Abstract:

The research project is developed in a three years time frame, and consisted of an interdisciplinary educational assessment research. The study is based on the incorporation of Information and Communication Technologies -ICT- in the ordinary classroom, focusing in the introduction of Interactive Whiteboard -IWB-, in Kindergarden and Elementary education from several institutions in Catalonian contexts.
The research began receiving the competitive call founding of the Spanish National Research, Development and Innovation Plan -R&D&I-, belonging to the Innovation and Science Minister of the Spanish government. It started in 2008 with 14 public and private schools.
Leaving behind old reference models in the introduction of ICT in schools as the creation of specific ICT classrooms appears like an endless source of opportunities to educative innovation. Also a chance for transformation of the ordinary organizations and educative space-surroundings, as well as a chance for pedagogical innovation of the training processes adapted to generations of citizens and professionals of the "knowledge society".
The main objective of the research that is now taking place is to assess the pedagogical and didactics impact of IWB in the ordinary classroom. The study goes depth in diverse aspects that have influence and not on the excellence of the IWB use as a communitarian tool in the classroom.
This analytic and descriptive assessment is developing in a double methodological approach: an horizontal and quantitative study focused in all the sample, and a qualitative case study based in 4 schools.
These proceedings allowed us to achieve the detection of IWB potentialities and limitations. In the field of learning processes the evaluation attempts the impact of the IWB use in the teaching-learning model leaded by the professor in the classroom, and also the student learning. As well the research is in-depth on noticeable changes in response to the IWB introduction and contribution to the communicative-relational in peers field, and also the different educative actors.
Finally, it is expected to categorize the exit and failure factors of the training, updating and extern advising models to achieve educative innovation with the ICT support. The preliminary results in relation with the ICT teachers training model induce to think that theses models must: be flexible with the school needs, have a theoretical-practical view, and emphasize the didactic and methodological aspects. Also is sensed the importance of persevering communications between schools and trainers, a high implication of the trainers in tasks and their constant update skills.

Keywords:

ICT in Education, Interactive Whiteboard, R&D&I, educational excellence, assessment project.