Interactive Boards

QOMO Interactive Boards: a Turning Point in Our Education

Teaching has become a bigger challenge through time, due to the amount of technological attractions that captivate our students’ attention, interest, and time. Day after day, schools have competed with challenging and innovative discoveries that attract students and embellish them out of the classrooms. No matter how creative educators may be, or how many different activities and games are planned for the class; if only traditional tools such as boards, posters, pencils, books, and notebooks are used: classes will be conventional and habitual; nothing compared to the fascinating world of technology out there. If there would only be a way to compete with all that technology that charms our students’ minds!

Technology is definitely a powerful tool, hard to overcome or eliminate , in regards to education. But the good news is that, instead of looking for strategies to fight it, we can include this wonderful tool in our classrooms, and use it to improve our classes.

This is why, in 2010, New Hope School in Costa Rica decided to introduce technology in the classrooms, equipping each of the classrooms with Qomo interactive boards. These touch-sensitive boards have become the turning point in our teaching-learning process; providing variety, color, sound, and dynamism to the classes; and also better prepared students for college and beyond.

Pupils welcomed these boards with wide-open eyes and arms, full or expectation, excitement, and eagerness to learn. Educators; on the other hand, experienced many different feelings from joy and enthusiasm to nervousness and uncertainty to the unknown. With this mixture of feelings, the challenge was faced and everybody started to work hard to get adjusted to the change, and to take advantage of the novelty the interactive boards represented in the classrooms.

Now, wonderful results have been observed and we can say a new era has begun in our educational work at New Hope.

Interactive Classes

All educators agree that their classes have improved with the use of Qomo interactive boards. There is more time to practice, many on line resources can be used, and theory can be summarized and prepared ahead of time. Some of the activities and tools interactive boards allow to use in class are: videos, power point presentations, interactive games, software that comes with the textbooks, songs, on-line resources, karaoke, internet resources, and many more. Classes have become non-traditional, innovative, engaging, challenging, and attractive to learners.

Enthusiastic Students

The use of technology is not new for our youngsters, since most of them have access to computers, electronic games and internet at home. However, it is certainly an innovation in the classroom!
Teachers report students to be more attentive, willing to participate, more interested and highly motivated in class, happier and eager to discover what is new in each lesson, and anxious to contribute with their ideas and “expertise” in the technological field. Now we definitely have more enthusiastic students!

Challenged Teachers

Educators recognize all the benefits the boards have brought to their work and agree they have given a positive impact on the way of teaching. They accept it has been a challenge for them, since the traditional way of planning and resources used to teach had to be changed radically. Nonetheless, now teachers have a much bigger array of tools to develop and practice the topics to be taught, everything is prepared ahead so class time is used wisely; the use of color, sound and animation catches the pupils’ attention, making the class easier to teach and the groups easier to manage. Getting technology acquainted, and taking extra time to explore a whole new world of possibilities is a little cost compared to the great benefits interactive boards bring to the class, teachers recognize.

The use of technology engages pupils in each lesson, empowers them to learn without boundaries, and makes education a fascinating experience. New Hope School decided to jump ahead and make the difference in education with the use of technology in the classroom. Results have been awesome; we are definitely on the right track!

Written by M.A. Yorleni Romero
New Hope School, Heredia, Costa Rica

Note: information to support ideas expressed in this article were gathered through a written questionnaire answered by teachers using the interactive boards.