Are interactive whiteboards destined for nostalgia too?

[Ephelyon]

Price.

 

With a decent touch-interactive UST projector and drywipe board, you get:

 

* A room done for about £1,600 (if you include some cheap but decent speakers);

* A normal board that can be used when the projector's not on (makes a huge difference to how you can lay out a classroom);

* An interactive surface that can be used even when the computer's off (if for some reason you didn't want to just write on the board);

* Replacement bulbs only £50 a pop;

 

Personally I can't see why any schools are choosing to spend double that for something without any of those advantages (fair enough no bulbs, but you'd have to replace a lot of bulbs to even cover the difference in price)...

[JRowley]

Price.

 

With a decent touch-interactive UST projector and drywipe board, you get:

 

* A room done for about £1,600 (if you include some cheap but decent speakers);

* A normal board that can be used when the projector's not on (makes a huge difference to how you can lay out a classroom);

* An interactive surface that can be used even when the computer's off (if for some reason you didn't want to just write on the board);

* Replacement bulbs only £50 a pop;

 

Personally I can't see why any schools are choosing to spend double that for something without any of those advantages (fair enough no bulbs, but you'd have to replace a lot of bulbs to even cover the difference in price)...

 

Price currently, like I said the prices are falling and will continue to fall. At which point there will be basically no argument. Though you are not comparing an IWB against a touch screen, you are comparing a Drywipe board with an interactive projector, which is completely different.

[Ephelyon]

What I'm saying is that the choice for me wouldn't be between IWB + projector and touch screen, but between that and drywipe board + UST touch interactive projector. Much closer in price and offering the same functionality. Though yes, it would be interesting to see what happens in the market if touch screen prices do fall to the same level as the above. Edited December 15, 2014 by Ephelyon

[sted]

Price.

 

With a decent touch-interactive UST projector and drywipe board, you get:

 

* A room done for about £1,600 (if you include some cheap but decent speakers);

* A normal board that can be used when the projector's not on (makes a huge difference to how you can lay out a classroom);

* An interactive surface that can be used even when the computer's off (if for some reason you didn't want to just write on the board);

* Replacement bulbs only £50 a pop;

 

Personally I can't see why any schools are choosing to spend double that for something without any of those advantages (fair enough no bulbs, but you'd have to replace a lot of bulbs to even cover the difference in price)...

 

I support one school where the head decided to replace all class smartboards and projectors (not the suite though) with touchscreens about a year ago and force them off smartboard software. So far I don't think anyone's happy as they don't particularly like the software (except one teacher who trains people on it as a 2nd job) and the amount of tvs that have failed/cables failed is silly and as they are leased (and the company took the old kit away for free lol) they are stuck for a while. The head did this because she though ofstead would mark them up for having lcd panels rather than projectors. personally as long as its being used effectively I cant see ofstead giving 2 hoots

[rdk]

We have quite a few of the Epson short throw interactive projectors, displayed on standard low glare whiteboards. I would say that besides for demo purposes they have never been used interactively - but teachers do like projecting an image and then annotating/labelling with standard whiteboard markers, and for this reason many prefer them to LCD panels.

 

We have tested quite a few standard (ie TV) LCD panels and they work well, if you also have the room for whiteboards. You can get away with a smaller LCD image than a projected image as text is much crisper and easier to read.

 

If an architect ever tells you that there will be no reflection/glare issues in rooms they design DO NOT BELIEVE THEM.

[JRowley]

What I'm saying is that the choice for me wouldn't be between IWB + projector, but between that and drywipe board + UST touch interactive projector. Much closer in price and offering the same functionality. Though yes, it would be interesting to see what happens in the market if touch screen prices do fall to the same level as the above.

 

Right, which is fair enough, just the topic is about specifically IWBs becoming obsolete, so I think we both agree that is the case as you have switched to UST touch interactive projectors.

[Tall_Paul]

We've just been going through this as our Maths department wants interactive 'something'.

 

Unfortunately interactive projectors aren't an option for us as our classrooms have teaching walls full of cupboards and we couldn't fit a short throw projector.

 

We made the decision to go for interactive whiteboards. The cost (including installation) is around £1200 and means we can continue using our projectors.

 

As with some of you, we won't be fitting LCD panels until the prices drop dramatically.

[Mr_K]

This might answer your question somewhat. Taken from SMARTs pre-BETT marketing in the AV trade press:

 

SMART Technologies – no more IWBs at BETT

Stand F228

“There will be no IWBs on the SMART stand at BETT. The future is all about panels,” said David Lapides, SMART’s Director of Software and Channels, in a pre-show interview with AV News. To underline the point, SMART will show two new IFPDs to accompany the existing SMART Board 6065"

[localzuk]

With SMART saying that, I can see them ending their board product lines at some point soon then!

[Mr_K]

yep well if size is a concern then projectors still have the advantage there at the moment.

 

65" / 70" touch-screens are becoming very common and the price is coming down considerably. At the moment there is nothing afforable larger than 70" for the average school but thats likley to change as panel manufactuers are looking at serious replacements for 78" IWBs.

 

Longterm solution / complete replacement - I'd go for a panel.

Short-term solution / blown projector - I'd replace with a projector to last until I want to replace the whole IWB set-up

[TinyGreenPC]

A new report from Futuresource Consulting shows that the market is swinging solidly towards LCDs. They say that “In the UK, interactive flatpanel displays accounted for 57% of sales, taking significant market share away from interactive whiteboards and triggering faster value growth.” This is a reflection of the fact that they are becoming less expensive to buy, more convenient to use and cheaper to run, they draw less than 200W and need little or no maintenance, which is a cost consideration that is often ignored.

[jon_nais]

A new report from Futuresource Consulting shows that the market is swinging solidly towards LCDs. They say that “In the UK, interactive flatpanel displays accounted for 57% of sales, taking significant market share away from interactive whiteboards and triggering faster value growth.” This is a reflection of the fact that they are becoming less expensive to buy, more convenient to use and cheaper to run, they draw less than 200W and need little or no maintenance, which is a cost consideration that is often ignored.

 

While I agree with this, I feel a lot of schools have not been purchasing IWB's as they don't know what the future holds, and in some way have been duped into buying touchscreens as they are the 'future'

If the touchscreen breaks then the classroom is in essence unusable, but if an IWB breaks you can still project and have sound. If the projector goes you still get sound and maybe a day of it being out of service. When any of our touchscreens have broken we have been put out by a minimum of two weeks. That's not good for a classroom environment.

[Pottsey]

Has anyone read the article titled "Are interactive whiteboards destined for nostalgia too?" in edition 4, 2014 of the "Education Magazine"?

 

Our Head has asked for my comments....the article appears to have been written by someone who wants to sell LCD touchscreen devices rather than it be a balanced discussion comparing the two technologies!!!

We recently replaced all our Interactive whiteboards with interactive projectors. So far so good. I see no reason to go back to interactive whiteboards.

[alemanyorks]

We've been looking at this & bought a couple of touch screens to try out, 65 & 55. Staff that have used them like them a lot but the issue we are going to have I found out is that as we have a Promethean site license for Active Inspire with the active boards we have to use Promethean Touch screens to not be in breach of our license agreement or else pay £500 a screen to use other manufacturers hardware. This wasn't the case when we bought the two try out boards (I checked with Promethean direct) but they have changed their tune now, confirmed by the Licensing guy on the stand at BETT this year.

Pity we can't shop around a bit for the hardware, & we won't change from Active Inspire.

[snagrat]

Why don't you buy the Promethean panels and then you are covered to use Active Inspire

[alemanyorks]

Yes looks like that's what we are going to have to do, just didn't want to be forced into one panel @ one price, thought we might get more choice on hardware & price.