This page contains useful links for using the IWB in the Classroom as well as a short website description and practical advice. It also contains the same links for classrooms with a projector, wireless mouse and keyboard or simply a digital projector.

I have an ebeam IWB in my classroom which is equipped with very basic software. Developing your own flip-charts, lessons etc. can be time consuming.  I find that the Internet is one of the best places to source ready made IWB resources that can be used on any IWB. I have been using the IWB for 2 years now and I have found the following websites excellent in a large class of 30 children.  The ease of use and the colourful images appeal to children.

• Roy: Tale of a Singing Zebra
   http://www.roythezebra.com/. This is a delightful nine part guided reading story about following your dreams, making friends and seeking adventure. The online story has been developed to make learning to read enjoyable and fun for emerging readers. Use the story with your interactive whiteboard or computer, at school or at home. My class loved this website. We used this website for guided reading over the space of a month. They loved the related worksheets at the end of the reading. We were able to show these on the IWB. The chidlren could see the worksheet clearly (no photocopying required!) and for corrections the children were able to use the stylus pen to annotate on the PDF document and write in the answers. To finish off the lesson everyday we did an interactive reading game e.g alphabetical order, High Frequency Words (Days, Months, Numbers and Colours), Phonics, rhyming words.
  

• iboard player
  http://www.tes.iboard.co.uk/player/index.htm
  This iboard player is a highly visual, free to use resource for the IWB. i-board is an open-ended, visual resource for learning dialogues. It is suitable for lower primary. Many of the resources are very self explanatory so little guidance is needed from the teacher. Children enjoy working in groups on this. This works well in stations teaching. The literacy area allows children to work e.g. on story boarding a well know fairytale. Children can drag and drop characters and props to create stories. This works well in a group setting.
  Useful links from here for stations and explanations:
  http://www.tes.iboard.co.uk/activity/3460  – A Day at the Beach  – Sentences
  http://www.tes.iboard.co.uk/activity/3454 – A Day at the Park – Sentences
  http://www.tes.iboard.co.uk/activity/3457 – A Day in the Country – Sentences
  http://www.tes.iboard.co.uk/activity/32418 – Cinderella Storyboard (groups of children can work on different scenes and at the end they have a story created to be read as a class)
  http://www.tes.iboard.co.uk/activity/32421 – The Gingerbreadman Storyboard
  http://www.tes.iboard.co.uk/activity/32425 – Goldilocks Storyboard
  http://www.tes.iboard.co.uk/activity/32426  – The Little Red Hen Storyboard
  http://www.tes.iboard.co.uk/activity/32427 – The Three Little Pigs Storyboard
  http://www.tes.iboard.co.uk/activity/32643 – – Scramble
  http://www.tes.iboard.co.uk/activity/2606 – Make worksearches for the IWB – The children like this one to collaborate and make a wordsearch on a topic and then work together to find the words
  http://www.tes.iboard.co.uk/activity/2960 -Make words. Children make words and teacher can ask them to read them off.
• Topmarks
  http://www.topmarks.co.uk/Interactive.aspx
  Topmaks is an excellent website for children of all ages. The resources also lead to other useful websites that are interactive for whole class lessons or for children working in small groups.
  The literacy side contains interactive elements for letters and sounds, words and spellings, punctuation, learning to read and writing stories.  
• Crickweb
  http://www.crickweb.co.uk/
  This is an excellent website for large, colourful, child friendly resources. There are 190 free to use educational interactive resources for Primary Schools.I often use this website in station teaching as things are very self explanatory and children enjoy this. The website offers two main levels Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2. For 2nd class I usually use a mixture of stage one and two.
  For those of your with Promethean software on the IWB there are ready made flip-charts here.Useful links from here for stations and explanations:
  http://www.crickweb.co.uk/countdown.html
  My class love countdown. The music is the same. I usually get one child to be the countdown master and click on vowels or consonants, the other child is the contestant, The children write down the letters in their copy, the countdown master clicks on the clock and the music comes on. The aim is to get as may words as possible. The countdown master also writes the words using the IWB pen on the screen. A prize is sometimes given for the best word.
  http://www.crickweb.co.uk/assets/resources/flash.php?&file=aliens 
  Children use imaginative dialogue to create a scene where aliens come from outer-space to a school yard. Great for creative story telling
  http://www.crickweb.co.uk/assets/resources/flash.php?&file=aroundyourhome 
  Children work as a team to label the correct household object to it’s description
  http://www.crickweb.co.uk/assets/resources/flash.php?&file=wordorder1
  Children put words in alphabetical order
  http://www.crickweb.co.uk/classroom-english.html
  There are many interactive labelling games. These work well informally in the morning. I find that children with limited vocabulary enjoy working on this with a partner.
  http://www.crickweb.co.uk/assets/resources/flash.php?&file=alienhangman 
  For some fun in the morning I let the children work on this alien hangman
• Word/Name picker
  http://classtools.net/education-games-php/fruit_machine/
  The children in my class love this word picker. Sometimes when I am looking for children to do a job I will paste their names in here and get a child to pull the handle using the pen. A random name appears with an applause. The child then removes the name from the list.
  I have found this tool useful for explaining new words. I will often get a child to use the teaching laptop to enter a spelling list. The class are divided into two teams. A volunteer comes for ward from e.g. Team 1. The handle is pulled and the word is shown. The team can give the volunteer three guesses to what the word is. There are no points for an incorrect answer. The word is removed by a child and the game continues.
  You can also get a code to insert this to your blog so children can play at home or develop their own lists. They can save the list for use again on the desktop.
• Create your own superhero
  http://marvel.com/create_your_own_superhero. 
  This works well for character descriptions.  Children love working in groups to create this superhero. They can then email it to the class email for printing or for storing. They can also create a link for the blog from here. Generally I use this for stations and the IWB.

PC LINKS

• Wordle
  http://www.wordle.net/
  This is a great tool for creating poster of words studies. I use it alot for phonics revision. See wordle tag for children’s examples.
  
• Wordsearch creation
  http://www.schoolhousetech.com/WordSearch/Default.aspx . This  is a great free download for both the teacher and the children fo create wordsearches. It is free to download and use. I often allow children to use this programme to create their own worsearches. They can then print them off for use in the station. Worsearches can also be saved so at the end of the year there is a great bank created. When you download this free Vocabulary Worksheet Factory Lite you aslo get 3 other options  – Missing letters text,  scrambled sentences and a spelling study sheet.There is also an option to purchase Vocabulary Worksheet Factoryfor €49 which contain challenging vocabulary activities to advance and strengthen basic language skills. Select from 30 unique worksheet activities including word shapes, crosswords, word searches, decoding and matching activities, word jumbles, cloze and punctuation exercises, alphabetical order, cryptograms, and more. You can download an evaluation version for 30 days( http://www.schoolhousetech.com/Vocabulary/Download.aspx)
• Online Story Time
  http://www.storylineonline.net/: This is a lovely website children can listen to stories in groups or as a whole class story time. The stories are told by American actors but the graphics are lovely and the children enjoy them.
• Interactive game Creator
  http://classtools.net/education-games-php/quiz/
  Sample activity: IWB Quizzes based on their reading
  Project organisation:The children are divided into pairs. The children have to work together to plan a topic of interest and be able to create an interactive quiz. Once the pairs decide a topic they write out 5 questions each for homework. The next day they meet and discuss the questions. They then work in pairs to type their questions in word. Once the questions are typed they are copied into the website and saved as a html file in a folder. These are uploaded to the blog and can be played with the children during the day or used as an interactive activity with the IWB stations. Children can also play these at home once they are uploaded on the blog.
• Starfall
  http://www.starfall.com/n/level-c/index/play.htm?f
  This is an excellent  website to use as a whole class demonstration using the IWB or for children in groups on the PC. There are lots of lovely stories to read as well as help for emergent readers.
• Content Generator
  http://www.contentgenerator.net/
  Children or Teachers can generate their own e-Learning quizzes, games and applications through our custom software – no coding required.
  Project Idea: The children can work in groups/pair perhaps on the PC Station to create quizzes. They can save their quizzes/games and challenge a group on the IWB to do the quiz.
  Some of the content has to be purchased however the free versions are equally as good. They include:Multiple Choice Quiz Generator http://www.contentgenerator.net/multiplechoice/default.shtml
  Match-up quiz generator http://www.contentgenerator.net/matchup/default.shtml
  Fling the Teacher generator http://contentgenerator.net/fling/default.shtml