June 6th, 2020 by Marianna Chade

Much more than a gizmo — the science behind digital whiteboards

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We are learning to trust technology more and more every day, and with countless aspects of our lives. Technology proves to be extra helpful in education. Find out why digital whiteboards work.

There’s no longer much doubt that modern tech solutions help us in many ways, but they can also sometimes seem daunting, potentially dangerous, or at the very least, unnecessary. This is mostly just because there are so many things out there that are new that we must understand and learn, and this process can be difficult and time-consuming. But adapting to today’s rapidly-changing reality pays off. Especially when the tech you’re using was created based on decades of solid research.

source: Giphy.com

Digital whiteboards modernizing education

Teachers are among the most creative people out there. They must be, otherwise kids of any age just wouldn’t pay any attention to them. And as every teacher knows, words alone are rarely enough to explain a concept in a way that gets through to everybody. In these strange and challenging times, a static whiteboard or a flipchart might not do the trick anymore.

The average attention span of children is: 7 minutes for 2-year-olds, 9 minutes for 3-year-olds, 12 minutes for 4-year-olds, and 14 minutes for 5-year-olds. […] Common estimates for sustained attention to a freely chosen task range from about 5 minutes for a two-year-old child, to a maximum of around 20 minutes in older children and adults.

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Modern education should be distinguished by lessons that can be widely understood, not just by the select few kids who are better at a particular subject. To become truly modern, teaching needs to be adapted to students’ individual skills and needs.

By now, most teachers around the world are well aware that we learn better if we have both: pictures and words to go with them. Listening to materials on the topic at the same time is helpful as well. The ideal material is a mix of both visual and audio materials and guides the student through the learning process with the invaluable help of images. This all-encompassing approach can be achieved with explainer videos recorded with digital whiteboard.

Interactive whiteboard for enhancing multimedia learning

When you look at how teachers work around the world, you see them speaking, gesturing, writing and sketching on boards or flipcharts, and repeating key concepts over and over in hopes of passing their knowledge on as well as possible. And that’s all good — but we’re here to tell it can be easier.

Digital whiteboards for enhancing learning and teaching

The need for new ways of teaching has recently become particularly apparent, with the whole world suddenly facing an enormous shift from the stationary school model to the remote one. Even if a certain technology — such as our own Explain Everything whiteboard app — was already helpful to many educational institutions, it has now become essential for effective remote teaching. The science is on our side, too, and we’re happy to prove it!

The digital whiteboard allows to:

  • Mix verbal with visual, which increases people’s understanding.
  • Create visual metaphors – using multiple representations of one problem helps to provide better ways of learning to more students.
  • Create pre-training videos that have been confirmed to increase learning in the case of more complex topics.
  • Support explanations with hand-drawings, as they’re more authentic and eye-catching than any more sophisticated representations.
  • Collaborate no matter the distance, which is helpful for any kind of group work.

Learn more!

Visual metaphor

Watch the webinar we hosted to learn and see how the science can be put in practice:

Learn how to record explainer videos and share them anytime. Get the free training