All,
I thought I would let you know that the Microsoft stand at BETT this year will have a demo Microsoft Surface.
I saw the very one at Microsoft about a month ago and it has some great feature to show off what it can do and how the technology works behind the sences.
If you weren't too sure whether to go to BETT or not - now you know you have to.
Microsoft Surface: In the UK at last - Alex Pearce's SharePoint Blog
A.
john (10th November 2008)
No need to travel all the way to BETT to see a demo - the latest James Bond movie features an MS Surface device being used to do something top-secret ish.Originally Posted by apearce
Anyone else catch the demo on the RM stand last year showing Google Earth being projected onto a circular desktop and controlled by a Mimio pen? About £1000 of equipment - maybe not quite the same amount of snazzy features as MS Surface, but suitably impressive.
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David Hicks
If anyone has been watching the latest Knight Rider remake they may have also noticed lots of surface technology in use both in the KITT control room set and as a scifi expansion on the surface of the car itself.
I can see those in table form being a hit in primary schools
Mind you they would require a good clean on a daily basis!
Smart have got into the act as well and are hoping to demo their smart table at Bett
SMART - SMART Table
I've had the opportunity to play with a multitouch table (not MS Surface) that's a research project here at Durham and even see some of the code behind it.
I can definitely see these sorts of devices taking off in schools once the cost becomes affordable. You can use them for all kinds of things, maybe an interactive map of the school that you can tilt, zoom, pan, etc. Very cool tech.
pointlessware
and when they become 'affordable' i can see schools being duped into buying them in much the same way they all thought that they must have IWB's in every classroom
Nothing like a good-ole abacus and chalkboard huh?
you should see the dialup speed i get on my type writerNothing like a good-ole abacus and chalkboard huh?
back to topic - they could become usable / viable to schools one day but i drastically doubt their effectiveness. most of the collaborative nature of the surface can be 'replicated' through standard pc's and a network.
iwb's have a distinct advantage over surface - the amount of pupils who can see what is going on is much more. connect surface to a projector - sure - but why not just have a smartboard?
what is more important in tougher economic times and facing the upcoming demise of xp? i would go for money being spent on servers and upgrading pc's rather than handing teachers shiny new toys
still - twas fun playing with it for a bit
The possibilities for collaberation in small groups is immense with these, not to mention bringing the groups together in meeting spaces via network surface devices.
How you can compare them to IWB i dont know as they provide a completely different learning experience and IWB are generally educationcentric, the surface is the future household PC i am sure.
Even gaming wise these could be a hit, give the unit a swivle base and you talking major functionality.
Sorry shutdownplease but i think you majorly miss the possibilities that the surface, and similar products, create.
Amazing technology!
Matt
russdev (17th January 2009), YorkshireTechie (18th January 2009)
Hmm - these things have been tried several times before (anyone else ever play horizontal-style space invaders?) but have failed to take off so far. I was quite impressed by the Vipro Interactive Table - basically a short-throw projector rear-projecting onto the underside of a hard-glass table (was a tad peeved that the sales chap, after telling me that said hard-glass was solid enough for me to jump up and down upon, didn't seem keen on me actually jumping up and down upon it), controlled by a eBeam pen. At £6,500, they're a bit over-expensive for everyday use (£7,500 for the "dual-touch" system that could take two finger-touch inputs at once), so it'll be a few years until these contraptions get around to the average classroom.
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David Hicks
I have to agree with Matt IWB are used in a different way to the tables.
Key here for me is what was said to me by founder of Smart as we sat at the smart table with crowd of children on board next to us.
To paraphrase she said we as adults where sat at the board wrong the children were bent over board. As they where talking, communicating and collaborating.
IWB are great as interactive devices with students doing one-one interaction that needs to be shown to whole class etc. You don't need to project the table as that is not way to use it in any kind of effective manner.
The point of the interactive table is not what happening on the table but what is happening around the table...
Russ
I have to admit I'm intrigued by some of the ideas behind it, if for no other reason than it's thinking in a different plane or dimension.
If I'm honest, if someone showed me something like that I'd probably be thinking about good ole' Space Invader days with a little tear in my eye (many happy memories there) but also about how I could persuade the other half to let me have one (albeit, not at £6k+)...
It may be expensive white elephant at the moment but in years to come it may be something we're wondering why we didn't use it before... Overall though one truth still holds sway... If the teachers don't learn how to use it it'll never take off.
Can't we just ditch the "interactive" bit and keep the "table" part for that, though? Do we really need to spend thousands of pounds on being able to simulate bits of paper being passed from one side of the table to the other? Okay, I'm sure people will think up some more innovative ideas, and I'm sure the price of a interactive table ("IT"? Way too confusing) will eventually drop, I'd just like to avoid a situation where the price drops because schools have been chucking loads of money at the manufacturers again, as they have with IWBs.
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David Hicks
Me and the Head were impressed by this and have ordered/bought one for our Nursery/Foundation phase.
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