Analysing the use of interactive technology to implement interactive teaching

Abstract

Recent policy initiatives in England have focused on promoting 'interactive' teaching in schools, with a clear expectation that this will lead to improvements in learning. This expectation is based on the perceived success of such approaches in other parts of the world. At the same time, there has been a large investment in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) resources, and particularly in interactive whiteboard technology. This paper explores the idea of interactive teaching in relation to the interactive technology which might be used to support it. It explains the development of a framework for the detailed analysis of teaching and learning in activity settings which is designed to represent the features and relationships involved in interactivity. When applied to a case study of interactive teaching during a lesson involving a variety of technology-based activities, the framework reveals a confusion of purpose in students' use of an ICT resource that limits the potential for learning when students are working independently. Discussion of relationships between technical and pedagogical interactivity points a way forward concerning greater focus on learning goals during activity in order to enable learners to be more autonomous in exploiting ICT's affordances, and the conclusion identifies the variables and issues which need to be considered in future research which will illuminate this path.

Constructing Narrative Ecologies as a Site for Teachers' Professional Learning with New Technologies and Media in Primary Education

“…The narrative ecology model provides a glimpse at teachers' underlying past experiences and their intent. The model is designed to capture what guides teachers' orchestration or progressive focusing of the educational micro-ecology (Luckin, 2005(Luckin, , 2008Kennewell et al, 2008). That is, rather than merely characterising and identifying the mediating influences at play, an attempt is made to unravel individual teachers' 'organising principle [s] by which the contextual meaning of individual events can be displayed and articulated' (Goodson et al, 2010, p. 18).…”

The Use of Interactive Whiteboards to Support the Creation, Capture and Sharing of Knowledge in South African Schools

“…This allowed him to respond to the changing dynamics of the learners and support their understanding of concepts as he taught them. This was a benefit also highlighted by researchers in [15]. Teacher A made use of the IWB during her teaching to capture the knowledge of her learners.…”

“…IWBs afford teachers the ability to either prepare content or materials in advance or during the lesson in front of the class. In addition, teachers are also able to quickly retrieve materials during lessons as needed for display to the whole class and are able to manipulate items directly on the display as one would with a standard computer interface [15]. This ability to create, capture and share knowledge using IWBs in the classroom was one of a number of affordances that were investigated during the course of this study.…”

“…Teacher B also discussed how the use of the IWB in the classroom allowed him to retrieve content and materials quickly and with ease, a benefit also discussed in [15]. He commented saying "They [the learners] benefited from the fact that firstly whatever resources we were using was much easier to get a hold of and to get into and then secondly there was a lot less hassle with having to write answers and clean the board and that whole repetitive schlep thing".…”

“…According to [15] the impact of using IWBs is seen in the interactivity of teaching and the associated participation of the learners. IWBs afford teachers the ability to either prepare content or materials in advance or during the lesson in front of the class.…”