DRY ERASE PAINTED WONDER WALLS FOR INQUIRY-BASED LEARNING

Inquiry-based learning is a student-centered instructional strategy that focuses on having students pose and examine questions to gain new knowledge. Occasionally, inquiry-based learning may involve a teacher presenting a problem or scenario for students to explore and address. In all approaches to inquiry-based learning, student questioning and research are at the core of the educational process and dry erase painted walls (aka “wonder walls”) can strengthen that core.

Student inquiries, thoughts, and analyses are emphasized and promoted, with a focus on students’ views about a specific question or issue. This approach is especially effective for creating initial student engagement and then guiding students to go beyond fundamental knowledge to a deeper awareness of critical thinking, evidence-based reasoning, and inventive problem-solving. In inquiry-based learning, students may complete case studies, group projects, or individual research projects, among other tasks. Making in-depth links with the content studied helps students develop skills that will be highly valuable in their future academic lives and worldly careers.

In inquiry-based learning, students come up with questions on their own, seek answers to the questions through research, share their answers and the knowledge they gained, and then reflect on the learning process they experienced. Instead of the teacher always choosing the topic or questions related to a study unit, the students have the freedom to select the questions on the topic they wish to investigate, then pursue their research and present their findings.

Although several types of inquiry-based learning exist, they all have the same outcome. Students make use of open-ended questions to guide their own learning in line with their personal interests; make appropriate connections among details; and thus deepen and broaden their knowledge base and research skills. This approach to education relates to an aphorism by Confucius: “I hear and I forget. I see, and I remember. I do, and I understand.” Inquiry-based learning allows students to genuinely understand the content they study and to increase their wisdom in the process.

What Are the Advantages of Practicing Inquiry-Based Learning on Dry Erase Painted Wonder walls?

The inquiry-based approach to learning arouses students’ curiosity and provides opportunities for collaboration, which in turn increases their engagement and excitement about education. When students feel they have ownership of the learning process, their interest level rises, resulting in a deeper grasp of academic content.

Instead of traditional pedagogy, which is often dominated by teacher talk, teacher questions, memorization, and recall by students, inquiry-based learning supports students in planning and implementing their own educational process. Teachers thus become facilitators, not dictators of instruction. For students of all ages, increased motivation and a genuine love of learning are the outcomes of this method.

Inquiry-based learning is also a great way to provide genuine differentiation; that is, adjusting the pace, level, or type of instruction in response to individual learners’ needs, styles, or personal interests. The inquiry-based approach also helps to build self-reliance and independence and nurtures students’ preferences and pastimes. In addition, recent research shows that inquiry-based learning boosts student achievement levels and evens out the playing field in schools with children of diverse socio-economic backgrounds and cultures. When students are surveyed, they typically say they prefer inquiry-based learning over traditional teaching methods.

The Dry Erase Painted “Wonder Wall”: A Powerful Inquiry-Based Learning Technique

One highly effective strategy for practicing inquiry-based learning is to create a “wonder wall” on your dry erase wall, where students can write “I wonder” types of questions about specific topics with dry erase markers. Here you can also post artifacts to stimulate further questions. Post-it notes can be added to the wonder wall if students come up with additional questions and ideas in class or when they’re outside of the classroom and need a handy way to record their thoughts.

After it’s populated with a sufficient number of artifacts and questions, the wonder wall can become a resource for determining the next topic of study for the class. When generating a wonder wall, teachers should emphasize that all student questions are valid. They should also encourage questions that can’t be answered with a simple “yes” or “no” response but instead lead to in-depth research by students.

Creating a wonder wall is a great strategy to use in inquiry-based learning, as it builds a space where students can do the following:
· Get themselves thinking on topics they want to learn about
· Share their learning experiences throughout the inquiry process
· Keep their ideas and questions visible to others
· Interact meaningfully with their peers on topics of interest
· Discuss learning goals, measures, and evaluation criteria
· Share the evidence and outcomes of their learning process.

Dry erase painted wonder walls are meant to be built at the onset of a unit and should be kept active throughout the unit as they are living representations of students’ learning. Begin building the wall when you first invoke students to start thinking about the topic the class will be studying. Students will examine the artifacts you post on the wall and ask questions about what they’re seeing. This sets the students’ prior knowledge in motion and prompts them to share their ideas with their peers in a knowledge-building cycle.

Artifacts can be Hung on Your Wall with GoodHangups

The artifacts used to trigger student conversations and interest in a topic may include the following:
· physical objects
· photos
· drawings
· copies of internet articles
· videos
· fictional stories

Many teachers like to use pictures printed in color, especially if they don’t have access to real-life objects related to the topic for the unit being covered. Lightweight items such as photos, drawings, and printouts of articles may be posted by using GoodHangups, an innovative new hanging system consisting of a magnetized sticker and a magnet that can be mounted on your dry erase wall without damaging the surface.

The Role of Student Questions is Key to Constructing Your Wonder Wall

The use of a wonder wall at the start of an inquiry unit stimulates students to think about a topic by allowing them to ask questions and providing them with artifacts. The next step is to have the class ask more questions. As mentioned, they can use sticky notes to write down questions about what they see on the wonder wall. Use these notes to help students keep track of what the class is thinking about.

As students continue to share their prior knowledge and questions, the wonder wall is gradually constructed. These questions are the driving force behind the inquiry-based learning process. Arrange the questions according to themes and then use them to come up with goals for learning and criteria for success.

At some point, you’re likely to find gaps in the students’ knowledge that will need to be filled through teacher-directed lessons. Post the questions next to the artifacts on the wonder wall, and throughout the learning process, answer the questions and keep track of those that remain unanswered. It’s through your students’ questions that inquiry-based learning and the wonder wall are developed.

Avoid Answering Questions during the Inquiry Process

While using your wonder wall, if students ask questions, it’s important to avoid giving answers and instead have the students add the questions to the wonder wall and then find the answers by themselves. Leading students through lessons to ultimately give them the answers is not what inquiry-based learning and wonder walls are about. With a wonder wall, students need to work to find information and shouldn’t expect to have an easy way out.

Later on in the unit, you may have discussions about certain topics, and you’ll have to explain various concepts. But you should do this together as a class. In this way, instead of teaching your students, you’re facilitating their learning by providing the tools to find answers on their own.

Through the use of wonder walls, teachers and students enjoy the freedom to build a learning environment that meets the needs of all class members. Thus, inquiry-based learning becomes an effective means to create a place where learners enjoy finding the answers to questions and sharing their knowledge with their peers.

DryEraseWalls

DRY ERASE PAINTED WONDER WALLS FOR INQUIRY-BASED LEARNING

Inquiry-based learning is a student-centered instructional strategy that focuses on having students pose and examine questions to gain new knowledge. Occasionally, inquiry-based learning may involve a teacher presenting a problem or scenario for students to explore and address. In all approaches to inquiry-based learning, student questioning and research are at the core of the educational process and dry erase painted walls (aka “wonder walls”) can strengthen that core.

Student inquiries, thoughts, and analyses are emphasized and promoted, with a focus on students’ views about a specific question or issue. This approach is especially effective for creating initial student engagement and then guiding students to go beyond fundamental knowledge to a deeper awareness of critical thinking, evidence-based reasoning, and inventive problem-solving. In inquiry-based learning, students may complete case studies, group projects, or individual research projects, among other tasks. Making in-depth links with the content studied helps students develop skills that will be highly valuable in their future academic lives and worldly careers.

In inquiry-based learning, students come up with questions on their own, seek answers to the questions through research, share their answers and the knowledge they gained, and then reflect on the learning process they experienced. Instead of the teacher always choosing the topic or questions related to a study unit, the students have the freedom to select the questions on the topic they wish to investigate, then pursue their research and present their findings.

Although several types of inquiry-based learning exist, they all have the same outcome. Students make use of open-ended questions to guide their own learning in line with their personal interests; make appropriate connections among details; and thus deepen and broaden their knowledge base and research skills. This approach to education relates to an aphorism by Confucius: “I hear and I forget. I see, and I remember. I do, and I understand.” Inquiry-based learning allows students to genuinely understand the content they study and to increase their wisdom in the process.

What Are the Advantages of Practicing Inquiry-Based Learning on Dry Erase Painted Wonder walls?

The inquiry-based approach to learning arouses students’ curiosity and provides opportunities for collaboration, which in turn increases their engagement and excitement about education. When students feel they have ownership of the learning process, their interest level rises, resulting in a deeper grasp of academic content.

Instead of traditional pedagogy, which is often dominated by teacher talk, teacher questions, memorization, and recall by students, inquiry-based learning supports students in planning and implementing their own educational process. Teachers thus become facilitators, not dictators of instruction. For students of all ages, increased motivation and a genuine love of learning are the outcomes of this method.

Inquiry-based learning is also a great way to provide genuine differentiation; that is, adjusting the pace, level, or type of instruction in response to individual learners’ needs, styles, or personal interests. The inquiry-based approach also helps to build self-reliance and independence and nurtures students’ preferences and pastimes. In addition, recent research shows that inquiry-based learning boosts student achievement levels and evens out the playing field in schools with children of diverse socio-economic backgrounds and cultures. When students are surveyed, they typically say they prefer inquiry-based learning over traditional teaching methods.

The Dry Erase Painted “Wonder Wall”: A Powerful Inquiry-Based Learning Technique

One highly effective strategy for practicing inquiry-based learning is to create a “wonder wall” on your dry erase wall, where students can write “I wonder” types of questions about specific topics with dry erase markers. Here you can also post artifacts to stimulate further questions. Post-it notes can be added to the wonder wall if students come up with additional questions and ideas in class or when they’re outside of the classroom and need a handy way to record their thoughts.

After it’s populated with a sufficient number of artifacts and questions, the wonder wall can become a resource for determining the next topic of study for the class. When generating a wonder wall, teachers should emphasize that all student questions are valid. They should also encourage questions that can’t be answered with a simple “yes” or “no” response but instead lead to in-depth research by students.

Creating a wonder wall is a great strategy to use in inquiry-based learning, as it builds a space where students can do the following:
· Get themselves thinking on topics they want to learn about
· Share their learning experiences throughout the inquiry process
· Keep their ideas and questions visible to others
· Interact meaningfully with their peers on topics of interest
· Discuss learning goals, measures, and evaluation criteria
· Share the evidence and outcomes of their learning process.

Dry erase painted wonder walls are meant to be built at the onset of a unit and should be kept active throughout the unit as they are living representations of students’ learning. Begin building the wall when you first invoke students to start thinking about the topic the class will be studying. Students will examine the artifacts you post on the wall and ask questions about what they’re seeing. This sets the students’ prior knowledge in motion and prompts them to share their ideas with their peers in a knowledge-building cycle.

Artifacts can be Hung on Your Wall with GoodHangups

The artifacts used to trigger student conversations and interest in a topic may include the following:
· physical objects
· photos
· drawings
· copies of internet articles
· videos
· fictional stories

Many teachers like to use pictures printed in color, especially if they don’t have access to real-life objects related to the topic for the unit being covered. Lightweight items such as photos, drawings, and printouts of articles may be posted by using GoodHangups, an innovative new hanging system consisting of a magnetized sticker and a magnet that can be mounted on your dry erase wall without damaging the surface.

The Role of Student Questions is Key to Constructing Your Wonder Wall

The use of a wonder wall at the start of an inquiry unit stimulates students to think about a topic by allowing them to ask questions and providing them with artifacts. The next step is to have the class ask more questions. As mentioned, they can use sticky notes to write down questions about what they see on the wonder wall. Use these notes to help students keep track of what the class is thinking about.

As students continue to share their prior knowledge and questions, the wonder wall is gradually constructed. These questions are the driving force behind the inquiry-based learning process. Arrange the questions according to themes and then use them to come up with goals for learning and criteria for success.

At some point, you’re likely to find gaps in the students’ knowledge that will need to be filled through teacher-directed lessons. Post the questions next to the artifacts on the wonder wall, and throughout the learning process, answer the questions and keep track of those that remain unanswered. It’s through your students’ questions that inquiry-based learning and the wonder wall are developed.

Avoid Answering Questions during the Inquiry Process

While using your wonder wall, if students ask questions, it’s important to avoid giving answers and instead have the students add the questions to the wonder wall and then find the answers by themselves. Leading students through lessons to ultimately give them the answers is not what inquiry-based learning and wonder walls are about. With a wonder wall, students need to work to find information and shouldn’t expect to have an easy way out.

Later on in the unit, you may have discussions about certain topics, and you’ll have to explain various concepts. But you should do this together as a class. In this way, instead of teaching your students, you’re facilitating their learning by providing the tools to find answers on their own.

Through the use of wonder walls, teachers and students enjoy the freedom to build a learning environment that meets the needs of all class members. Thus, inquiry-based learning becomes an effective means to create a place where learners enjoy finding the answers to questions and sharing their knowledge with their peers.

DryEraseWalls

HOSTING AN EFFECTIVE MEETING WITH A WHITEBOARD WALL

Hosting an Effective Meeting with a Whiteboard Wall
Holding a successful business meeting is a bit like landing a space module on the planet Mars. Keeping track of the seemingly infinite variables involved in the process appears hopeless, and conducting the perfect team gathering never seems to work out quite as you had planned. But unproductive company meetings aren’t as inevitable as they may seem. With the right communication tools and a touch of inspiration, you can conduct the meeting of your dreams every time you and your team members get together. One such communication tool is the premium whiteboard wall, which offers a highly durable and virtually endless space for presenting facts, expressing opinions, and coming up with creative ideas for product launches, marketing schemes, and the like.

Make meetings a team activity

To have your meetings become more than personal lectures by you, the organizer, it’s a good idea to take regular advantage of the distinctive viewpoints, experiences, and skillsets of your team members at all of your business get-togethers. Doing so can provide you with great opportunities to make your meetings more efficient, collaborative, and worthwhile, thus enhancing your company’s creativity, productivity, and bottom line.

Organize a Discussion

With the appropriate organization and guidance, collective dialog can bring about a more engaging meeting and generate more new and unique solutions to problems than a traditional lecture, even when a question-and-answer session is included. Devoting a specific segment of your meeting schedule to a brainstorming session is an excellent way to stimulate such group dialog. As the meeting coordinator, your job is to outline the goals of the session and to work in conjunction with your team to expand on ideas they come up with during the brainstorming process. With small groups, it’s easy to encourage free conversation among all the members present, but with large groups, it’s difficult. Thus, it’s more effective to separate the participants in a large meeting into smaller clusters then reunite them after a specific time period to discuss everyone’s ideas in the large group context.

Use Your Whiteboard Wall to Practice “Brainwriting”

Brainstorming is a key part of meetings where top-quality whiteboard-coated walls come into play. For both small and large gatherings, the quality of group discussions can be optimized by using the vast canvas of a whiteboard wall. In smaller meetings, a massive whiteboard wall provides ample room for everyone in attendance to brainstorm together through the use of mind maps, free association, and a host of other methods. In large meetings, however, it’s best to make use of the ample writing area of a whiteboard wall by first dividing the participants into small groups then asking them to use different segments of the wall to record their individual brainstorming ideas.

One novel brainstorming approach that’s popular today is known as “brainwriting.” In this partially nonverbal method, the participants use pieces of paper to write down three original ideas related to the session’s topic. Then after a designated number of minutes, the team members pass their ideas to the individuals on their right, who build from these ideas, adding bullet points, new creative approaches, etc. Next, after another several minutes, all the participants pass the pieces of paper again until the papers have gone all the way around the group. Once the ideas have made it completely around the circle, the participants deliberate and choose which ones are best suited for further discussion.

By ensuring that everyone has a chance to contribute and by removing the common bias favoring the first idea presented, this strategy helps alleviate two of brainstorming’s most significant drawbacks — lop-sided conversations and the anchoring effect, whereby people rely too much on the first piece of information presented to draw subsequent conclusions during the decision making process.

Brainwriting can be even more effectively performed on the vast open surface of a whiteboard wall. Instead of using small pieces of paper to write down ideas related to the session’s topic, participants can write their thoughts on separate sections of the whiteboard wall in large lettering for all to see. Then after a set number of minutes, each team member can move to a different part of the wall and build on the ideas written by the previous writer, adding as much creative input as they want. Next, after another few minutes, the participants move again until they’ve given their input on all the sections of the wall written on by the group. Finally, now that the initial three ideas and subsequent contributions of all the participants have been posted on the wall, the group can review one another’s thoughts and choose those that are the most interesting and worthy of further discussion.

In such an exercise, compared to the cramped writing spaces of notepaper, the vast area of a whiteboard wall promotes more intensive levels of creative thought. Individuals tend to feel freer to express their novel ideas when confronted by the large open-ended surface of a whiteboard wall. Also, using a smooth-flowing dry erase marker as opposed to a small pen also tends to stimulate people to freely bring forth whatever is on their minds. These qualities can be of great benefit in practicing brainwriting because having much more space to write on in much larger letters tends to trigger ideas that might not arise when a person is confined to using 8 ½” by 11” notepaper as a writing surface.

Make Use of Free Association aka Rapid Ideation

In rapid ideation, meeting participants write down all the ideas that come to mind in a designated amount of time before anything is discussed, analyzed, or expanded upon. When practicing this brainstorming technique, you’ll have to establish a time limit, or else you’ll risk losing the feeling of urgency among your team members.

This brainstorming technique can be helpful in avoiding the common problem of having an idea shelved before it has a chance to grow and develop. By letting all meeting attendees bring forth their thoughts before any critiquing begins, rapid ideation eliminates the premature quashing of potentially great ideas and lets them flow out without constraints. The time limit can also help to prevent people from talking themselves out of an idea before they even begin sharing it with others—a frequent brainstorming mistake.

Use Your Whiteboard Wall as a Medium for Visual Aids

Including finely crafted visual components in your meeting presentations can enhance communications with team members, making them feel more engaged and interested in the content you present. Employing well-produced slides and other high-quality visual media such as films and diagrams can help participants to better comprehend and feel involved with your material, and a whiteboard wall is an ideal surface on which to perform such visual work. Designing and conducting graphic presentations are becoming increasingly essential tasks for doing business in today’s high-tech world of telecommuting and virtual communications.

Record All Significant Ideas and Input for Current and Future Reference

When you do a virtual meeting presentation, you should make a habit of writing down all the significant ideas and data put forward by the attendees on your whiteboard coated wall for all your team members to view and provide feedback on as the meeting progresses. Then you can erase and add more textual content and visuals whenever fresh ideas and information come up. The large dimensions and easy visibility of the content on your whiteboard wall will enhance the quality of your presentations, your communications with team members, and your team’s note-taking during virtual meetings, thus helping you to develop your individual brand and professional persona and boost your company’s productivity and profits. Then, after your virtual meetings are finished, you can take pictures of the results that you and the team members produced on the whiteboard wall and send them to the participants and other relevant parties for future reference and input.

WhiteBoard Paint

HOSTING AN EFFECTIVE MEETING WITH A WHITEBOARD WALL

Hosting an Effective Meeting with a Whiteboard Wall
Holding a successful business meeting is a bit like landing a space module on the planet Mars. Keeping track of the seemingly infinite variables involved in the process appears hopeless, and conducting the perfect team gathering never seems to work out quite as you had planned. But unproductive company meetings aren’t as inevitable as they may seem. With the right communication tools and a touch of inspiration, you can conduct the meeting of your dreams every time you and your team members get together. One such communication tool is the premium whiteboard wall, which offers a highly durable and virtually endless space for presenting facts, expressing opinions, and coming up with creative ideas for product launches, marketing schemes, and the like.

Make meetings a team activity

To have your meetings become more than personal lectures by you, the organizer, it’s a good idea to take regular advantage of the distinctive viewpoints, experiences, and skillsets of your team members at all of your business get-togethers. Doing so can provide you with great opportunities to make your meetings more efficient, collaborative, and worthwhile, thus enhancing your company’s creativity, productivity, and bottom line.

Organize a Discussion

With the appropriate organization and guidance, collective dialog can bring about a more engaging meeting and generate more new and unique solutions to problems than a traditional lecture, even when a question-and-answer session is included. Devoting a specific segment of your meeting schedule to a brainstorming session is an excellent way to stimulate such group dialog. As the meeting coordinator, your job is to outline the goals of the session and to work in conjunction with your team to expand on ideas they come up with during the brainstorming process. With small groups, it’s easy to encourage free conversation among all the members present, but with large groups, it’s difficult. Thus, it’s more effective to separate the participants in a large meeting into smaller clusters then reunite them after a specific time period to discuss everyone’s ideas in the large group context.

Use Your Whiteboard Wall to Practice “Brainwriting”

Brainstorming is a key part of meetings where top-quality whiteboard-coated walls come into play. For both small and large gatherings, the quality of group discussions can be optimized by using the vast canvas of a whiteboard wall. In smaller meetings, a massive whiteboard wall provides ample room for everyone in attendance to brainstorm together through the use of mind maps, free association, and a host of other methods. In large meetings, however, it’s best to make use of the ample writing area of a whiteboard wall by first dividing the participants into small groups then asking them to use different segments of the wall to record their individual brainstorming ideas.

One novel brainstorming approach that’s popular today is known as “brainwriting.” In this partially nonverbal method, the participants use pieces of paper to write down three original ideas related to the session’s topic. Then after a designated number of minutes, the team members pass their ideas to the individuals on their right, who build from these ideas, adding bullet points, new creative approaches, etc. Next, after another several minutes, all the participants pass the pieces of paper again until the papers have gone all the way around the group. Once the ideas have made it completely around the circle, the participants deliberate and choose which ones are best suited for further discussion.

By ensuring that everyone has a chance to contribute and by removing the common bias favoring the first idea presented, this strategy helps alleviate two of brainstorming’s most significant drawbacks — lop-sided conversations and the anchoring effect, whereby people rely too much on the first piece of information presented to draw subsequent conclusions during the decision making process.

Brainwriting can be even more effectively performed on the vast open surface of a whiteboard wall. Instead of using small pieces of paper to write down ideas related to the session’s topic, participants can write their thoughts on separate sections of the whiteboard wall in large lettering for all to see. Then after a set number of minutes, each team member can move to a different part of the wall and build on the ideas written by the previous writer, adding as much creative input as they want. Next, after another few minutes, the participants move again until they’ve given their input on all the sections of the wall written on by the group. Finally, now that the initial three ideas and subsequent contributions of all the participants have been posted on the wall, the group can review one another’s thoughts and choose those that are the most interesting and worthy of further discussion.

In such an exercise, compared to the cramped writing spaces of notepaper, the vast area of a whiteboard wall promotes more intensive levels of creative thought. Individuals tend to feel freer to express their novel ideas when confronted by the large open-ended surface of a whiteboard wall. Also, using a smooth-flowing dry erase marker as opposed to a small pen also tends to stimulate people to freely bring forth whatever is on their minds. These qualities can be of great benefit in practicing brainwriting because having much more space to write on in much larger letters tends to trigger ideas that might not arise when a person is confined to using 8 ½” by 11” notepaper as a writing surface.

Make Use of Free Association aka Rapid Ideation

In rapid ideation, meeting participants write down all the ideas that come to mind in a designated amount of time before anything is discussed, analyzed, or expanded upon. When practicing this brainstorming technique, you’ll have to establish a time limit, or else you’ll risk losing the feeling of urgency among your team members.

This brainstorming technique can be helpful in avoiding the common problem of having an idea shelved before it has a chance to grow and develop. By letting all meeting attendees bring forth their thoughts before any critiquing begins, rapid ideation eliminates the premature quashing of potentially great ideas and lets them flow out without constraints. The time limit can also help to prevent people from talking themselves out of an idea before they even begin sharing it with others—a frequent brainstorming mistake.

Use Your Whiteboard Wall as a Medium for Visual Aids

Including finely crafted visual components in your meeting presentations can enhance communications with team members, making them feel more engaged and interested in the content you present. Employing well-produced slides and other high-quality visual media such as films and diagrams can help participants to better comprehend and feel involved with your material, and a whiteboard wall is an ideal surface on which to perform such visual work. Designing and conducting graphic presentations are becoming increasingly essential tasks for doing business in today’s high-tech world of telecommuting and virtual communications.

Record All Significant Ideas and Input for Current and Future Reference

When you do a virtual meeting presentation, you should make a habit of writing down all the significant ideas and data put forward by the attendees on your whiteboard coated wall for all your team members to view and provide feedback on as the meeting progresses. Then you can erase and add more textual content and visuals whenever fresh ideas and information come up. The large dimensions and easy visibility of the content on your whiteboard wall will enhance the quality of your presentations, your communications with team members, and your team’s note-taking during virtual meetings, thus helping you to develop your individual brand and professional persona and boost your company’s productivity and profits. Then, after your virtual meetings are finished, you can take pictures of the results that you and the team members produced on the whiteboard wall and send them to the participants and other relevant parties for future reference and input.

WhiteBoard Paint

HOSTING AN EFFECTIVE MEETING WITH A WHITEBOARD WALL

Hosting an Effective Meeting with a Whiteboard Wall
Holding a successful business meeting is a bit like landing a space module on the planet Mars. Keeping track of the seemingly infinite variables involved in the process appears hopeless, and conducting the perfect team gathering never seems to work out quite as you had planned. But unproductive company meetings aren’t as inevitable as they may seem. With the right communication tools and a touch of inspiration, you can conduct the meeting of your dreams every time you and your team members get together. One such communication tool is the premium whiteboard wall, which offers a highly durable and virtually endless space for presenting facts, expressing opinions, and coming up with creative ideas for product launches, marketing schemes, and the like.

Make meetings a team activity

To have your meetings become more than personal lectures by you, the organizer, it’s a good idea to take regular advantage of the distinctive viewpoints, experiences, and skillsets of your team members at all of your business get-togethers. Doing so can provide you with great opportunities to make your meetings more efficient, collaborative, and worthwhile, thus enhancing your company’s creativity, productivity, and bottom line.

Organize a Discussion

With the appropriate organization and guidance, collective dialog can bring about a more engaging meeting and generate more new and unique solutions to problems than a traditional lecture, even when a question-and-answer session is included. Devoting a specific segment of your meeting schedule to a brainstorming session is an excellent way to stimulate such group dialog. As the meeting coordinator, your job is to outline the goals of the session and to work in conjunction with your team to expand on ideas they come up with during the brainstorming process. With small groups, it’s easy to encourage free conversation among all the members present, but with large groups, it’s difficult. Thus, it’s more effective to separate the participants in a large meeting into smaller clusters then reunite them after a specific time period to discuss everyone’s ideas in the large group context.

Use Your Whiteboard Wall to Practice “Brainwriting”

Brainstorming is a key part of meetings where top-quality whiteboard-coated walls come into play. For both small and large gatherings, the quality of group discussions can be optimized by using the vast canvas of a whiteboard wall. In smaller meetings, a massive whiteboard wall provides ample room for everyone in attendance to brainstorm together through the use of mind maps, free association, and a host of other methods. In large meetings, however, it’s best to make use of the ample writing area of a whiteboard wall by first dividing the participants into small groups then asking them to use different segments of the wall to record their individual brainstorming ideas.

One novel brainstorming approach that’s popular today is known as “brainwriting.” In this partially nonverbal method, the participants use pieces of paper to write down three original ideas related to the session’s topic. Then after a designated number of minutes, the team members pass their ideas to the individuals on their right, who build from these ideas, adding bullet points, new creative approaches, etc. Next, after another several minutes, all the participants pass the pieces of paper again until the papers have gone all the way around the group. Once the ideas have made it completely around the circle, the participants deliberate and choose which ones are best suited for further discussion.

By ensuring that everyone has a chance to contribute and by removing the common bias favoring the first idea presented, this strategy helps alleviate two of brainstorming’s most significant drawbacks — lop-sided conversations and the anchoring effect, whereby people rely too much on the first piece of information presented to draw subsequent conclusions during the decision making process.

Brainwriting can be even more effectively performed on the vast open surface of a whiteboard wall. Instead of using small pieces of paper to write down ideas related to the session’s topic, participants can write their thoughts on separate sections of the whiteboard wall in large lettering for all to see. Then after a set number of minutes, each team member can move to a different part of the wall and build on the ideas written by the previous writer, adding as much creative input as they want. Next, after another few minutes, the participants move again until they’ve given their input on all the sections of the wall written on by the group. Finally, now that the initial three ideas and subsequent contributions of all the participants have been posted on the wall, the group can review one another’s thoughts and choose those that are the most interesting and worthy of further discussion.

In such an exercise, compared to the cramped writing spaces of notepaper, the vast area of a whiteboard wall promotes more intensive levels of creative thought. Individuals tend to feel freer to express their novel ideas when confronted by the large open-ended surface of a whiteboard wall. Also, using a smooth-flowing dry erase marker as opposed to a small pen also tends to stimulate people to freely bring forth whatever is on their minds. These qualities can be of great benefit in practicing brainwriting because having much more space to write on in much larger letters tends to trigger ideas that might not arise when a person is confined to using 8 ½” by 11” notepaper as a writing surface.

Make Use of Free Association aka Rapid Ideation

In rapid ideation, meeting participants write down all the ideas that come to mind in a designated amount of time before anything is discussed, analyzed, or expanded upon. When practicing this brainstorming technique, you’ll have to establish a time limit, or else you’ll risk losing the feeling of urgency among your team members.

This brainstorming technique can be helpful in avoiding the common problem of having an idea shelved before it has a chance to grow and develop. By letting all meeting attendees bring forth their thoughts before any critiquing begins, rapid ideation eliminates the premature quashing of potentially great ideas and lets them flow out without constraints. The time limit can also help to prevent people from talking themselves out of an idea before they even begin sharing it with others—a frequent brainstorming mistake.

Use Your Whiteboard Wall as a Medium for Visual Aids

Including finely crafted visual components in your meeting presentations can enhance communications with team members, making them feel more engaged and interested in the content you present. Employing well-produced slides and other high-quality visual media such as films and diagrams can help participants to better comprehend and feel involved with your material, and a whiteboard wall is an ideal surface on which to perform such visual work. Designing and conducting graphic presentations are becoming increasingly essential tasks for doing business in today’s high-tech world of telecommuting and virtual communications.

Record All Significant Ideas and Input for Current and Future Reference

When you do a virtual meeting presentation, you should make a habit of writing down all the significant ideas and data put forward by the attendees on your whiteboard coated wall for all your team members to view and provide feedback on as the meeting progresses. Then you can erase and add more textual content and visuals whenever fresh ideas and information come up. The large dimensions and easy visibility of the content on your whiteboard wall will enhance the quality of your presentations, your communications with team members, and your team’s note-taking during virtual meetings, thus helping you to develop your individual brand and professional persona and boost your company’s productivity and profits. Then, after your virtual meetings are finished, you can take pictures of the results that you and the team members produced on the whiteboard wall and send them to the participants and other relevant parties for future reference and input.

Dry Erase Paint

HOSTING AN EFFECTIVE MEETING WITH A WHITEBOARD WALL

Hosting an Effective Meeting with a Whiteboard Wall
Holding a successful business meeting is a bit like landing a space module on the planet Mars. Keeping track of the seemingly infinite variables involved in the process appears hopeless, and conducting the perfect team gathering never seems to work out quite as you had planned. But unproductive company meetings aren’t as inevitable as they may seem. With the right communication tools and a touch of inspiration, you can conduct the meeting of your dreams every time you and your team members get together. One such communication tool is the premium whiteboard wall, which offers a highly durable and virtually endless space for presenting facts, expressing opinions, and coming up with creative ideas for product launches, marketing schemes, and the like.

Make meetings a team activity

To have your meetings become more than personal lectures by you, the organizer, it’s a good idea to take regular advantage of the distinctive viewpoints, experiences, and skillsets of your team members at all of your business get-togethers. Doing so can provide you with great opportunities to make your meetings more efficient, collaborative, and worthwhile, thus enhancing your company’s creativity, productivity, and bottom line.

Organize a Discussion

With the appropriate organization and guidance, collective dialog can bring about a more engaging meeting and generate more new and unique solutions to problems than a traditional lecture, even when a question-and-answer session is included. Devoting a specific segment of your meeting schedule to a brainstorming session is an excellent way to stimulate such group dialog. As the meeting coordinator, your job is to outline the goals of the session and to work in conjunction with your team to expand on ideas they come up with during the brainstorming process. With small groups, it’s easy to encourage free conversation among all the members present, but with large groups, it’s difficult. Thus, it’s more effective to separate the participants in a large meeting into smaller clusters then reunite them after a specific time period to discuss everyone’s ideas in the large group context.

Use Your Whiteboard Wall to Practice “Brainwriting”

Brainstorming is a key part of meetings where top-quality whiteboard-coated walls come into play. For both small and large gatherings, the quality of group discussions can be optimized by using the vast canvas of a whiteboard wall. In smaller meetings, a massive whiteboard wall provides ample room for everyone in attendance to brainstorm together through the use of mind maps, free association, and a host of other methods. In large meetings, however, it’s best to make use of the ample writing area of a whiteboard wall by first dividing the participants into small groups then asking them to use different segments of the wall to record their individual brainstorming ideas.

One novel brainstorming approach that’s popular today is known as “brainwriting.” In this partially nonverbal method, the participants use pieces of paper to write down three original ideas related to the session’s topic. Then after a designated number of minutes, the team members pass their ideas to the individuals on their right, who build from these ideas, adding bullet points, new creative approaches, etc. Next, after another several minutes, all the participants pass the pieces of paper again until the papers have gone all the way around the group. Once the ideas have made it completely around the circle, the participants deliberate and choose which ones are best suited for further discussion.

By ensuring that everyone has a chance to contribute and by removing the common bias favoring the first idea presented, this strategy helps alleviate two of brainstorming’s most significant drawbacks — lop-sided conversations and the anchoring effect, whereby people rely too much on the first piece of information presented to draw subsequent conclusions during the decision making process.

Brainwriting can be even more effectively performed on the vast open surface of a whiteboard wall. Instead of using small pieces of paper to write down ideas related to the session’s topic, participants can write their thoughts on separate sections of the whiteboard wall in large lettering for all to see. Then after a set number of minutes, each team member can move to a different part of the wall and build on the ideas written by the previous writer, adding as much creative input as they want. Next, after another few minutes, the participants move again until they’ve given their input on all the sections of the wall written on by the group. Finally, now that the initial three ideas and subsequent contributions of all the participants have been posted on the wall, the group can review one another’s thoughts and choose those that are the most interesting and worthy of further discussion.

In such an exercise, compared to the cramped writing spaces of notepaper, the vast area of a whiteboard wall promotes more intensive levels of creative thought. Individuals tend to feel freer to express their novel ideas when confronted by the large open-ended surface of a whiteboard wall. Also, using a smooth-flowing dry erase marker as opposed to a small pen also tends to stimulate people to freely bring forth whatever is on their minds. These qualities can be of great benefit in practicing brainwriting because having much more space to write on in much larger letters tends to trigger ideas that might not arise when a person is confined to using 8 ½” by 11” notepaper as a writing surface.

Make Use of Free Association aka Rapid Ideation

In rapid ideation, meeting participants write down all the ideas that come to mind in a designated amount of time before anything is discussed, analyzed, or expanded upon. When practicing this brainstorming technique, you’ll have to establish a time limit, or else you’ll risk losing the feeling of urgency among your team members.

This brainstorming technique can be helpful in avoiding the common problem of having an idea shelved before it has a chance to grow and develop. By letting all meeting attendees bring forth their thoughts before any critiquing begins, rapid ideation eliminates the premature quashing of potentially great ideas and lets them flow out without constraints. The time limit can also help to prevent people from talking themselves out of an idea before they even begin sharing it with others—a frequent brainstorming mistake.

Use Your Whiteboard Wall as a Medium for Visual Aids

Including finely crafted visual components in your meeting presentations can enhance communications with team members, making them feel more engaged and interested in the content you present. Employing well-produced slides and other high-quality visual media such as films and diagrams can help participants to better comprehend and feel involved with your material, and a whiteboard wall is an ideal surface on which to perform such visual work. Designing and conducting graphic presentations are becoming increasingly essential tasks for doing business in today’s high-tech world of telecommuting and virtual communications.

Record All Significant Ideas and Input for Current and Future Reference

When you do a virtual meeting presentation, you should make a habit of writing down all the significant ideas and data put forward by the attendees on your whiteboard coated wall for all your team members to view and provide feedback on as the meeting progresses. Then you can erase and add more textual content and visuals whenever fresh ideas and information come up. The large dimensions and easy visibility of the content on your whiteboard wall will enhance the quality of your presentations, your communications with team members, and your team’s note-taking during virtual meetings, thus helping you to develop your individual brand and professional persona and boost your company’s productivity and profits. Then, after your virtual meetings are finished, you can take pictures of the results that you and the team members produced on the whiteboard wall and send them to the participants and other relevant parties for future reference and input.

Dry Erase Paint

Whiteboard Paint Reduces the Need for Electronic Devices

Whiteboard Paint Reduces the Need for Electronic Devices

Of the many environmental benefits of applying ReMarkable dry erase paint, one of the greatest is that it reduces the use of electronic products such as tablets and laptops, which generate an enormous quantity of waste that has devastating effects on Earth’s environment. As the amount of e-waste dramatically increases year by year, solutions for its proper recycling have lagged far behind. Although it is essential to give e-waste items to a certified recycling company that meets strict requirements for handling these materials, many individuals and businesses fail to do so. Their old electronics end up in landfills, producing toxic results for our air, water, and soil. The main hazardous substances to be found in discarded electronic products are lead, mercury, cadmium, zinc, yttrium, chromium, beryllium, nickel, brominated flame retardants, antimony trioxide, halogenated flame retardants, tin, polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and phthalates. The presence of these and other toxins in our planet’s ecosystem can be greatly reduced through the use of whiteboard-painted walls in place of electronic devices.

Huge amounts of electronic scrap

poses a great risk both to the environment and to public health. Shortages in raw materials needed to make electronics have brought forth a new industry called “urban mining.”

The start of the 21st century has witnessed the generation of huge amounts of electronic scrap, whose careless recycling in both developed and developing nations poses a great risk both to the environment and to public health. As more people buy electronic gadgets, manufacturers are starting to experience shortages of the raw materials needed to make their products, so reclaiming and reusing the constituents of discarded e-products, called “urban mining,” makes good financial sense. A recent study conducted in China revealed that traditional mining of copper, gold, silver, and aluminum from ore is 13 times more costly than recovering these metals through the urban mining of electronic waste.

E-waste recycling involves taking old electronic devices apart

making it an expensive undertaking. Many companies illegally export e-waste to 3rd world nations where recycling is much cheaper but more destructive to the planet.

Proper or formal e-waste recycling typically involves taking old electronic devices apart, separating and categorizing their contents by material, and then cleaning them. Items are then mechanically shredded for further sorting through the use of advanced separation equipment. Companies that perform this service must adhere to strict health and safety guidelines and use pollution-control technologies that reduce the environmental and public health hazards of handling e-waste. All these procedures make formal recycling an expensive undertaking. As a result, many companies and countries illegally export their e-waste to developing nations where recycling methods are more cost-effective but also much more destructive to the planet.

In the unindustrialized nations where much of this illegal e-waste processing occurs, air pollution levels and concentrations of heavy metals are especially high around so-called “recycling plants,” as compared to other regions. These sites are typically backyard operations where impoverished local residents process the obsolete electronics by hand, separating them into parts to extract valuable metals such as gold, silver, and copper before disposing of the rest in landfills. Some metals and plastics are melted down, and those materials that can’t be feasibly processed accumulate in massive dumps near inhabited places and waterways. Sometimes, toxic fumes are inhaled directly as metals from the parts are burned in open bonfires.

Air-quality in e-scrap yards have highest levels of cancer-causing dioxins known

due to its e-waste industry. Dioxins are a group of chemically related compounds that are considered persistent environmental pollutants (POPs).

A typical site where these crude e-waste recycling methods are used is a cluster of villages in southeastern China known as the world’s largest dumping ground for electronic scrap from the United States. There local villagers remove solder from circuit boards over coal-fired grills, burn plastic casings from wires to extract the copper, silver, and mine gold by soaking computer chips in pools of hydrochloric acid. An air-quality study conducted in the area found that it had some of the highest levels of cancer-causing dioxins in the world due to its e-waste industry. Dioxins are a group of chemically related compounds that are considered persistent environmental pollutants (POPs).

Dioxins are found around the globe in local ecosystems, where they accumulate in the food chain, mainly in the fatty tissue of animals. These chemicals are highly toxic and can cause reproductive and developmental issues, damage the immune system, interfere with the action of hormones, and cause cancer. Due to their potentially lethal nature, prevention or reduction of human exposure is best accomplished through direct measures, such as strict control of e-waste recycling processes to reduce the production of dioxins. Another approach is the application of ReMARKable whiteboard painted walls in schools, offices, and other facilities to reduce the use of electronic devices, which are some of their main sources.

E-waste recycling is detrimental to the health of the workers

Chronic exposure to the pollution emitted from e-waste dumpsites causes high concentrations of heavy metals like lead, copper, zinc, nickel, barium, and chromium to be present in human blood.

For the above-mentioned reasons, the current global recycling system is detrimental to the health of the workers who improperly handle e-waste without protection from dangerous materials and is also a direct cause of contamination in the surrounding environment. Chronic exposure to the atmospheric pollution emitted from e-waste dumpsites causes high concentrations of heavy metals such as lead, copper, zinc, nickel, barium, and chromium to be present in human blood and may be related to hypertension, abnormally low levels of blood oxygen, and other conditions in people working in or living near the sites. The trigger for the air-polluting effect of e-waste is the fact that when the material is heated by overexposure to the sun, for instance, these metals along with other toxic chemicals are released into the atmosphere, causing one of e-waste’s most harmful effects.

Lead is found in almost all Electronic devices

which are becoming obsolete at an astounding rate. When lead is released into the environment near these dumpsites, it can damage the blood, kidneys, and nervous systems of people in the area.

Regarding lead, almost all electronics contain it, and today these devices are growing in number and becoming obsolete at an astounding rate. When discarded, some of our most advanced technological devices represent rapidly expanding and often unregulated exposure to this highly poisonous metal, which plagued even the ancient Romans. A University of Florida environmental scientist recently studied the ecological impact of the lead found in 12 different types of electronic items commonly discarded in landfills. In a report sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), he presented his finding that the items leached lead at concentrations above the EPA threshold for categorizing a type of waste as hazardous. When released into the environment near these dumpsites, lead can damage the blood, kidneys, and nervous systems of people in the area.

Arsenic is present in circuit boards, LCD displays, and computer chips

In large doses, arsenic is lethal along with being a known carcinogen, cited to trigger skin cancer, liver cancer, and other forms of the disease.

The air around e-waste dumps is also high in arsenic, various acids, and other potentially toxic chemicals, including mercury and brominated flame retardants. Concerning arsenic, the reckless disposal of e-waste constitutes one of the most common sources of the inorganic form of this poison. Arsenic is present in circuit boards, LCD displays, computer chips, and other electronic components, and as these parts accumulate in landfills, the arsenic present seeps into the surrounding land, affecting its soil chemistry and possibly the contents of groundwater as well. The presence of arsenic in groundwater and soil has varying effects on different organisms and may be harmful to both land and sea animals. In humans, ingesting arsenic in low doses causes irritation of the digestive system, and in large doses, it’s lethal. Arsenic is also a known carcinogen, being cited as a trigger for skin cancer, liver cancer, and other forms of the disease.

Health risks with chemicals from e-waste leaching into soil and groundwater also exist

The potential threat to groundwater quality is of special concern in those states that have yet to enact landfill-ban legislation to control such waste.

Another common method of e-waste disposal is to simply burn the unusable parts after sorting. Introducing arsenic into the atmosphere in this way also has serious implications for human and animal health. For example, research by the National Cancer Institute has shown a linear relationship between inhaling arsenic and the development of lung cancer, as well as a wide range of nervous disorders. Although many states in the US have enacted landfill bans for most consumer electronics and appliances, the dangers associated with the chemicals from e-waste leaching into soil and groundwater remain. The potential threat to groundwater quality is of special concern in those states that have yet to enact landfill-ban legislation to control such waste.

Considering the many harmful environmental consequences related to electronic waste disposal, choosing economical, long-lasting, and eco-friendly ReMARKable Whiteboard Paint is a sensible alternative for all types of applications since it minimizes the need for laptops, tablets, and other devices, providing a highly flexible medium for conveying information and ideas in offices, schools, and other settings.

Dry Erase Wall