Main hall presentations....

[mrbios]

Currently in our main hall we have to roll down a lockable trolley that we have to connect to the wall points like video, power and sound and leave down there until they're finished with it, it has a broken laptop on it currently. (the screen broke, we chopped the screen off and just reused the base attached to a monitor which is screwed down to the top of the trolley)

We're interested to hear if any schools have gone down the route of a tablet PC for the presentations?

What im tempted by is a tablet PC, chained/permanently cabled to the connections on the wall and held inside a lockable cabinet where by people can simply come to us for the key and get on with their presentation from there.

The question is how to do it and what to buy...we don't want an ipad or anything like that, a windows 7 tablet PC would be ideal so long as it has USB, sound and vga outputs and a solid state drive (as no doubt it'll get bashed about a bit) anyone done this and able to recommend both a way of doing it and products to do it with?

[andyturpie]

we use the cheapest and most out of date laptop in the school made good - after all its only for playing .pptx and videos/audio, nothing more.

[plexer]

We have a lockable cabinet screwed down to the stage which houses the amp, dvd player etc... on the wall is the connections for vga and a network point.

If all staff want to do is present from their laptop they just plug it in.

If they want sound etc... the cabinet has a salto access control lock on it and they use their id badge to get in.

Ben

[dhicks]

What im tempted by is a tablet PC, chained/permanently cabled to the connections on the wall and held inside a lockable cabinet where by people can simply come to us for the key and get on with their presentation from there.

Unless they are going to stand operating the tablet PC from the cabinet, there's little point in using a tablet PC - just get a small PC you can mount to the wall (Acer Veriton or similar, £200-ish). You could use a tablet PC to control that PC via VNC, or you could just get a decent wireless mouse and keyboard. I'd aim to have something capable of showing full-screen video smoothly for presentations - nothing worse than having an external speakercome in and the PC being slow and stuttering on video.

[rad]

The Hall PC is also used for SIMS when they do Drama in the hall. The PC is in a cabinet that has opening front doors.

Apart from people been unable to read the instructions on the Amp - (On/Off) etc, it works fine, don't have any issues with mis use etc.

[bossman]

Standalone PC with 4Gb Ram and decent sized sata HDD for storage with wireless presentation remote (approx £30 for a decent one) which will allow them to load up files from usb pendrive or whatever media they have and then to be able to use the wireless presenter for actually running whatever files they wish and from anywhere within the hall.

This is what we do as one never knows what virus's other outside users and staff will bring in on USB pens etc, hence the PC being standalone with its own AV.

Works a treat for us and can be locked away in a media cupboard which has been built (wooden structure) inside our HALL in the far corner with a window facing the screen.

[timbo343]

We have a lockable cupboard with a mini desktop (a bit like a shuttle machine) connected to a 10ft electronic screen suppended from scaffold by wirerope and a decent amp with 200 watt speakers. The projector is a short throw suspended from scaffold by a long pole. Also in there is a video and audio selector in case a 3rd party brings in their laptop and also a dvd player.

The computer is connected to the network but is not on the domain. It has a local login but talks to the proxy server and prompts the user for their school username and password.

It works very very well.

EDIT: There is also a wireless presenter and a wireless keyboard with a touch pad on it so if they wanted to walk round the hall they can do.

[mrbios]

Unless they are going to stand operating the tablet PC from the cabinet, there's little point in using a tablet PC - just get a small PC you can mount to the wall (Acer Veriton or similar, £200-ish). You could use a tablet PC to control that PC via VNC, or you could just get a decent wireless mouse and keyboard. I'd aim to have something capable of showing full-screen video smoothly for presentations - nothing worse than having an external speakercome in and the PC being slow and stuttering on video.

Well they like to stand away from the wall and present closer to their audiance or infront of the big screen, the idea behind a tablet would be that they could walk around as they present with it in their arm.

If only wireless projectors weren't so crap (we have one and it's a nightmare!)

[john]

We have an AV System with electric screen and biiiig projector in the hall, a £300 PC under the stage works great, it has an auto-logon to a limited account which has internet access but you can log that off and use your own AD one to get your documents / files. Its got a full school image on it to allow us to show software to large groups / teach other subjects in the hall.

Its got a wireless presenter and all via the big AV System and was a very good investment.

[dhicks]

If only wireless projectors weren't so crap (we have one and it's a nightmare!)

Exactly - nothing wrong with using a tablet as a control device, just use VNC (or other similar client) to control the PC connected to the projector from the tablet. I'd recommend it for in classrooms, too - the teacher gets their own tablet computer and uses a separate screwed-to-the-wall PC for presenting. Not, actually, all that expenisve, either - an iPad or similar (RM tablet) is £400, small PCs are £200. Wireless mice and keyboards are still cheaper, though.

[Alis_Klar]

Can I throw this into the mix... The iPad 2 and iPhone 4S feature Airplay Mirroring. Basically you need an Apple TV (£99) and a HDMI projector or HDMI to VGA/DVI cable. You will also need wifi coverage. As it's streaming the video over wifi you would need to test the performance of this over a possibly congested school network.

This does not work with the iPad 1 or iPhone 4. They can only display movies from the iPod app.