Posts made in February 1st, 2008

Health and Safety

Posted on Feb 1, 2008 in Interactive Whiteboards | 0 comments

When I deliver IWB training sessions I do get asked quite a bit about the health and safety implications of using a whiteboard and projector, especially after a report appeared in the Times Newspaper a few years back.

There are several guidance documents that are worth referring to. Many schools now have this guidance printed out and stuck on the wall next to the IWB.

Health and Safety Exectutive Guidance
Becta Guidance
Teachernet Guidance
National Whiteboard Network Guidance (word document)

Basically, the guidance can be summarised as follows:

• Staring directly into the projector beam should be avoided at all times.
• Standing facing into the beam is minimised. Users, especially pupils and students, should try to keep their backs to the beam as much as possible. In this regard, the use of a stick or laser pointer to avoid the need for the user to enter the beam is recommended.
• Pupils and students are adequately supervised when they are asked to point out something on the screen.
• Employers should also try to ensure that projectors are located out of the sight line from the screen to the audience; this ensures that, when presenters look at the audience, they do not also have to stare at the projector lamp. The best way to achieve this is by ceiling-mounting rather than floor or table-mounting the projector.
• In order to minimise the lamp power needed to project a visible presentation, employers should use room blinds to reduce ambient light levels. The brightness on the projector can then be turned down via its internal settings.

In addition to this advice, I would like to add a few comments

1. Make sure that both sides of the board are free from clutter – so that it is possible to stand either side of the board when addressing the class. This minimises the need to stand directly in the beam.

2. Check the remote control of your projector (or a. Find your projector remote control and b. check it!) and see if it has a button that says Blank or No Show, Mute/Pic or Show/Hide or something like that. This button will dim the output of the projector, basically blanking the screen if you do not want to use it for a while. You can now talk to the class without being dazzled by the beam. Obviously this is only handy if you do not want to refer to the board as well. This is better for the projector bulb than turning it off and on all the time using the power button.

(On a side note – most projector remotes also have a Freeze button which lets you freeze the projector on the current image while you sort out the next piece of work.. maybe put up a problem for the pupils to solve while you then find the next part of the presentation or a web game etc. The other use (and one I obviously do not condone!) allows you to check your emails while the pupils are copying something off the IWB!)

3. As I mentioned before, reduce the glare of the board when giving presentations by using a pastel page background instead of a white one.

If you follow this advice, and employ some common sense you should have no problems using your interactive whiteboard safely.

Embedding ICT @ Secondary Guides

Posted on Feb 1, 2008 in Interactive Whiteboards | 1 comment

UPDATE – May 2010 – New links to these guides can be found in this post:

Back in 2004, the DFES and BECTA produced an excellent series of guides which covered the use of Interactive Whiteboards in Secondary schools for each of the National Curriculum subjects.

Each document containsed a set of subject specific advice, guidance and examples to support more effective use of ICT in the teaching and learning of science. There is some great case studies in each one. I was pleased to have been able to have some input into the Science one – a colleague of mine wrote it and I provided some of the ideas.

A copy was, I think, sent to each school but when I do training sessions very few teachers have seen these. You can get them online, but they are rather buried in the quagmire that is the teachernet online publications catalogue. Some can still be accessed from the site, but others do not have an obvious download link or are out of print.

I’ve done some digging around, and here are the direct links to the pdf files for each subject:

Use of Interactive Whiteboards in English

Use of Interactive Whiteboards in Mathematics

Use of Interactive Whiteboards in Science

Use of Interactive Whiteboards in Music

Use of Interactive Whiteboards in Art and Design

Use of Interactive Whiteboards in History

Use of Interactive Whiteboards in Geography

Use of Interactive Whiteboards in Design and Technology

Use of Interactive Whiteboards in MFL

Use of Interactive Whiteboards in PE

Use of Interactive Whiteboards in ICT

Use of Interactive Whiteboards in Citizenship

Use of Interactive Whiteboards in RE

Thanks to Hertfordshire Grid for Learning, who are hosting all of these files on their webspace.

Other good guides from BECTA include:

Getting the Most from your Interactive Whiteboard – A guide for Secondary Schools
Getting the Most from your Interactive Whiteboard – A guide for Primary Schools

If you are interested in getting some ideas for the use of whiteboards in your subject, or you want some materials to give to other teachers in your school to inspire or inform them, then it is well worth your while downloading these guides.