The Interactive Whiteboards, Pedagogy and Pupil Performance ...

colleagues or using commercial software. This suggests that the use of IWBs in
departments still rests mainly at the level of the individual teacher, with less evidence
of department-wide schemes of work or shared departmental resource banks being
built up. However, this is consistent with the point in the policy cycle reached at the
time of the survey.
Figure 1: Percentage of teachers using IWB resources
Prepared own resources 78%
Used internet websites
64%
Used colleague's resources
45%
Used commercial software
42%
The teacher survey found that teachers who describe themselves as beginners are
considerably less likely to have made use of the external IWB resources that are
available. They are generally not yet accessing National Curriculum materials,
subject specific software, search engines and subject websites. This suggests that
beginners may be less confident in their use of ICT generally. The fact that they are
particularly reliant on creating their own resources may lead to a more conservative
use, and is consistent with the expectation derived from the literature that in the first
instance IWB use will match onto existing pedagogic practice.
5.2.1 Subject Specific Software
Just under a third of teachers (30%) reported that they find it difficult to find suitable
IWB resources (see figure 2a). The same number of teachers report that they find it
easy to find resources. English teachers were most likely to find it difficult to access
IWB resources. It is unclear however if this reflects a lower availability of IWB
resources for English teaching or simply lower technological confidence amongst
English teachers. In our sample, the Maths and Science teachers are most likely to
report that they find getting IWB resources straightforward (see figure 2b).
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