When did classrooms get plasmas & water coolers?

Technology is on a whole new level...

With a background in television, I felt quite at home when I saw a huge plasma in every classroom. I was very used to plasmas and video walls and thought that maybe I'd brought a little bit of television with me :). At ITV, there's a television in every corner of every office, and even bigger plasmas feature in the reception areas. As well as showcasing the channel's content, the rolling news means that you're always across any breaking news. However, the 'plasmas' in every classroom were actually interactive whiteboards (IWB).

I very quickly had to become familiar with using the IWB and adjust to not being across breaking news until lunchtime :(. The IWB is a great tool for teaching, as you can write on it and annotate your slides. There's a rubber function, an undo button and a rainbow of pen options. Most boards come with a board pen, or you can simply use your finger. The rubber end of a pencil works well too :). 

Another fancy addition to the classroom was the visualiser. Not all schools are lucky enough to have them, but they're fantastic resources for teaching and learning. Anything under the visualiser appears on the IWB, so they're excellent for modelling or for highlighting pupils' work. I used it to show pupils how something should be done or set out, and it allowed me to set expectations. I showcased good examples of work under the visualiser, and pupils loved seeing their work on the IWB.

iPads were also commonplace in my school. Pupils used them during their computing lessons, and staff used them to photograph pupils and/or their work. Images were uploaded onto a shared drive and printed off to go into workbooks. Sometimes, photographs were put on the school website to showcase learning.

The whiteboard wasn't the only piece of kit that had been given a serious upgrade since my primary school days. To my amazement, the water fountain was no longer the fount of all water. It had been given a serious upgrade and morphed into something rather fancy. The commonly used watering hole was no longer providing an opportunity for disengaged pupils to leave their lessons, as its replacement was housed within the classroom. What could possibly replace the water fountain, I hear you say. Well, a water cooler with the choice of two temperatures. It was a perk that I rather enjoyed, especially during the summer term :). 

The filtered litres of H2O allowed pupils to fill their water bottles and stay hydrated. Water bottles in classrooms were another wow moment for me. Yes, pupils were always losing them, dropping them and leaving them in different places around the school. PE days were particularly common days for water bottles to mysteriously vanish.