What does Twitter have to do with the Engagement Theory and interactive whiteboards?

Education Queensland's(EQ's) inclusive education statement declares 'Inclusive education reflects the values, ethos and culture of a public education system committed to excellence by enhancing educational opportunities for all students' (Slee, 2001, p. 1).

The engagement theory is the theory of engaging learners in their learning (Kearsley & Shneiderman, 1999). As I was learning about interactive whiteboards recently, it occurred to me that I had been exploring all these new and wonderful tools available in the classroom, without much thought to the theory integral to their successful use.

Within the framework of the engagement theory, 'real' problems are presented to learners. It involves improved levels of collaboration, interactivity with others and participation. All learners are engaged and responsible for their own learning experiences within their teams. (Kearsley & Shneiderman 1999; Salmon, 2001).Internet tools and interactive boards support and enhance learning based on that theory as they improve on traditional face-to-face teaching pedagogy by complementing it with the internet.

I believe that if we acknowledge the amazing things that have happened with these tools it is hard not to be able to understand how the same kind of growth and relevance can be achieved in the classroom AND make teachers jobs more exciting and effective.

Take Twitter for example, it is a simple tool that connects individuals but it allows for only a short sentence. It starts the sentence for you by saying 'what are you doing?' ….. and allows the user to complete the answer within a limited amount of text space.

Pretty basic huh. BUT this year when Iran held its controversial elections Twitter became soooo much more. Iran blocked journalists and the Iranian people were breaking the law simply by logging into Facebook. Iran also has the dubious honour of being the first country to jail a blogger for blogging. There was an outcry amongst Twitter members and virtually every person on Twitter changed their settings on the internet to make it look as though they were from Iran. By doing this, they were able to clog up the governments attack on fellow Iranian twitterer's and suddenly twitter became the most up to date source for news in Iran.

I personally felt honoured to have been a part of it, and for a service that generally has such mundane purposes as telling your mates what you had for breakfast, when the news came through Twitter that a woman (named Neda Agha-Soltan) had been shot at a protest in Iran, my heart cried out; and I began to really comprehend how these technologies evolve and become much more than they may have been intended for.

If you use Twitter then you should consider having Tweetdeck. It enables you to track real-time what is being said about anything being said. It is easy to use and set up and it even plays you a tune when your name is mentioned! Very important if you are considering using it with your students.


In the same way, I see interactive whiteboards that are connected to the internet (and have a network amongst teachers in which you are able to contribute awesome ideas for teaching) will eventually overrun the slow process of change that we are currently experiencing. An interactive whiteboard is a large, touch-sensitive panel that connects to a to a digital projector and a computer. As the engagement theory (Kearsley & Shneiderman, 1999) implies, learners must be engaged to learn and the interactive white board appeals to visual, aural and kinaesthetic learners when used in various ways.

While some teachers are still questioning the necessity for interactive whiteboards, those schools that have fully embraced them indicated they engage the students, motivate them and provide opportunities to teach theories and concepts that were previously hard to show a student and created a space online where the virtual world can fill the gap to bring about understanding through virtual yet concrete examples of gravity for just one example. explained it as 'infusing case-based participartory simulations into presentational/ assimilative instruction' (Dede, 2005, p.11).

UPDATE: While doing some follow up research on Interactive whiteboards I came across a fabulous link. We all know that the main reason these whiteboards are not in every classroom is due to their cost. Well I found someone with a solution!!!
I was reading a blog of a Uni lecturer in the moodle training blogspots (click hyperlink to see). He has located a company, called Eclipse Solutions, providing a Virtual Interactive whiteboard for free.

He mentioned that while it was still Beta at this stage (meaning that it doesn't have flash apps. yet it does give the lecturer the ability to use many other functionalities of a whiteboard and he is going to trial using it in his University lectures. Using Virtual-whiteboard you can include text, images, files, notes, freehand drawing, symbols and clipart. Students, can be invited in using their email to authenticate them and chat is also available for remote students. Sessions can be saved, printed or exported as an image .This though because it is a great opportunity for schools lacking funding to still try out some of this technology in the classroom (equity for all hey).

I have been playing with all afternoon and Lynn kindly joined me so we could try it out with two users on different computers and it worked well, I am about to add a screen-shot of one of my whiteboard screens for you to peruse.


http://www.virtual-whiteboard.co.uk/home.asp

I also think that those of you reading this blog today, will one day be proud to have been part of such a revolution.

References:
Dede, C. (2005). Planning for neo-millennial learning styles: Shifts in students’ learning style will prompt a shift to active construction of knowledge through mediated immersion. Educause Quarterly, Nov. 2005, 7-12.

Kearsley, G. & Shneiderman, B. (1999). Engagement theory: A framework for technology-based teaching and learning. retrieved 27 November, 2009
http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.htm

Salmon, G. (2001). Introducing E-tivities: The key to engaging students in online learning. Workshop 9 Presentation, Online Educa Berlin. Open University Business School, UK, Retrieved 27 November, 2009
http://www.online-educa.com/workshops/09.htm

Slee, R. (2001). Inclusive Education Statement-2005. Retrieved December 6, 2009, http://education.qld.gov.au/studentservices/learning/docs/inclusedstatement2005.pdf

Neda Agha-Soltan died June 2oth, 2009. She was shot by on her way to protest the outcome of the 2009 Iranian Presidential Election.Image coutesy of wikipedia.com