Computers and Display Programs in Education

Communication instructors use two broad categories of display programs in their classrooms. The first category is whiteboard technology (→ Classroom Instructional Technology). When delivering a lecture, instructors make notes on the whiteboard using a special stylus. The text is digitized, so the whiteboard subsequently becomes the display program. Instructors can email these digitized notes to their students or post their lecture notes to courseware packages like Blackboard (→ Course Organization Programs in Education). An interactive whiteboard represents the latest technology in this area. In class, students can use their laptop computers, which are connected to a local wireless network to collaborate on a project. The group's output is displayed on the interactive whiteboard.