Using the Interactive White Board in Teaching and Learning - An Evaluation of the SMART CLASSROOM Pilot Project

In 2008, an educational organization that works in 60 countries across the world, established a pilot project whereby smart classrooms were installed for use in six middle and senior high schools in Israel. In this project, each school received 10 Interactive White Boards (IWBs) (25% of the total number of classrooms in the school), 32 laptops, internet connection, communication software and teacher training. Formative evaluation accompanied the pilot project for two years in order to examine the effects of integrating technology into instruction on teachers, students, and the school community. The findings indicated the following: a) student motivation and engagement in the learning process increased when studying with the IWB; b) teachers reported on their professional development and enhanced technology skills. The findings also showed that the integration of technology into instruction posed some difficulties and challenges, such as a sense of over-burdening among teachers. The main conclusions were the following: a) there is a need to focus on the pedagogical training of the teachers, with an emphasis on the ways that technology can assist interactive teaching; b) in order to help relieve the over-burdening of teachers, a database of instructional tools should be established providing suggestions for lesson plans and instructional materials; c) accessibility to the technology should be extended to more teachers and students by adding smart classrooms to every school in the project.