Date of Award
6-2015
Culminating Project Type
Thesis
Degree Name
English: Teaching English as a Second Language: M.A.
Department
English
College
College of Liberal Arts
First Advisor
John Madden
Second Advisor
Choonkyong Kim
Third Advisor
Robert Raymond
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Abstract
The growth in popularity of interactive whiteboards (IWBs) in K-12 classrooms in the United States has been immense over the course of the last fifteen years (Hennessy & London, 2012; Shenton & Pagett, 2007; Sundberg, Spante, & Stenlund, 2012). Both teachers and students have expressed favorable reactions to IWB implementation into the classroom. There have been a number of different studies surveying the thoughts and feelings of teachers and students on their use of IWBs. However, there has not been an interview-based study that looks at the viewpoints of teachers from the upper Midwest. The aim of this study is to investigate the opinions and attitudes of four ESL teachers on their use of IWBs in a K-12 classroom setting. The four participants’ answers revealed that they believe IWBs to be a very powerful, useful tool to have in the classroom. However, they did not feel they received adequate training with the technology. Therefore, for the IWB technology to be used more efficiently and effectively in schools, more training must be provided for the educators.
Recommended Citation
O’Donnell, Casey M., "Getting On Board: Investigating the Opinions and Attitudes of ESL Teachers on the Use of Interactive Whiteboards in the ESL Classroom" (2015). Culminating Projects in English. 16.
https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/engl_etds/16
Comments/Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge a number of individuals who helped me complete my thesis. First, I would like to thank my chairperson, Dr. John Madden, and my other two committee members, Dr. Choonkyong Kim and Dr. Robert B. L. Raymond, for giving me so much guidance and direction during the entire process. All three members were incredibly helpful in providing feedback, offering different perspectives on technology use, and suggesting key referential texts. Second, I would like to thank Anis Rahman for his generous friendship over the past three years. His keen sense of humor made the demanding academic load a little lighter. Finally, I would like to thank my loving parents for all of their kindness and support. I cannot think of two better role models a person could have.