Interactive Whiteboards Enhance Educational Collaboration
With the start of the new school year on the horizon and continued uncertainty about how schools will operate due to COVID-19, many educators are wondering how they can continue to engage with their students and deliver the best lesson plan possible despite the countless known and unknown challenges they will face. While there may still be a lot of questions regarding lesson planning, two things are for certain; students will be craving interaction with their teachers and teachers will be striving to provide some sense of normalcy in these challenging times.
Rules about returning to the classroom will undoubtedly vary between school districts, cities, counties, and states. However, it’s almost certain that some amount of learning will have to be done virtually. So, how can educators overcome these challenges and provide a lesson that closely resembles what students would see in their traditional classroom setting? The answer to that question for many schools will be interactive whiteboards.
Provide Real-Time Connection
In many cases, students and teachers will not be in the same room. But there is no way to truly replace the value of real-time education and lessons. With an interactive whiteboard, this type of real-time learning and collaboration can continue whether students are in the classroom physically or learning remotely in a video conferencing-style manner.
Perhaps best of all, other devices can connect to share information on the whiteboard display, much like how a student may come to the front of the class to help solve a math equation. By connecting to the whiteboard virtually, students can remain engaged without having to physically contact the whiteboard which reduces potential contact points for virus transfer and also allows everyone to maintain proper social distancing.
Record Lessons and Share Easily
Teachers were forced to adapt to new learning strategies quickly as school doors were closed and children transitioned to remote learning in March. For many, this involved recording YouTube videos to share with students using whatever tools were available at the time. While this was helpful, it was a stopgap solution. Teachers have worked for years to develop their craft and provide the best lessons possible to students. Recording a lesson to a webcam is not the same as teaching a class normally.
With digital whiteboards, teachers can record a lesson that looks much more like how they might teach if they were present in a classroom with their students. Notes, drawings, videos, and images can be shared on the whiteboard as the teacher provides their lecture. All of this can be captured and shared. The result is a complete virtual lesson that incorporates the usual classroom experience students have sorely been missing from the initial rapid change to online learning.
Best of all, a digital whiteboard easily connects to a wide range of cloud services including Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, and others. Whatever cloud service is being used by the school and students engaging in distance learning is likely compatible with a digital whiteboard.
Connect with Other Powerful Devices
Interactive whiteboards might be one of the most useful tools for online learning, but there are certainly other devices that teachers will utilize regularly. For example, a multifunction printer (MFP) is a device that is certainly a workhorse in any education setting. Depending on the rules surrounding going back to school, students may be limited in the devices or materials they can take to and from the classroom. This easy connectivity can allow teachers and students to share lesson materials without physical contact.
For example, a teacher may share a slide and then use the digital whiteboard to mark up the slide with notes. This can then be shared with the MFP device for easy access. People with access to the shared folders on the network can download the materials or even print them. The second option is handy for students who may not have reliable internet access or a computer at home when they need to review the lesson.
In other words, digital whiteboards bring together an entire suite of devices and services to make learning and sharing as flexible as possible.
Take the Next Step in Education
It’s impossible to say what the future will hold for teachers and students. However, interactive whiteboards will help overcome whatever challenges may be presented. To learn more about these versatile devices, contact the experts at Virginia Business Systems today.