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About LinkBacksHow do you keep your Promethean pens from walking (maliciously or absent-mindedly)?
Some kind of chain it to the board solution seems like the obvious answer but I'm not sure what the best way of doing that is.
cheers
Steve
How do you keep your Promethean pens from walking (maliciously or absent-mindedly)?
Some kind of chain it to the board solution seems like the obvious answer but I'm not sure what the best way of doing that is.
cheers
Steve
Request that teachers look after them properly, and make replacements chargable to their department. (double the cost, of course so they understand their value)
Departments pay for Pens here - thus they seem, to take rather more care of them.
Andrew
They always break before they walk anyway, don't think i've got any originals left
If they break or lose them they are charged for the replacements.
Most teachers look after them.
Connecting them to the board with a chain/string seems a bit daft, needs to be quite a long piece, or I suppose a bit of elastic
Ben
I guess I should probably have said that I work at a Uni rather than a school so it's a slightly different environment, both politically and the types of user!
The main issue is that we don't want staff to have to come to us to get the pen whenever they want to use the board, because we are often out fixing things and the office isn't always occupied. There are also evening classes when we're not around.
The room with the Promethean board isn't owned by a particular department, and working out who used it last isn't always easy. "Nothing to do with me, I just ran a powerpoint through it, didn't use the IWB so I didn't notice if the pen was there or not"...
People here tend to only be interested in kit working for the duration of their lecture. The fact that they bugger off with the remote control for the projector in their pocket which means that the next poor sod to use the room can't use it is of little concern to them. (Yes, we have fitted control panels since). We had to take the wireless mice we had out because they were consistently failing to put them back on the charging cradle after use.
So I need some method of leaving the pen in the room, without people needing to get a key to open a cupboard to retrieve it (because they're guaranteed to leave it open/not take the key back) but without the opportunity for staff to walk off with it or students to nick/hide it.
Without implementing some form of electronic anti-theft devices like a lot of shops do (probably cost more than replacement pens) there aren't any other options I can think of; as at the end of the day it is just a pen.
Anything that physically ties the pen to a fixed piece of furniture or wall will just impede the user in delivering the lesson.
We charge i think £10 for a replacement pen, one teacher had 3 replaced in a month, if he breaks his next pen he will not be getting another.
So now he keeps very good care of his pen, i think he locks it in his draw every time he leaves the rooms fear that he wont have another.
How about providing a pen to each department? Then they have to organise it between themselves?
Luckily for us the pens don't go missing, although if they ever started to go missing or get damaged we would probably look at providing a personal pen for all staff, that way if it was to ever get damaged / get lost it would be the member of staff's fault and nobody else. Would be difficult in a university as you have said you are though.
Departments keep them in locked drawers or on there person if they only use the rooms. Some departments have a pen each so they can use any board on site with there own pen. But they all have to pay for there own pens.
We have allocated pens to departments and they then distribute them to their satff. We do have the occaisional one go missing but most replacements are down to failures or heavy-handedness.
throw it away and buy a board that isnt reliant on a pen!
Yep that’s what we have, we have smartboardsOriginally Posted by ShayBellingham
Z
Yes..I agree 100%!
We have ten Promethean boards in our junior school, and if we didn't have these silly pens the students would be having their arm on the board and the cursor would go all over the place...hmmmm Ahhh.. Silly me..
It was a good idea after all to have the pens... Doh! :P
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