Interactive Whiteboards... A godsend or the devil incarnate?

I am yet to decide on this one.

I have used the one in my classroom with some success. I have also had a number of traumatic failures and cannot decide whether it has added benefit to the lessons I have taught.

To explain... I shall start at the beginning...

The IWB in my classroom is a first generation one and is not as 'interactive' as the new ones... My classroom is also downstairs in an old building. The whiteboard has been fixed to a windowed wall in the classroom - by this I mean a large plank of wood has been bracketed over the windows and the whiteboard is hung from the plank of wood. The positioning of the board is not hugely convenient for the children to see... they all have to be gathered on the carpet and this cannot be done for long periods of time as it is a somewhat uncomfortable place for a large class of 10 year olds. Everytime the class upstairs change (every 50 minutes) the movement of 30 children exiting a classroom vibrates down this wall, making the IWB move considerable and knocking it out of allignment... It has to be alligned everytime you want to use it, and even then, there's no guarantee that the pen will write where you press on the board!!

So, the equipment is there, but logistical factors like these have an impact on how often it is used....

I began a maths lesson with my class with Maths Karate... I carefully set up the IWB to show the powerpoint that accompanied this 'brain gym' style activity... I set the timer on the powerpoint to steadily increase to test the children... I then set them off and the first Karate move flashed up on screen asking them to display the sign for addition... They all did... I then waited expectantly for the next one.... which did not come... A click on the mouse did nothing... a couple of clicks... still nothing... The screen has frozen... great... I start getting frustrated, the children get distracted and noisy!! Then by rapid fire 6 or so Karate moves flash past the children... they cant keep up... they think it's hilarious... I give up and simply resort back to good old speech... "Right class, show me subtraction!!" I quickly learnt that ICT can be used to enhance lessons, but it has to work in order to do do... and if it doesn't work for whatever reason... you need to have a back up!!! In a classroom of 30 children the last thing you want to here is "we've got a bit of a technical hitch..."

However, motivation wise - the children really do love to use the IWB when it works. Times tables have been a real target for some of my children... Back in October when I went initially, there were lots of children that really didn't know them... and showed no interest in learning them until a simple times table 'game' was introduced in the lesson... so much so that it was repeatedly requested as an activity for wet break time!! In addition, I made a mental note to my self about how many more hands went up when I asked for a volunteer to show the rest of the class the answer on the IWB...

I really try to make the most out of the IWB.. but so far, it has caused problems as well as being an aid to my teaching, so the jury's still out on this one as far as I'm concern... I think I need a little bit more practise with it!