Interactive blackboard software visualizing students\´ feedback-toward "i-room": classroom computerization

This paper explores the issues surrounding the use of an interactive blackboard as a teaching tool. A conceptual computerized learning environment termed "i-room" is proposed as a future technology deliverable, its objective being to provide students and teacher with the means to interact with each other in real time in a variety of ways. Some of the concepts within the "i-room" were used to develop an interactive blackboard that allowed subjects to issue real time feedback, comments, ideas and suggestions using either a web browser or a cellular phone. A class was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the system. Results revealed that students evaluate the feedback functions as effective and that the class was interactive when compared with a traditional class. But subject feedback suggests that there are a number of problems, namely the real time feedback causes confusion.