Can you make traditional whiteboards more interactive?

Interactivity in the digital era is seen as just that… something digital with capabilities that enhance traditional tools. While it would be cool to have an “iWhiteboard,” it’s not entirely necessary. Here I’ll list a few ways that traditional markerboards can be interactive, teach students how to collaborate, and even help teachers to enhance the learning experience for their students.

Incorporation of Projectors

Screen projectors can be used alongside traditional whiteboards for obvious reasons. This opens the door to new, creative teaching strategies that are kept simple using only a screen projector and a standard whiteboard. Screen projectors allow teachers to annotate presentations on the whiteboard, rather than either flipping through slides or handwriting the whole lesson.

Beyond class time interactivity, teachers can use a projector to set up lessons as well. For instance, teachers can project diagrams or maps onto the whiteboard and trace them to create an accurate display that can be labeled, annotated, etc. Once again offering teachers and students a chance to interact with a simple whiteboard.

Projectors are an extremely useful tool alongside a porcelain markerboard. Digital products such as smartboards or a classroom television can be overstimulating to students, especially young students. However, dry erase markerboards offer a simple solution without reverting all the way back to traditional chalkboards.

Collaborative activities

Possibly the biggest benefit of using a markerboard is the visual display. Compared to chalkboards, markerboards allow the material on the board to be easier seen and understood. In addition to a cleaner display, markerboards are also easy and fun to use. An effective strategy to get students involved in the lesson would be to allow for the students to use the board themselves, giving the students the ability to see how their work looks on the same surface that the teacher had initially used.

Along with allowing students to use the board themselves, you might consider taking a step further and organizing miniature competitions (e.g., having multiple groups of students come up and solve a problem on the whiteboard and see who can finish the fastest).

Mobile markerboards

Aarco offers a line of mobile markerboards that can be used as an aid in addition to the visual display product that is already on the wall. This product can be used for fixed announcements every class so that teachers don’t have to worry about erasing important information to move on. Mobile markerboards can be made interactive in the same exact way as regular, fixed markerboards. This just gives teachers and students a little extra flexibility in how they’re able to use it.

Customizable Markerboards

Aarco has the capability to custom-print markerboards to fit the needs of our customer. We can print anything from empty charts and calendars to music lines and logos. Keep in mind – its custom! Any fixed template can be easily printed onto our markerboards, allowing for a consistent visualization of different material.

 

Human beings have been writing on walls for the past 50,000 years. The tradition has stuck all the way to our 21st-century classrooms for a reason. That reason is that humans are engaged in not only viewing the display on an upright surface but also having a big canvas to jot down the ideas that brought us here today. Aarco is carrying that tradition using 21st century technology to create visual display products of the upmost quality and durability.

 

-Rocco DeMartino