So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

So, the guide for this entry says:

Your final journal entry should be a substantial one that reflects on your experiences in the course. Ask yourself,

• What do I understand differently now?
• How has my thinking on unit topics either changed or solidified?
• What, based on my professional experience placement, works in theory but not in practice?
• Where are there still gaps?
• What will I need to watch out for in my teaching?

So, hmm, what do I understand differently? Well, I've seen a range of things on the Internet used in a lot more useful ways than I had seen previously, and used in ways which are not about the ego of the person writing or in the video. Twitter is a prime example of this, previously it had seemed like a useless tool that people used for self promotion. Now, after doing the research on it I find that there is more too it than that, some people use it for communicating ideas and group problem solving.

Where else has my understanding changed? Well, the educational use of the Internet. I had thought of it in the past as a research mechanism (which is what my mentoring teacher thinks of it as well), but I have been shown a wide range of ways to use it in and out of the classroom. However, I am still not sure how most of it can be used in the mathematics classroom. So I understand the potential, the risks and the appropriate way of doing things - all I'm lacking is how to apply it (which is what I'm missing in other subjects as well).

I've also seen the youth digital literacy issue in my classes as well, student's who know how to do things, but don't really understand what to do. We gave out a year 12 assignment which involves using the Great Circle Mapper, and many students didn't like the idea of using an online tool or submitting part of their assignment electronically. {Aside: of course, some students weren't clear that if they keep going east or west around the world they will get back to where they started ...} There's a lot talked about teacher expectations of students and how it effects outcomes, but no one talks about the expectations which students have about their education and how they have difficulty when things go against that.

Also, interactive whiteboards are an interesting issue. The one that irks me the most is that the computer has to be started, logged in and all that rubbish (network security programs) needs to finish before you can start loading the IWB software, an my mentor can tend to leave it to the last minute to start the process (I don't have a password). There is also the essential requirement of having an ordinary whiteboard and whiteboard marker as backup, because you never quite know when the power it going to drop out on you (thankfully we had a pen that lesson, the students were disappointed that the lesson didn't stop though). But its been good to be able to prepare stuff to display: it turns out I have a tendency to make spelling mistakes when I'm thinking ahead of myself, something the year 12s were quite happy to pick up on.

I think there are gaps everywhere, some I know about (timing in lessons, making decent plans and great resources), and other's I don't. Actually, this reminds me of Rumsfeld:

there are known "knowns." There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don't know.

Its a great, insightful statement that one, its a pity the media jumped on him for being an idiot when he said it. But it applies here, there are things I know I don't know and I am sure there are things I don't even realise I don't know.

As for this blog, well, I haven't used it since the last assignment was due. So the title was picked deliberately.



As for stuff I need to watch out for: I am my own worst enemy.

Protecting Identity with Avatars

 My magazine article is done. However to keep is pretty looking I've hosted it on Scribd. Either read below or read at Protecting Identity with Avatars. Downloading is also available.

Summary 3: Does Twitter have a role in education?

Twitter is described as a microblogging and social networking service in which users communicate with everyone by short messages (“Twitter”, n.d.). This description I find interesting, as I am certain the term “microblogging” did not exist when I first heard of Twitter in 2007, when a colleague described it as “Facebook status updates without Facebook”. This lead to a view that Twitter, with its “What are you doing?” prompt, was about “solipsism and sound-bite communication” (academHacK, 2008). However the use of Twitter has evolved, and is now used for professional and social interaction and communication. To reflect this, Twitter's promt was changed to “What's happening?” in November 2009. The question is, is there a role for Twitter in education?

Such a question can only be answered by knowing more about Twitter itself. When a user joins Twitter they create a profile from which they can start following other users and sending messages. The messages, called “tweets”, are short messages up to 140 characters in length. This limit is the same character limit on SMS messages for mobile phones, as users have the option to tweet to and from their phone. Tweets can contain a hashtag, a word or conjoined words preceded by the # character, to make all tweets containing that hashtag easier to find through search tools. When a user “follows” someone, they are essentially listening to that person's tweets. A user will also have followers, people who are listening to their tweets. The default privacy level of a Twitter account is that it is open to all, any internet user is capable of observing the profile and all tweets of an individual user. The alternative privacy level makes the twitterer's profile and tweets private only to approved followers.

The two big ideas for using Twitter in education are professional development and as a communication backchannel. The professional development use revolves around using Twitter to network with educators locally or around the world. By tweeting an idea, an educator can receive feedback from their network, in the form of comments or links to related content. Feedback could also be received from people outside of the network, such as professionals in the particular field of the idea. The educator is also able to reply to other peoples' ideas with their own thoughts. The Twitter4Teachers wiki (http://twitter4teachers.pbworks.com/) contains a large list of educators using Twitter, sorted by subject area. This list is publicly editable, and some teachers have included their location (I am now following three Australian maths teachers to see what they tweet), with some even including the name of their school. Professional discussions also occur through hashtag discussions, such as #edchat.

A backchannel is a communication channel which is used to provide feedback and ask questions of a presenter while they are giving a presentation (“Backchannel”, n.d.). Twitter is used at conferences as a backchannel, with hashtags provided to group the discussion. Currently, the ACEC: Digital Diversity conference in Melbourne is using the hashtag #acec2010 (http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23acec2010), however the discussion has the most relevance to conference participants.

Twitter backchannels have been used in higher education institutions with some success. At one university students use the backchannel to ask questions, give comments and post related material, with the Twitter feed being shown during the lecture (Young, 2009). The professor has the ability to reply to questions or comments and explore related material provided by students. A different university has found that student participation in lecturers with large student numbers increased when they used a Twitter backchannel (Ferenstein, 2010). The university provided the option for non-connected students to give teacher assistants hand written thoughts and questions to be placed on the Twitter conversation. Participation in the Twitter conversation enabled students who did not like participating in vocal discussions to ask questions and contribute (Ferenstein, 2010; Young, 2009). Interestingly, discussion on the Twitter backchannel does not stop when the lecture stops, it continues going, particularly when “something came up outside of class that reminded them [students] of material from class time” (academHack, 2008, para 4).

Gallicano (2010) suggests using a Twitter backchannel only for large classes, as there are different techniques available for building relationships in small classes, and providing a guarantee to the students that questions on the backchannel will receive a response. These are important points, a student will not use a communication tool if they feel that they will be the only person using it. By guaranteeing they will get a response, students will be more likely to start using the tool and then start answering each others questions, leading to collaborative learning. There is then the possibility of positive interaction with external participants in the conversation, providing alternative input and feedback.

A common alternative use of Twitter in the classroom is using the open communication of Twitter to get a “sense of how varied are the things people are doing around the globe” (academHacK, 2008, para 6). This can be achieved through a tool such as Twitter's Public Timeline (http://twitter.com/public_timeline), which shows tweets as they happen, or TwitterVision (http://beta.twittervision.com/), which shows the public timeline tweets on a world map (for location specified tweets). A different option is that students, individually or as a class, could follow important people or organisations to receive updates on what they are doing or thinking. With the range of people and organisations on Twitter, these could provide an excellent source of information. However, the source might not always provide useful information, for example its one thing to find out when a space walk at the International Space Station is going to start (NASA, 2010b), but its another to find out which song was used for waking up the astronauts (NASA, 2010a).

Twitter has been used in an interesting collaborative task in which students from across the United States of America and Canada and classes from the United Kingdom, China, Qatar and Thailand produced a story (manyvoices, 2008). They used a single Twitter account and added to the story in one hundred and forty, 140 character pieces. Any online collaboration tool could have been used for this task, but Twitter was most likely used for the character limit. Other attempts at using Twitter in the classroom have had mixed success; Russell (2008) reported that her class enjoyed a task to use Twitter over a 48 hour time period, where as Melander (2008) reported that her class did transition from blogs to Twitter well. My concern over the previous two reports is that there was no objective or direction in their use of Twitter.

The privacy options of Twitter make a tricky situation for education. By opting to hide one's tweets, the advantages of contact with the wider community are lost. However it does mean that the privacy of the individual students is maintained in a safe environment. It may be that the use of Twitter in classes is decided at a school level where parent and teacher community can come to the most appropriate decision for that community. There are other microblogging services available for closed communities, such as Edmodo, Yammer and ShoutEm (Ritchie, 2009).

Twitter is a communication tool which, when used properly, can be used to assist with an interactive, participative and collaborative class. However, determining the way in which Twitter is used for a particular class may be difficult and time consuming. Even if Twitter can not be used in class, it still a extensive research for educator personal development and networking.



References

AcademHacK (2008, January 23) Twitter for Academia [web log post]. Retrieved from http://academhack.outsidethetext.com/home/2008/twitter-for-academia/

Backchannel (n.d.) In Wikipedia. Retrieved April 9, 2010 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backchannel

Ferenstein, G. (2010, March 1) How Twitter in the Classroom is Boosting Student Engagement, Mashable. Retrieved from http://mashable.com

Gallicano, T (2010, January 30) In-Class Tweeting in a Large Lecture Class [web log post]. Retrieved from http://prpost.wordpress.com/2010/01/30/in-class-tweeting-in-a-large-lecture-class/

manyvoices (2008) @manyvoices. Retrieved from http://manyvoices.wikispaces.com/

Melander, N. (2008, December 5) 14 Days of Twitter Part One: “I Hate Twitter” [web log post]. Retrieved from http://digitalmindsblogger.blogspot.com/2008/12/14-days-of-twitter-part-one-i-hate.html

NASA (2010a, April 9) Wake up song at 8:51 p.m. EDT... [Twitter status update]. Retrieved from http://twitter.com/NASA/status/11853458636

NASA (2010b, April 9) STS-131 first spacewalk began at 1:31a ET... [Twitter status update]. Retrieved from http://twitter.com/NASA/status/11865719769

Ritchie, M (2009, April 24) Chirping about Twitter, TES Connect. Retrieved from: http://www.tes.co.uk

Russell, K.M. (2008, January 17) “48 Hours of Twitter” class assignment [web log post]. Retrieved from http://teachingpr.blogspot.com/2008/01/48-hours-of-twitter-class-assignment.html

Twitter (n.d.) In Wikipedia. Retrieved April 7, 2010 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter

Young, J (2009, April 8) Professor Encourages Students to Pass Notes During Class – via Twitter, The Chronicle. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com

Summary 2: Preventing and Reacting to Cyber-Bullying

Introduction
Cyber-bullying is a dark side of living in a virtual world. Here we shall consider the preventative strategies and reactive measures that can be taken to minimise the effects of cyber-bullying, linking to the resources that are available.

What is Cyber-bullying?
Cyber-bullying is best defined by the quote by Bill Belsey, it is bullying which “involves the use of information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior by an individual or group, that is intended to harm others” (as cited in “Cyberbullying”, n.d.). It is bullying which occurs over mobile phones, instant messaging services, social networks, blogs, wikis, online games, the whole smorgasbord of online services which exist today and can be in the form of text, pictures, video or a combination thereof (Bamford, 2004).

The acts of cyber-bullying can include teasing, flaming (sending messages intended to provoke a heated emotional response), defamation, exclusion, sending unwanted messages and masquerading (where the bully acts like the target) (Bamford, 2004; Reach Out Australia, 2009). All of these acts have equivalents which can occur in the real world. The anonymity of internet communication could lead a person to think that anything is possible and will not be reflected onto their non-virtual lives (Bullying. No Way!, 2009b). Additionally, the loss of body language in online communication reduces the level of feedback that can be provided, creating an avenue for continual miscommunication to occur if the loss is not replaced by other means of communication (Bamford, 2004).

The effects of cyber-bullying on the victim include lowering self-esteem, frustration, feeling scared or angry, stress, anxiety, unhappiness, depression, suicidal thoughts and may make the victim become a cyber-bully (Beyond Blue, 2009; “Cyberbullying, n.d.).

Incidences of cyber-bullying are actually quite common. The Wikipedia article “cyberbullying” (n.d.) reports on several, USA based statistics and the largest proportion of survey participants that had experienced cyber-bullying was 43%. In a different survey 58% of children stated that something mean or hurtful had been said to them and the same proportion had not told their parents about that something mean had been said. This survey could be easily be misconstrued, as “something hurtful” could, in some cases, been unintentional harm. That children are not reporting cyber-bullying is a cause for concern. Reach Out Australia (2009) states that reports of cyber-bullying in Australia have been increasing since 2006 and that “56 per cent [of survey respondents] thought it was easy to get bullied online”.

Preventative Strategies
Giving the perception that its easy to be cyber-bullied, the main tool to prevent cyber-bullying is education. Education about the technologies and what should be placed on it. Also, its not just educating children, educators and parents need to know about the technologies for their own use as well as for monitoring children.

The ThinkUKnow websites for Australia (http://www.thinkuknow.org.au/) and the United Kingdom (http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/) provide excellent, concise summaries of the different types of online interactive technologies that are available and information on how to keep control of the information that is placed there. One of the best pieces of advice they have on the Australian site (ThinkUKnow, n.d. a) is

If you aren't happy for the photo to be passed around your dinner table, or shown at your school assembly, it shouldn't be posted online.

If they place that inappropriate school assembly photo online they unintentionally provide material for cyber-bullying to occur. Education of appropriate use and behaviour is a key preventative strategy.

Parents can help prevent cyber-bullying if they "cultivate and maintain an open, candid line of communication with your children" and "establish that all rules for interacting with people in real life also apply for interacting online" (Hinduja & Patchin, 2009). Restricting internet access or using external filtering is detrimental to the child's willingness to communicate. Instead parents should work with the child in self-filtering content and role-modelling appropriate behaviours (Bamford, 2004; Bullying. No Way!, 2009a).

Reactive Measures
When someone is being cyber-bullied, the following is best course of action in the order the steps should be taken.

1. Take evidence of the bullying action as it occurs. This will help with the other steps.
2. Do not respond to the bully. Without a response, they will not know if their action had the desired effect.
3. Block the bully from that communication system.
4. Talk to a trusted adult– a parent, a teacher, the school counsellor.

Remember that if the cyber-bullying involves threats, it should be reported to the police immediately.

Taking evidence of cyber-bullying is important as it creates a record of the bullying as it occurs (Reach Out, 2009). For most internet services a screen shot is best as it records the incident as it appeared when it happened. As most operating system desktops display the time in one corner of the screen, the time of the incident is recorded, however the date will need to be recorded separately. If the cyber-bullying occurred by email, making a record of the full email headers will help the appropriate authorities track the source of the email. The headers will need to be copied separately from the body of an email, they are email specific and will be lost upon forwarding. The Cyberbullying Research Centre (http://www.cyberbullying.us/resources.php) provides instruction sheets on how to take screen shots in Windows and Apple (without specifying which Apple version) and how to retrieve email header information in a wide range of email programs.

Blocking the cyber-bully is an action which is specific to the communication system in use. All instant message and social networking technologies have the option to remove and block people from their contact list (ThinkUKnow, n.d. b). If the bullying occurred by email, the victim's internet service provider has mechanisms to block email from certain addresses and should be contacted regarding who to forward the email to with header information. Mobile phone service providers have similar options for blocking message and calls from particular phone numbers (Reach Out, 2009). Online forums and blog post comments allow users to flag posts or comments as inappropriate, altering the owner of the site that material needs to be check and removed. Other online services have different mechanisms for dealing with cyber-bullying and other unwanted content which are site specific, but can be easily dealt with by contacting the site owners (ThinkUKnow, n.d. b). It should be remembered that the anonymity which cyber-bullies use to hide themselves can easily be used by a victim to protect themselves.

Most importantly, the victim of cyber-bullying must talk to someone. Parents (and teachers) who have established that they are open to discussion are excellent in this role (Bamford, 2004). If parents are not an option, there are a range of counselling services available in Australia. These include the telephone services Lifeline and the Kid's Help Line, or face to face services at headspace Centres (http://www.headspace.org.au) or the counselling officer in most schools. Talking about incidences of bullying is important as provides an outside view to dealing with the problem (Beyond Blue, 2009).

Conclusion
Cyber-bullying on the internet is an unfortunate occurrence, however there are steps people can take to minimise their exposure and chances of being bullied. Additionally, incidences of cyber-bullying can be reported, whether to the online service provider or to the police and should always be talked about.


References

Bamford, A (2004) Cyber-bullying. AHISA Pastoral Care National Conference 2004. Retrieved from http://www.coc.edu.au/site/_documents/ahisaconference-bamfordcyberbullying.pdf

Beyond Blue (2009) Information about cyberbullying webiste http://www.youthbeyondblue.com/2009/07/23/information-about-cyberbullying/

Bullying. No Way! (2009a) Do you think parents could help? webpage http://www.bullyingnoway.com.au/talkout/spotlight/cyberBullyingParents.shtml

Bulling. No Way! (2009b) Man .. I never realised webpage http://www.bullyingnoway.com.au/talkout/spotlight/cyberBullyingConsequences.shtml

Cyberbullying (n.d.) In Wikipedia. Retrieved March 16, 2010 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber-bullying

Hinduja, S. & Patchin, J. (2009). Preventing cyberbullying: Top ten tips for parents. Cyberbullying Research Center. Retrieved from http://www.cyberbullying.us/Top_Ten_Tips_Parents_Cyberbullying_Prevention.pdf

Reach Out Australia (2009) Cyberbullying: What is it and how to get help website http://au.reachout.com/find/articles/cyberbullying

ThinkUKnow (n.d. a) How to Stay in Control – Social Networking webpage accessed March 28, 2010 at http://www.thinkuknow.org.au/site/control_sn.asp

ThinkUKnow (n.d. b) Stop Cyber-bullying webpage accessed March 28, 210 at http://thinkuknow.org.au/site/stop.asp

Summary 1: Interactive Whiteboards for an Interactive Classroom

Interactive whiteboards are a information communication technology device which many Australian states have invested heavily in for use in school classrooms (White, 2009). It is not limited to Australia, with discussion on their classroom usage coming out of the United Kingdom and the United States of America. What are interactive whiteboards and how are they interactive in the classroom?

A report by the ACT Department of Education and Trainings (DET) (2005, p. 50) describes an interactive whiteboard as being a “whiteboard surface that displays digital files from a PC via a data projector”, stating that it can be used as an ordinary whiteboard with hand written content digitalised to and recorded by the attached personal computer. The report gives the interactive whiteboard the role of “facilitating the delivery of digital resources to the classroom, while providing for the maintenance of traditional board-centred classroom practice” (DET, 2005, p. 50).

The physical description given by the report is misleading, as until recently interactive whiteboards were categorised as either electromagnetic or resistive and often could not be written on with an standard whiteboard marker (“Interactive Whiteboard”, n.d.). Resistive interactive whiteboards use a pressure sensitive surface placed above a conductive backplate. When touched the surface comes into contact with the backplate and the location of the contact can be determined electronically. Electromagnetic interactive whiteboards contain a two dimensional grid of conductive wires underneath the surface of the board. To 'write' on the board, a special pen containing a coiled wire is brought close to the board, altering the current flowing through the grid of wires. This disturbance can then be detected and located electronically.

Both types of board have their advantages and disadvantages. With a resistive board any object which can cause a depression can be used as a pointing device or writing tool, however only one location can be determined at a time. Whereas electromagnetic boards can detect multiple signals at a time, however input is limited to the provided pens. The SMARTBoards from SMART Technologies (http://smarttech.com/) are an example of resistive interactive whiteboards while the interactive whiteboards from Numonics (http://www.interactivewhiteboards.com/www/) are electromagnetic boards.

New developments in interactive whiteboard technology include infrared lasers, infrared detectors, ultrasonic detectors (using ultrasonic emitting markers), or combinations of technologies (“Interactive Whiteboard”, n.d., mimio, n.d.). Some of these sensing technologies can be used to convert an existing whiteboard into an interactive whiteboard (mimio, n.d.). An interesting system uses the Wiimote, the controller for a Nintendo Wii console, as an infrared detector and tracker (Lee, n.d.). The Wiimote is directed towards the whiteboard and an infrared emitting pen is used as the marker. Using free hardware drivers the Wiimote can be connected to a PC via Bluetooth and several software packages can convert the output of the Wiimote to a location on the display (Bauer, 2009). This creates an simple interactive whiteboard if the components are available.

The interactive whiteboard is operational only when the digital projector and attached computer are running (Ryder, 2009). Within the computer's operating system the whiteboard acts as a display and the board marker can be used as an alternative to the computer mouse. The computer software provided with the interactive whiteboard is capable of displaying a range of content that can be moved about the board (Eaton, n.d.). Alternatively, the software can display a blank page which can be written on with the marker pen and recorded, with some systems providing handwriting recognition (Resources Materials and Technology Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (RMTCDHH), 2009; Ryder, 2009).

There are many suggested uses of interactive whiteboards in the classroom, with some of the suggestions from one source (RMTCDHH, 2009) as:

Use the built in maps to teach continents, oceans, countries, or states and capitals.
Brainstorming
Teaching students how to navigate the Internet
Teach editing skills using editing marks
Present presentations created by student or teacher
Save lessons to present to students who were absent

Of the suggestions given, only the last takes advantage of the unique features of an interactive whiteboard. Each of the other suggestions are ones which can be achieved by either a whiteboard or computer-digital projector combination on their own. In several articles and commentaries (Anderson, S.W., 2010; Eaton, n.d.), teachers state they initially use the interactive whiteboard the same way they taught with ordinary whiteboards and projectors. Ryder states that she first used an interactive whiteboard in her classroom as “an over-glorified whiteboard” (Ryder, 2009, para. 1). Eaton (n.d.) had similar experiences with getting students to move objects or to reveal the next display, feeling her students were not “actively learning and interacting, any more than they had done with the old style whiteboard” (Eaton, n.d., para. 4). One student interacting with the interactive whiteboard results in “an interactive kid but not an interactive classroom” (Anderson, S.W., 2010, para. 6).

Even with this style of one-on-one interaction, teachers were observing that students were interested and more motivated in the classroom (Eaton, n.d.). In the United Kingdom, the motivational increase provided by use of interactive whiteboards is one of reasons given for their widespread adoption. It is now suggested that the motivational boost only occurs while the technology is new and interesting for the students (Thornbury, 2009). Progressing from 'new' phase to one which results in an interactive classroom is imperative. Anderson (Anderson, S., 2010) suggests that teachers go through three phases when adopting the use of interactive whiteboards, being presentation style, limited interaction and classroom wide student-centred interaction. It is this third stage that is the most important, creating a classroom environment where students are engaged and interacting with each other, using the interactive whiteboard as a tool to investigate and express their ideas (Anderson, S.W., 2010; Thornbury, 2009).

Eaton (n.d.) reported she found that allowing her primary school students to work through prepared content on the interactive whiteboard as a group, rather than presenting it to them herself, has improved the collaboration between students and their understanding and retention of concepts and knowledge. Used in this manner, interactive whiteboards are facilitative tool for students social interaction, manipulation and creation of knowledge (Thornbury, 2009).

Interactive whiteboards provide a new way to display, create and interact with information in a classroom. However the technology can easily be used to continue the same pedagogical methods and will only be interactive if a classroom wide approach to using the technology is taken.


References

Anderson, S. (2010, January 8) Interactive Whiteboards-Sage On The Stage? [web log comment] Retrieved from: http://web20classroom.blogspot.com/2010/01/interactive-whiteboards-sage- on-stage.html

Anderson, S.W. (2010, January 6) Interactive Whiteboards-Sage On The Stage? [web log post] Retrieved from: http://web20classroom.blogspot.com/2010/01/interactive-whiteboards-sage- on-stage.html

Australian Capital Territory. Dept. of Education and Training. (2005) Emerging technologies [electronic resource] : a framework for thinking ACT Department of Education and Training : final report Dept. of Education and Training, Canberra. Retrieved from: http://www.det.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/74485/ACT_EmTech_Report_v1_2.pdf

Bauer, R. (2009, November 3) Affordable Wii Presentation [web log post] Retrieved from: http://flossed.org/node/92?q=node/92

Eaton (n.d.) The Changing Role of the Teacher in using the IWB. Retrieved from: http://www.durhamlea.org.uk/resources/index.html?_Action=viewrecord&_Id=1112

Interactive Whiteboard (n.d.) In Wikipedia. Retrieved March 11, 2010, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_whiteboard

Lee, J.C. (n.d.) Johnny Chung Lee > Projects > Wii. Retrieved from: http://johnnylee.net/projects/wii/

mimio. (n.d.) mimio Interactive Xi Bar and Stylus Overview Retrieved from: http://www.mimio.com/global/au/products/mimio_interactive/index.asp

Resources Materials and Technology Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.(2009) Interactive Whiteboards. Retrieved from: http://www.fsdb.k12.fl.us/rmc/tutorials/whiteboards.html

Ryder, P. (2009) An interactive whiteboard ... What next? Retrieved from: http://www.eqa.edu.au/site/aninteractivewhiteboardwhatnext.html

Thornbury, S. (2009, June 7) On interactive whiteboards (again!) [web log post] Retrieved from: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/blogs/scott-thornbury/interactive-whiteboards-again

White, G. (2009) The Interactive Whiteboard Revolution, Professional Educator, 8(4), p 48