One of the easiest ways to improve student learning is to enable teachers to share their most productive interactive lessons with their colleagues.  But how do teachers share a lesson created on one smart board learning system with another teacher who uses a different brand of interactive whiteboard?  The answer – the IWB file format.  This article will cover:

• What is the IWB file format?
• Why is it so popular with teachers?
• What are the best smart boards that support IWB files?
• How much does it cost to have IWB file software on your smart board?

When the first interactive whiteboards became available, many educators were concerned that they would be “locked in” to proprietary lesson formats.  So in 2009, the Becta group in the UK initiated a common file format that can be opened, edited, saved and used across many whiteboard applications so that teaching content can be easily shared, regardless of which smart board was being used by the teacher.  This means an interactive lesson created in Smart Notebook, or BenQ EZWrite 6 can be shared with a teacher using Promethean ActivInspire or Mimio.  

According to a national survey of teachers in the US, the ability to import and export interactive lessons IWB file formats was one of the most popular features they wanted in their smart board.  Why?  While other whiteboard apps such as Microsoft Whiteboard can only export images or static PDF’s, with a IWB enabled smart board app, a teacher can choose from hundreds of pre-built lessons either directly from their colleagues or from third party websites such as TeacherLED, Topmarks, or many others.  For school districts such as Kankakee, Illinois this enables teachers who use different teaching methods and tools to have a common way of sharing best practices to improve student learning.

Surprisingly, not all smart boards have support for IWB files, and many that do include IWB support require expensive software subscriptions to maintain access for teachers over time.  The best smart boards have IWB compatible software that allows teachers to prepare their lessons on their PC or Mac prior to the class, then use the same lesson on an Android or Windows powered smart board in the classroom.  These lessons can be recorded, or shared with other teachers using different file formats, including in IWB file formats. 

BenQ’s EZWrite6 offers teachers an alternative to costly subscriptions or being locked into a proprietary whiteboard software file format.  The award winning software easily links to Google Classroom, ClassLink, Safari-Montage, and can import information from practically any online source.   It’s also completely subscription free.  Here are the other popular smart boards that support IWB files, and links to evaluate potential subscription costs for the software based on their website or CDW.com.  The price for the software may vary depending on what board you are using them with – or how many licenses you buy.

If you are looking for an easy way to tap into thousands of interactive lessons, the BenQ EZWrite 6 software platform offers a powerful teaching tool that can enable teachers to have the flexibility to teach their way.  If you want to learn more about EZWrite, or see it in action yourself, just let us know using the form below.