Interactive white board and dinner at friends question

[cagirlintexas]

First what is your take on interactive white boards?  All the classrooms at this school we are considering had them and they even had them in the library.  We are looking at the school for kindergarden for my son who is pretty much screen free.

Also how would you deal with this.  We are having dinner at co-worker of DH on Saturday and I can tell there kid watches a ton of TV.  Last time we were there for 10 minutes and they felt it necessary to turn on a movie.  Well the kids are going to have to be entrertain because we are suppose to get a briefing on security in Qatar.  How would you handle it.  I am thnking of bringing an ipod for DS with the only things we let him watch on it.  That or ask them to play barbie or something similar that wouldn't influence him at all.  Just stress that he will end up watching something that will have a negative influence on him.  Am I just over thinking this.

[petey44]

I'm going to address your questions in reverse order

For the dinner, you suggested bringing an Ipod with things you would let DS watch.  I'm assuming that means that there are things (shows, movies, whatever) that he has watched/is allowed to watch.  I think the Ipod idea is kind of isolating.  My suggestion would be to bring a movie that you would be ok with DS watching, and present it to the family upon arrival- like, "oh, DS wanted to bring this movie he loves to share with your kids while we're here!  This way they'll be occupied while we discuss security in Qatar."

As for the interactive white boards, I'm answering this one as a teacher.  We do use them to show informative clips, but we also use them with these programs that allow the students to have a better visual representation of certain concepts, and to try out new learning in an interactive way (the kid can use the marker to drag an apple to a tree, that sort of thing).  For kindergarten I would imagine the usage would lean more heavily towards those interactive programs. 

I teach at the upper-elementary level, and I would not show a clip or use a program longer than 20 minutes, simply because the kids would start to get bored and drift.  I would imagine the kindergarten teachers would use it even less frequently, and for shorter periods of time.  You could always ask a specific teacher at the school you're considering to explain his/her usage, and to show you some examples of what they use. 

My "take" on the whiteboards is that they can be helpful with getting kids to see a particular connection, or concept.  Especially with things like sentence structure, or math concepts.  But they're not the be-all and end-all of education, and need to be used in combination with other types of learning. 

[cagirlintexas]

good point about the video.  The only real thing we let him watch at this point is mighty machines or similar type program.  Basically just videos of real life construction vechiles.  I do have one of those videos so i will have him bring that.  Thanks for the info on the interactive white boards.  I was wondering how they were even used.  THat acutally doesn't sound to bad as long as its not overused.