Understand Interactive Whiteboards: a McLuhanian Reflection on the Emerging Teaching Technology

摘要

Over the past decade, Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) as a new teaching technology is booming globally.Incorporating e-learning environment and interactive equipment, it changes our pedagogical relations and patterns in a tacit way.In order to understand the possible changes brought by IWBs, we need a critical examination on it.Inspired by McLuhan’s tetrad framework (1989), in this presentation, I will structure my reflection on IWBs based on the four dynamic laws or intervals: its enhancement, retrieval, reversal and obsolescence in a pedagogical situation.I will address three prevalent features in teaching with IWBs: its invitation of bodily engagement via touching, its Tabula Rasa paradox in teaching and learning and its ready-made interactivity in class.I will conclude that staying at an "in-between" place in the digital territory, teachers may be able to maintain a more vigilant attitude toward the mediation of this new educational technology.