From classrooms to conference rooms, interactive whiteboards are helping people learn by increasing engagement and collaboration. Teachers and executives are using interactive whiteboards to visually share information to help students and team members understand difficult concepts, work through problems, and develop their own ideas and solutions. Visual and hands-on presentations give students and team members many advantages:
- A study by Microsoft finds that after 3 days most people can only retain 10-20 percent of written or spoken information. However, 65% of visual information is retained.
- Another study finds that using interactive whiteboards is associated with a 16% gain in student achievement.
Traditionally, an interactive whiteboard consisted of a large display that connected to a computer and a projector, and likely also required dedicated hardware and software to run. But Baanto and our partners are changing the way whiteboards work for schools and businesses everywhere by offering intuitive plug-and-play whiteboard solutions that transform any flat surface into an interactive interface for learning and collaboration.
Here are 4 great ways schools and other organizations can use Baanto ShadowSense equipped interactive whiteboards to decrease technology costs and implementation time while enhancing learning and productivity.
1.) Interactive whiteboards make note-taking easier while maintaining high engagement levels.
One of the main disadvantages of traditional whiteboards is that it can be difficult for everyone in a classroom or conference room to keep track of important notes during presentations. It does not take long before multiple marker colors, glancing to and from slideshows and notebooks, and performance issues take attention away from the task at hand and create confusion. When students and team members cannot keep track of information with notes, their ability to remember material declines significantly.
- According to researchers, the information contained in notes has a 34% chance of being remembered. Without notes, researchers found that information has only a 5% chance of being remembered.
Interactive whiteboards give classrooms and conference rooms a blank slate for creating presentations and group note-taking. Imagine if a teacher had the ability not only to write notes but also move them around easily while having students actively contribute their own notes on a portion of the whiteboard surface.
Interactive whiteboards also make it easy to save and upload classroom notes online so students, teachers, and team members can stay focused on contributing to discussions and tasks.
2.) Interactive whiteboards integrate multimedia tools into one device to provide multisensory experiences.
Today’s classrooms and conference rooms are filled with a myriad of devices that usually only perform one function really well, and they are oftentimes difficult to use. Interactive whiteboards are a great way to combine digital content in the classroom and conference room setting to create multisensory experiences that make presentations stand out. Given these advantages, it is interesting to note that:
- 75% of schools in the UK have interactive touch whiteboards for their students.
- However, a survey conducted by the US Department of Education finds that only 23% of US teachers have an interactive whiteboard in their classrooms.
In the past, interactive whiteboards were difficult to use and had limited touch capabilities. But advances in multi-touch tracking and sensor technology are making them as intuitive to use as a pen and paper.
Now, multi-touch capabilities and gesture tracking allow teachers, students, or team members to pinch, swipe, tap, flip, and zoom in and out on any piece of information or media without any lag or performance issues.
3.) Interactive whiteboards turn unused spaces into interactive productivity centers where groups can make an impact.
With limited budgets and the high cost of maintaining IT staff and equipment, a lot of space in schools and business offices either goes unused or is underutilized. An interactive whiteboard is a quick way to transform any space into a center of learning and productivity. Creating a collaborative school and work environment continues to be critical for student and team success.
- According to a survey conducted by Deskmag, 71% of respondents reported they were more creative in a team setting, while 62% of respondents reported that their standard of work improved significantly.
- A report by the British Education Communications Technology Agency (BECTA) finds that interactive whiteboards enable greater opportunities for collaboration and participation, developing students’ personal and social skills.
Finding ways for students and teams to collaborate effectively makes learning and work more fun.
4.) Interactive whiteboards help you save on costs and equipment.
Despite the many advantages of adopting digital whiteboard technology many schools and businesses have avoided purchasing interactive whiteboards because they do not think they can handle the classroom or conference room environment, or they believe the cost of such technology is out of reach and impractical.
While these concerns may have applied to older technologies that relied on maintaining fragile and expensive hardware and software, new interactive whiteboard technology like the ShadowSense technology found in TeamBoards eliminates such problems. The primary benefits of Baanto ShadowSense equipped interactive whiteboards include:
- The ability to operate 24-hours a day, 7 days a week in a classroom or conference room, with a 200,000 hour product lifespan.
- Plug and play connectivity with no dedicated hardware or software to worry about losing or upgrading.
- The ability to scale the touch screen size without large incremental costs
- Unparalleled durability that can withstand tough classroom environments and operate in harsh fluorescent lighting, with dusty and smudged surfaces, and other objects or residue blocking the touch surface.
Interactive whiteboard technology has come a long way and continues to offer students and teams everywhere the tools they need to learn and solve problems in groups effectively. If you would like to find out more about how Baanto and our partners are offering cost-effective, best-in-class interactive whiteboards that scale from 8” to 257”, get in touch here.