One of the things I am really looking forward to is offering support to teachers looking to improve their knowledge of resources or skills in using interactive whiteboards (IWBs). At the moment our IWB section features resources for 3 - 11 year olds. Look out in the next few weeks to a much extended interactive whiteboard section, which will include lots more resources including secondary materials. I am really quite excited about our forthcoming improvements and I will keep you posted on when it will be going live.

I will also be featuring here lots of IWB tips and resources that work really well on them. Keep popping back to find out about new additions to the Topmarks search engine too.

Most teachers in the UK will probably have experience of using an IWB, since the pace of their adoption in both primary and secondary schools has been very rapid over the last few years. It is my experience as with all technology, the knowledge and skills of teachers using IWBs varies.

With an experienced user there is no doubt that IWBs, particularly in the foundation and primary school phases, capture the imagination and attention of the children. However, the picture may not be quite so rosy in some classrooms where teachers are not so familiar with curriculum resources which lend themselves to whiteboard use or who are less able to cope with the inevitable technical issues which arise. This coupled with inadequate training can mean that the whiteboards can be under-utilised or too often used as expensive substitute for a conventional whiteboard.

We all probably know that you can produce custom made presentations (Notebook files, Flipcharts etc) for use in lessons and in an ideal world it would be great to have one available for most lessons. In reality, we need to think of work-life balance so I don't think we shouldn't feel guilty about not sitting at home prolifically creating these. The old adage 'why reinvent the wheel' springs to mind here as there are lots of readily available free resources.

With the new term underway in Scotland and fast approaching in the rest of the UK, you may feel the need for some fresh ideas. How about trying this 'whiteboard challenge' which would also be suitable for those new to interactive whiteboards. Each fortnight a different challenge has been devised by an experienced whiteboard user. The tasks are explained through video, screencasts or podcasts, ideal ways to improve your skills. You can either join the challenge or just try the activities without registering.

Although I am an experienced interactive whiteboard user I found the challenges interesting and I learned things I didn't know before. One tip for the first challenge, if you are using Audacity you will need the additional LAME MP3 encoder. Just place the file in the same folder as Audacity and you will have no problems creating your mp3 files.

Thanks also to Danny Nicholson for the information about the 'whiteboard challenge' on his interesting The Whiteboard Blog and for the useful tips through his video presentations.