The Interactive Whiteboard as a Force for Pedagogic Change: The Experience of Five Elementary Schools in an English Education Authority

Abstract

This article details an investigation into the use of interactive whiteboards undertaken in five elementary schools in an En-glish education authority. Evidence was collected by using a questionnaire containing closed and open questions, lesson observations, and structured interviews of teachers and head-teachers. Potential benefits in the introduction of interactive whiteboards as an integrative technology within schools were found when the following three conditions were met: (a) there was a will to develop and use the technology; (b) the teachers had to be willing to become mutually interdependent in the development of materials; and (c) there had to be some change of thinking about the way in which classroom activi-ties were resourced. Although many secondary schools had been equipped with one or more interactive whiteboards in the past five years their use within the elementary