Whiteboards are common teaching tools in the classroom – but they’re not just for teachers, notes a media specialist in a Florida grade 6-12 school.
“Whiteboards and other writable surfaces are a fantastic addition to any learning space,” writes the media specialist, Diana Rendina. “They can help to support collaboration and creativity, and they’re just plain fun.”
In a blog posted entitled “3 Reasons You Need a Whiteboard in Your Library or Classroom,” Rendina advises that in addition to a whiteboard for a teacher’s use, a classroom should have one or more dry erase boards specifically for student use.
“Adding a variety of different whiteboard surfaces can help students to see that these spaces are their spaces,” she writes.
Those dry erase surfaces can be on wall-mounted whiteboards, mobile whiteboards, or other surfaces such as tables or walls paneled with dry erase material. (See the EVERWhite products page for whiteboard options for education.)
The student-dedicated whiteboards especially help students who are visual learners, she says.
“When students are working on a project together, it often helps them to write or draw their ideas” she says. “Being able to see their outline written out, drawing up a draft of the robot they’re planning to build, writing out the problem area of their code — all of these can be especially helpful to visual learners. While they could write out these ideas on paper, whiteboards allow students to quickly write, erase, and rewrite what they’re working on and give them a larger space to work out ideas.”
Read more about her suggestions for having student-dedicated whiteboards in a classroom or library at her blog at ideas.demco.com.
Dan Griffin is general manager of EVERWhite, a U.S. manufacturer and seller of whiteboards and tack boards used for teaching, coaching, planning, collaboration and tracking. Along with his expertise in the use of whiteboards, Dan excels in leadership, new product development, business operations, continuous improvement and product marketing. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, with a focus on marketing, from Temple University.
