Replacing interactive whiteboards

[Sheridan]

We've got quite a few old Smartboards, they still work but since Windows 7 the drivers have been a bit flakey and calibration is always an issue. Obviously replacement is the next stage but with interactive panels around 3 grand each its a major project, and tight budgets have pretty much killed that.

 

So I'm curious to know what you folks are doing, continuing to run old board, replacing them slowly with interactive panels, replacing them with newer 'standard' interactive whiteboards or even just removing them altogether?

 

In the ideal world we'd whack up shiny new touch screen panels and I'm sure the teachers would love them, but that would be way over £100K to do all of them!

[superaz300]

We are just removing them all together as we don't have the funds to replace them with the newer type. I have to say, not many teachers have even noticed as we have replaced them with just standard white projector pull down screens, just goes to show actually not many people bother with them anymore at our place.

[Sheridan]

We are just removing them all together as we don't have the funds to replace them with the newer type. I have to say, not many teachers have even noticed as we have replaced them with just standard white projector pull down screens, just goes to show actually not many people bother with them anymore at our place.

 

I can see where you coming from there, some staff are a bit apathetic about them, some absolutely love them!

[superaz300]

I would say the majority of our Staff don't even know what they are, or even care. As long as they can load a PowerPoint up, and it projects onto some sort of screen, they are happy.

[Sylv3r]

We are also slowly removing our Interactive Whiteboards and replacing them with standard projectors and dry-wipe boards. Teachers on the whole are delighted.

[CHU]

We brought in 10 interactive screens at Christmas, hoping for another ten in October. Had to settle for 64” same width as current IWB but 16:9 so maybe a foot shorter, just let them rejig there PowerPoint designs.

 

Our projectors are all 6yrs old now, lost 5 in the last school year due to ballast, got 4 of those repaired for 250 each. Informed head that it’s not a solution and that screens are the way forward she wants teacher consultation tho bleh. As to whether we buy projectors or screens hmmmm.

 

The cost for a complete unit IWB+Projector is the same as the screens. Not counting bulbs! No brainer for IT!

[forkies]

We have been replacing ours with interactive projectors and dry wipe boards. Teachers are actually using the interactive features now as it works so well! They also love being able to actually write on the board using a dry wipe if they don't want to use the projector.

[Sheridan]

It's funny in some cases I think some of the staff feel they had the interactive whiteboards forced on them so they had to use them, when really a projector and dry wipe board would have suited them better.

[3s-gtech]

We've found that our very oldest SMARTboards (14 or so years old) now don't work with Windows 10, but they did with 7. The driver for the serial adaptor or the USB-serial cable just won't start, so they show up with an exclamation in Device Manager. Old or new drivers, no luck. I'm just pulling the plug on these boards, no one minds. Slightly newer boards are working fine though. Contemporary Promethean boards run over serial are working lovely on Windows 10, but we only have one in use now.

[mikeprice]

As an interim solution we are replacing broken Smartboards with refurbished ones - we get them from

Smart Boards -

 

Old but seem to work fine (like me!)

 

When we have some money the plan is to replace with interactive panels but there's no money at the moment

[TwistedHelixis]

I am surprised your teachers do not really use interactive smartboards. At all my primary schools everything is done on them and I would be hung for putting something else in its place.

 

We are slowly moving to interactive TVs by changing 2 or so each year, its my job to try and keep the old projector / smartboards working for the next x years.

[DavR]

We had eight Promethean boards replaced with iiYama interactive displays over the summer. We got Prolite 65s for about £1800 + VAT a piece installed, and even with a basic training session from their rep.

 

We were plodding along just replacing projectors and patching up, but we've had some money raised from parent donations and the head decided this was the best place to invest. We now hope to pursue this for the rest of the school, over time.

 

Our lot really do use the interactivity, I'm very surprised to hear so many schools happy to do without it!

[atcoates]

In my experience without staff being given training into how to use the boards, they won't use them. They're happier to be given older technologies like projectors etc as they know how to use them and feel more confident.

[TechMonkey]

We've found that our very oldest SMARTboards (14 or so years old) now don't work with Windows 10, but they did with 7. The driver for the serial adaptor or the USB-serial cable just won't start, so they show up with an exclamation in Device Manager. Old or new drivers, no luck. I'm just pulling the plug on these boards, no one minds. Slightly newer boards are working fine though. Contemporary Promethean boards run over serial are working lovely on Windows 10, but we only have one in use now.

 

Have you downloaded the latest driver pack from SMART? I had an issue with a couple of the newer boards and I had to get the driver pack and install it. I think it is something along the lines that if you pay for the latest Notebook license the drivers are installed as part of that. If you stayed with 11.4 it may be that. It could also just be SMART have dropped supporting that version but worth a try.

[sparkeh]

I am surprised your teachers do not really use interactive smartboards. At all my primary schools everything is done on them and I would be hung for putting something else in its place.

Agreed! In my experience they tend to be used well at primaries but not at secondary. I remember reading a few studies on this that backed that up as well.

 

We trialed interactive touchscreens and loved them, however then the budget landed. Once we picked ourselves up we ordered some new IWB to replace the worst ones. They are significantly cheaper than they used to be

[sted]

i wonder if a touchscreen pc and basically a wall mounted tv isn't a better idea as that way the pc can be set up so you can look at screen and kids whereas a smartboard (and im not a fan of their interactive panels they seem to be very fussy about cable lengths both usb and hdmi) means you have your back to them, that also means you could use a surface style device and a miracast dongle and literally pass it round and it would still be cheaper than an interactive panel

[DavR]

They are significantly cheaper than they used to be

Presumable because they're being usurped by the interactive displays...

 

On that subject though, I was quoted fairly good prices for refurbed boards from Refurbished ICT Store - if you find yourself in a situation of having to replace on a low budget. I think I was quoted £150 for a Promethean ActivBoard 2 a year or so back, as presumably the market is flooded with people upgrading.

Edited September 18, 2017 by DavR

[localzuk]

We've gone with interactive ultra-short throw projectors here. We've installed about 45 of them across the Trust so far. Current model of choice is the NEC UM301Wi Multi-touch. We've been getting them at around £1700 installed, with ceramic dual use WriteScreen projection board and Vision SP-1800P speakers.

 

They vary in size (depending on wall size), frmo 65" up to 100". So, you can get a much larger surface than the interactive screens for a more reasonable price.

Edited September 18, 2017 by localzuk

[atcoates]

With Smart Notebook you can use the Smart Notebook app on Ipad to avoid having your back to the class plus it works as a visualiser.

 

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/smart-notebook-for-ipad/id554245373?mt=8

[Sheridan]

I'd like to replace with interactive displays - but with budgets being the way they are we're expected to replace a faulty projector straight away (which is easy enough as they're fairly cheap) but replacing the boards is longer term plan.

 

I would say half of our boards were well used, the other half not so much. Of course the dodgy driver support for them hasn't helped their use much since we went to 7, and in some cases now 10.

[Sheridan]

We had eight Promethean boards replaced with iiYama interactive displays over the summer. We got Prolite 65s for about £1800 + VAT a piece installed, and even with a basic training session from their rep.

 

We were plodding along just replacing projectors and patching up, but we've had some money raised from parent donations and the head decided this was the best place to invest. We now hope to pursue this for the rest of the school, over time.

 

Our lot really do use the interactivity, I'm very surprised to hear so many schools happy to do without it!

 

This is probably our next choice - how do you find the 65" - is it big enough for a decent sized classroom? Last thing I want is teachers complaining its too small!

[stevenlong1985]

Problems with Interactive TVs from what we have found is,

 

The viewing angle, because the thickness of the glass protection screen you lose a some viewing angle, children sat around the side cant see the screen. its just looks white. about 20+ degrees is lost on the sides.

 

 

The type of interactive features are not all the same.

Smart knows if you are using fingers, Pen or the eraser feature when using your hands instantly.

A lot of brands use infra red grids or something and cant tell the difference between a pen or a finger so you have keep selecting on screen first what you want to use.

All our teachers are used prefer Smart and not having smart features find it slow and annoying.

 

Screen size, we have 65" and it looks too small. Children at the back of the room have to move closer to see the screen.

 

I would stay either go for Smart TVs but they are expensive.

or Epson projectors with touch and pen senors with a standard dry marker board - (cheaper option ) + (you get a the new copy of Smart too)

 

Hope this helps

 

Good luck

 

Steve

[TwistedHelixis]

Viewing angles used to be an issue but not so much on the newer versions. I have installed some 70 inch and 65 and find both fine in a large classroom as the image quality is HD and crisp.

[stevenlong1985]

Viewing angles used to be an issue but not so much on the newer versions. I have installed some 70 inch and 65 and find both fine in a large classroom as the image quality is HD and crisp.

 

 

We had the newest ones install over the summer (August 2017)

its more to do with the classroom layout, we have 3 tables in groups of 6 per classroom

if the classroom was layout in old fashion of rows, we would be fine.

[DavR]

This is probably our next choice - how do you find the 65" - is it big enough for a decent sized classroom? Last thing I want is teachers complaining its too small!

 

The 65s are big enough for us, but we are a primary so don't have very big classrooms. There were a few rumblings about the size, but these were quickly silenced by the sheer clarity of them compare to projected systems. Problem is, it's quite a big jump in price from the 65 to the 70, somewhere in the region of another £600, or else we would have looked at those.

 

With the model we have, if you view them side on at say 10-20 degree angle you get ghosting, but can still see the image. This isn't a problem for us as you have to be sat at a really silly angle for it to be an issue.

 

Re pen vs touch etc, hasn't been an issue for us as we've been used to old Prometheans, where you have to choose between pen and touch anyway. There are some inbuilt annotation tools which can differentiate between a point (pen) and the flat of your hand (eraser) but we haven't fully explored these yet.