ABSTRACT
I have heard it said, with regard to interactive whiteboards (IWBs), that ‘Never, in the field of Educational Technology, has so much equipment been used so effectively by so few.’ It is now six years since I helped produce an article for the Historical Association journal Primary History, ‘Questions you have always wanted to ask about using a whiteboard’ (Fewster, 2005). This article was published at a time when policymakers and manufacturers were making strong claims that ‘the use of IWBs can transform teachers’ practice’, and when the then Secretary of State for Education, Charles Clarke, was associating IWBs with ‘a learning revolution’ (Gillen et al., 2006: 1). IWBs thus had a considerable burden of expectation placed on them even as they were beginning to be installed in UK classrooms. Everyone, it seemed, was either getting an IWB in their classroom, or wanted one, among claims that teaching and learning would never be the same again.
