PowerPoint, interactive whiteboards, and the visual culture of technology in schools

Abstract

PowerPoint and other visual technologies have become pervasive in schools. Adoption of these technologies is perceived as a necessary – or, at the very least, an educationally appropriate – innovation in UK schools, even though systematic examination of their use is relatively recent. On the basis of a wider ethnographic study of ICT use in one UK school, this paper presents ways in which visual technologies are used in the school setting, analyses the impacts of those technologies on students and teachers, and raises a set of important issues about how such visual technologies are used in schools.

Keywords:

• secondary schools
• ethnography
• interactive whiteboards
• PowerPoint
• visual technologies