Engagement, to me, has to do with learning tasks. Often, engagement involves the creative act. I think the 2001 revision of Bloom’s taxonomy which places “creating” at the top is an important frame when discussing engagement. In this video specifically, I say Sarah is “engaged” because she was involved in creating something. Granted, what she created here was not tied to the formal curriculum and did not reflect deep learning, synthesis and evaluation of different ideas, etc. She was simply learning how to create a message using an interactive, animated tool. Her engagement could have been much deeper (as could her thinking) if the questions she chose or was asked to address were different: if her learning task changed.

The act of creating is essential to engagement, I think. I’ve written on the topic of how we often see people confuse “enthralling” learners with “engaging” learners. I created a video in 2007 titled, “Strive to Engage Not Enthrall,” for which I prepared a script and posted as an audio-only podcast, as a video podcast, on TeacherTube and on YouTube. All those links are available here.

When I “rail” against IWBs, as you mentioned, I am usually making the point that if we just use IWBs as overhead projectors to replicate traditional teacher-directed instruction, then we are not leveraging the interactive potential of these tools and we’re probably wasting our money as taxpayers. I try to couch these criticisms, however, with the acknowledgement that getting an LCD projector with an IWB in a classroom which has previously NOT had a good way to display digital content for students can definitely be a big step forward for the teacher’s capability to integrate technology and digital curriculum into the learning experience for students. Brian Crosby’s recent post, “To IWB, Or Not IWB? That Is The Question,” highlights these issues quite well. I’m of the view that in grades 3 and above, we should be investing in netbooks for students and not IWBs. We need to make learning engaging by providing opportunities for learning which are authentically interactive. This does not mean we won’t lecture at times, of course there is a time and a place for that, but when possible it makes sense to share lectures via video and with media rather than in face-to-face, non-interactive settings.

Do these answers help? Thanks for challenging my thinking.