning process and to develop investigation skills relating to the nature of science.
An important outcome stemming from these findings is the need to be mindful of the potential drawbacks of technology evolution in educational technology. Teachers need time and properly designed professional development. This study illustrates the disruptive effects when conventional classroom settings were used for IWBs implementation and teachers were having limited skills to develop the lessons.
Consideration should now be given to teachers’ professional development in IWBs. The Australian national priority on ICT integration in education acknowledges that children need greater access to appropriate resources, but well-trained teachers are essential to gear up the progress to achieve a high level of integration of IWBs in the teaching and learning for young children. Education authorities need to understand the importance of training to encourage positive use of IWBs in the early years education. It must be noted that the IWB itself does not enhance teaching and learning. Rather, it is the way that it is used as a new teaching and learning tool that does so. Good teaching remains good teaching with or without IWBs; it enhances the pedagogy only if teachers understand it as another pedagogical means to achieve teaching and learning goals.
Many international researchers have noted that the use of IWBs is growing rapidly and becoming one of the most important educational technology tools in the digital generation. However, in Australia, there is little Australian research looking into their use and exploring pedagogical practices to enhance young children’s learning in science classrooms. Therefore, more studies of this kind, especially at a larger scale, need to be conducted so that the findings can adequately reflect the perspective of the whole population of teachers teaching science using IWBs for children aged five and six years. This could be in the form of a comparative study across several states , to determine whether there are differences especially regarding the use of IWBs for different curriculum that have been implemented in various states. We suggest that a comparative study could be
conducted across different states to determine whether there are different findings especially regarding the use of IWBs for different curriculum that have been implemented in different states. Since technology especially interactive software, will continue to grow and develop rapidly, a replication of this study might be conducted periodically in order to examine its trends and its wider contributions remain to be seen.