Smart Interactive Whiteboards
As technology becomes more accessible, it comes with no surprise that schools are investing more in technology that can be used in the classroom. Especially as the world is transitioning to a tech-based society, it’s essential to teach students with tools and skills they will probably use in the future.
Some schools have already started introducing interactive touchscreen technology through smart boards to increase engagement. Where whiteboards once were at the center of the classroom, the technological shift has propelled the classic classroom tool to an all-in-one digital teaching device to help students learn. The earliest development of education tech was a interactive whiteboard (IWB) and has since gone through a change. It’s now a sleeker, and improved education tool called a interactive flat panel (IFP).
As touchscreen technology is becoming more intelligent and cheaper by the day, it may be worth looking into its use in your classroom. The use of touchscreen technology allows interactive classrooms, which improves the educational experience for both students and teachers.
How do Interactive Flat Panels Enhance a Classroom?
Interactive teaching methods have proven to be six times more effective in helping students learn than conventional methods. The benefits of interaction between teachers and students span from something as simple as a convenience to just making the class more fun.
All-in-One Teaching Hub
Interactive flat panels enable teachers to maintain a centralized teaching medium by keeping both preparation and delivery consolidated on one device. With software that prepares subject tools, spotlights, and timers before the class and is embedded into the digital class materials, planning and delivering a class has never been seamless and interactive.
Simplifying Distance Learning
As the world continues to adjust to distance learning, teachers have to be creative in their approach to online teaching, whether it be showing videos, having class discussions, or lecturing.
Setting up a camera or individually sharing each piece of content can become disruptive as each teaching medium has to be set up while allowing time to switch between them. Having an interactive flat panel enables teachers to integrate different teaching mediums within the classroom into an online setting.
With the ability to directly share your display onto a video call and record classes, you can focus your efforts on supporting your students instead of worrying about the logistics of teaching a virtual class.
For students, the struggles of a virtual classroom often mean less interaction with the teacher. With the simplicity and ease of an interactive flat panel, teachers can opt to have lesson plans around interaction and engagement, which helps attract students whether the class is being taught in a virtual or in-person setting.
Accommodate Different Teaching and Learning Styles
All students don’t learn the same way; any class will have students with varying learning styles, and a traditional classroom often fails to offer enough support with traditional classrooms mainly specializing in teaching students who prefer to learn by reading and writing off a classic whiteboard, students who find that style difficult to understand are often ignored. Opting for an interactive flat panel can improve engagement with students who learn better through engaging visual and auditory stimuli while retaining the attention of those who learn better in the traditional way.
The ability to instantly make tables, sticky notes on display, use different marker colors to highlight different information, and playback of videos are all features that accommodate visual learners. On the other hand, the built-in speakers make it an effective teaching tool that engages auditory students.
Accommodating your students’ needs will help them learn more effectively and make teaching the subject more intuitive and straightforward.
Putting Learning First
With traditional teaching methods often relying heavily on note-taking and memorization, every single item discussed in class is usually followed by the sounds of students intensely jotting down notes.
This method of teaching and learning takes the focus away from discussion-based learning. By leveraging the recording feature on interactive flat panels, teachers can send their students a recap of the class or the notes written on the board virtually for at-home revision for easy note-taking where necessary.
Enabling an Interactive Classroom
With interactive learning, students can connect their personal devices to the board and interact with the teachers making classes more fun. The benefits of a fun classroom have been gaining traction recently. A study journal by College Teaching found that students could recall statistics more easily when lecturers add jokes about relevant topics.
A fun classroom environment is beneficial for students and teachers with improved attention, resulting in better classroom performance.
The Bottom Line
Using interactive flat panels in the classroom is a great way to increase and improve engagement between teachers and students while improving both the learning and teaching experience. Incorporating this technology can improve the classroom, especially as education evolves to a hybrid model. Having an interactive flat panel allows you to be prepared to teach your students no matter their learning style.