Magic Whiteboards in the Economics Classroom

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

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I received some of tutor2u’s new ‘magic whiteboards’ a couple of days ago and used them today in class for the first time. I will be posting some reflections on how they have been used in this blog and it would be great to hear from other colleagues who are trying out this product.

First up today I distributed four sheets to my Upper Sixth microeconomics group and asked them to explore the business and economic logic behind merger and acquisition activity. As a starter I showed them a couple of Reuters news videos on recent takeovers - for example Chinese car manufacturer Geely buying Volvo and an excellent piece from Robert Peston on the background to the BHP Billiton / Potash Corp takeover battle. The group had previously discussed different forms of business integration.

Magic whiteboards fit really well on classroom desks or on spare walls if you have space - it is handy to have a wide range of dry marker colours available - especially for students who have strong artistic skills and who want to present something highly visual. One group adopted a Venn diagram approach to explaining the potential benefits of mergers and takeovers - covering horizontal, vertical and lateral business integration. Others preferred mind mapping approaches or a more linear approach - no worries, any is encouraged!

Result - five large sheets were displayed on the main whiteboard - they stick to anything including televisions and doors! And there was plenty of time for some self-paced note-taking on points raised and applied examples given.

Arguments included:

Access to essential inputs
Market share / market power / eliminate competitors
Low cost of borrowing money
Desire to achieve cost savings
Economies of scope (grow and broaden the brand) and scale e.g. marketing/technical
Access to faster-growing markets esp in emerging markets
Managerial motives - status, power
Acquiring a well-established brand - save on marketing costs
Synergy gains from lateral integration
Acquiring expertise / human capital
Better control of essential inputs / quality control in the supply chain
Desire to diversify into different products / markets / countries

This lesson worked for me! A good mixture of discussion, supporting digital (reuters, BBC news) and some collaborative work using a low-tech product that does what is says on the tin!

I will blog about other uses later, but I can immediately see how magic whiteboards are going to come in handy when we crack on with traditional theory of the firm and all of those cost and revenue diagrams!

Details of the Magic Whiteboard are available here

Categories: Teaching of Economics
Tags: tutor2u, magic whiteboard

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Magic Whiteboards in the Economics Classroom

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