Interactive whiteboards are a new technology for ‘traditional’ teaching in the whole
class. Although they have been installed in educational settings, the emphasis of research has been
on their use in office settings. Preliminary findings from a pilot study of a mathematics teacher's
use of a ‘traditional’ blackboard suggest that interactive whiteboards should not only be seen as a
presentational device for the teacher, but as an interactive and communicative device to enhance
the communication with and among students. In this paper, interactive whiteboards are placed
within the wider context of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as a tool for
Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL). The potential of interactive whiteboard is
explored from the perspective of Requirements Engineering, a branch of computer science that
aims to determine what properties a system should have in order to succeed. Drawing on this field,
four steps for the design of technology in educational settings are specified and illustrated
