Interactive White Boards

Ooh, I'm saving up! I saw Wendy's mimio on Wednesday, it is a portable interactive whiteboard. How great is that?!?! It seems as if this tool was developed by Oliver as it is a great ICT resource that allows students to collaborate in class, it has many modes of operation as it is simply a large computer screen that students can work with as they would a private computer but the whole class can see.

If I am working at different schools and I don't know what resources they have, I can take my own IWB with me. This portable version has all the functionality of the full scale model. You simply attach a bar to the whiteboard via suction cups, perform a quick and easy callibration on the whiteboard and you are ready to go. The image is projected via an OHP, preferably ceiling mounted. The mimio comes with a capture kit so that as with a standard IWB you can capture any markings made with special whiteboard markers on the screen to provide learners with a copy or as a record of what transpired. The mimio also comes with software that facilitates interactive use of the equipment, down to a playable keyboard.

An IWB turns a standard whiteboard into a large version of your computers desktop. The students of your self can then touch the 'screen' with a special pen to open and close windows, launch applications just as you do with a cursor on your computer and this is how the students get to interact with programs, on a class level, such as google earth. This alleviates the need for every student to have access to a computer for that session and it saves all the students using bandwidth to see an individual image themselves, they can observe the enlarged image instead.

As for engaging students, this is a tool that would easily do that, which student would be the best behaved so as to ensure they get chosen for first turn?