Promethean vs Smartboard

[Voodoo]

however with the new smart hub released can add the scratchpad and bridgit software

 

Yeah, I was just wondering because Steve from Steljes had mentioned this "Smart Hub" above.

[fawkers]

Hello fokes,

 

We use smart here and never had a problem with them, we do have a 600i in a 'meeting room' which means that it was a complete wast of money since the kids are never in there

 

One of the odd things that our school does is to have an inset day where staff get to go and see how things are done in other schools. One of our science guys came back going on about a Wiimote Interactive Whiteboard, aparently the school he visited has done some clever stuff with a Wii contoler, bluetooth adaptor and some home made software.

 

I'll let you know when I find out some more information.

[DarrenC]

Yeah there are a lot of very clever things being done with wii remote technology now, there is a video on u tube of a guy using two biros he's adapted to give him a 2 pen iwb system, brilliant!

 

The wii technology is, as far as I am aware, a revamped version of the gyration technology used in their wireless mouse (the tricky one you wave in the air) so there is no reason it could not be used as an IWB if you can set up some home spun software.

[steven19852001]

We are very happy with the 680i2 model and are now adopting these throughout.

 

But there was one feature we liked about the old model that the new one didn't have and that was the ability to switch on the integrated board and projector without needing the computer, allowing you to quickly use the board for simple presentations or writing. We have many visiting lecturers doing S6 courses at our school and they don't have computer accounts so this feature would have been very useful on the 680i2.

 

Is that going to be, or is it already, one of the features now available for 680i2's?

 

 

At the moment only the smart hub can give you the features of the gen1 600i however smart released to the press on friday of the 600i gen 3. and it has a new sleek design. Unable to give specs at the momemnt but take a look-

http://www2.smarttech.com/st/en-US/About+Us/News+Room/Media+Releases/default.htm?guid={566A4C45-D80B-4D06-B153-4592E71737A7}

[alexwood]

It's interesting to see more people discussing the merits of the board rather than the software. Promethean is an education-only company which has bespoke software for the Primary or Secondary environments whereas SMART's notebook is a catch-all application that is focussed more on the Corporate sector.

Having worked for Steljes before joining Promethean my advice would be to standardise on 1 brand so that only 1 piece of software has be rolled out across the whole estate. The biggest single way to get value and a return on your IWB is to invest in training as otherwise they will gather dust.

Having not seen it referenced yet I would urge you to look at http://www.prometheanplanet.com before making a choice as this is the world's largest and fastest-growing education community for IWB users (250,000+ users compared to SMART's 20,000) and has a huge wealth of free resources to save you time when preparing for lessons and for answering any questions you might have.

Anyway, just my thoughts, hope they help some of you

[ZeroHour]

(250,000+ users compared to SMART's 20,000)

 

250k is a bit inflated though as you must create an account just to download anything really or even do support related things (aka my account wont ever probably use forums/resources but I have to have one to download software updates). Admittedly I had no idea smart had a site though so you guys did better in that sense, I have at least heard of promethean planet

[dhicks]

Having worked for Steljes before joining Promethean my advice would be to standardise on 1 brand so that only 1 piece of software has be rolled out across the whole estate.

 

It would be better to have a situation where if a teacher feels they have to have a whiteboard then the school can get whatever whiteboard is best value at that particular time, instead of being stuck with one supplier. A school wants a buyer's market, with suppliers competing to offer the best value hardware. Same goes for resources - spend money and/or time buying/creating IWB resources that will work on all whiteboards, i.e. that aren't in a random company's proprietary format. Somewhat ironically, probably about the best format for this is Microsoft PowerPoint - OpenOffice still can't handle snazzy embedded Flash objects, whereas PowerPoint can and has nice annotation tools built in, too.

 

While we're talking about whiteboards and/or large front-of-classroom display screens, does anyone know of (or know of anything in development) that goes a bit beyond teacher-stands-at-front-and-teaches usage? Large display screens and interactive content are great and all, but I can see the novelty starting to wear off - if it's still the same basic educational material it won't take today's media-savvy children very long to see through the extraneous bells and whistles. I'm thinking more of something that allows groups of children to work on a collaborative exercise of some kind, with results being used to update a large, central display. Anyone know of anything like that?

 

--

David Hicks

[Michael]

Both companies make fantastic products and the competition is welcome. It forces companies to raise their standards and deliver better products every year. I would say most people on these forums have some form of technical background such as a Technician, Network Manager or of course an ICT Co-Ordinator and administering/maintaining boards is just as important as there use in the classroom.

 

I have experience of both and the majority of schools (in my case) have Smart and have far less problems than the few that use Promethean. When I say problems, I am talking about the board itself or indeed using the software as a teaching tool. The poll speaks for itself and each vote is a forum members opinion.

 

From a technical point of view, I do prefer Smart. The boards are much lighter so easier to install, they require only a single USB connection to power the board (and don't require external power) and the driver overall is better written. It's only until recently (I believe) an MSI was made available for the Promethean driver.

[DavidScott]

SMART's notebook is a catch-all application that is focussed more on the Corporate sector.

 

 

Whilst Alex has made some valid points around software, training and community I would like to correct a point made in his post. SMART Notebook collaborative learning software is very much aimed at education users, with new version 10 adding in over 30 new features which have been requested by teachers. SMART has produced a separate corporate software product called Meeting Pro.

 

For UK users, Steljes has produced further online community resources in the shape of mysmartspaces MySMARTSpaces, bringing together the best of the web for SMART product information and resources etc. This is designed to support SMART's own SMART Exchange where users can share resources and/or ideas to make classrooms extraordinary learning areas.

 

In response to an earlier post by dhicks, a good example of the developing technology can be seen in the new SMART Table, a collaborative learning platform designed specifically for primary school users. This can be seen on the SMART Stand at BETT next week, on stand B50 in the main hall should you be there. Alternatively information can be obtained from mysmartspaces. Also on the stand and worthy of a view is the new 600i, the next generation of SMART's integrated whiteboard solution, as well as a number of other new products that will be released in the early part of this year.

[bossman]

I have it on good authority that promethean are to engage the market in the near future with a totally revolutionary product which still encompasses their great software and teachers will still be able to use in the same way with quite a number of new and exciting features.

Our feeder primarys have a mixture of boards and it seems most problems are with smartboards.

Anyway some say potatoes and some say potatoes! some say tomatoes and some say tomatoes! potatoes, potatoes!, tomatoes! tomatoes! let;s call the whole thing off hehe!!

Lol, having a happy moment and thinking out loud!

just love these debates about what is best, what works for you is best! :-) ;-)

[ZeroHour]

I have to say the table does look very cool though. I am trying to think what the promethean surprise is.

[witch]

I wish I could find out how you get a set of Prometheans to work properly, as some of you manage to. I have left one school where the Prometheans caused me excessive amounts of grief,(hurrah!) to join a school with *gulp* more Prometheans,(boo) and in the 4 days I have been there, I have had to sort out 3 problems relating to the flaming things - doesn't bode well for the future!

[Voodoo]

Whilst both companies offer ever-expanding functionality in their dedicated software for their boards, we strongly encourage our teachers to concentrate on developing resources using board-independent software.

 

That helps reduce the decision making process down quite a bit to what is the easiest to use hardware. And if you have a mixed bag of boards, like we have, it's a plus.

[Marc-Engineer]

Hi all those that dont know me i am an independant Engineer for projectors and whiteboards, firstly pens and PSUs can be bought from a number of places including me and at much less that mentioned above, if you have problems with either make of board i will try to help you on here for ease sometimes it may be esier if i ring you or you ring me, i do NOT charge for any of this support.

 

Marc

[russdev]

Whilst both companies offer ever-expanding functionality in their dedicated software for their boards, we strongly encourage our teachers to concentrate on developing resources using board-independent software.

 

That helps reduce the decision making process down quite a bit to what is the easiest to use hardware. And if you have a mixed bag of boards, like we have, it's a plus.

 

 

Interesting new version of ActiveStudio (which must say I do like) is now being made into board independent software.

 

Russ

[mrforgetful]

We have the odd SMART but mainly Promethean. The odd problem but no more than with any hardware.

 

Maybe had 2 pens go missing in the last 5 years. 2 or 3 support calls for issues which were sorted quickly from very helpful support personel.

 

The biggest problem we've had was one which was broken from install but noone mentioned it, over a year later we've called Promethean and we may be haivng a new one even though warranty ran out.

 

Can't complain.

 

The 'Clean Filter' was annoying until I found you can tell 'ActivFilter' not to start on Windows startup so that's sorted.

 

Yeh so, no problems with Promethean at all. Only thing which is annoying is the drivers aren't signed so you must manually tell the machine to use ActivDriver' and not 'HID Compliant'.

[Silvor]

We dont have any Smartboards - we have about 29 promethean whiteboards instead. Biggest issue is £15 per pen replacement and drivers seem to get updated every 5 minutes - which is a pain as the installs are done manually.

 

We do have trouble with them, but not loads. All of our projectors are ceiling mounted and the whiteboards are mounted to the walls.

 

Biggest issues we get are pens breaking and drivers causing conflictions with other drivers. We had to re-image a machine a few months ago because the ActivDriver screwed up a load of devices big style, couldn't revert back or anything! Nightmare.

 

I have seen the Smartboards and they're good...but never used them enough to justify voting them.

[garthsmojo]

We dont have any Smartboards - we have about 29 promethean whiteboards instead. Biggest issue is £15 per pen replacement and drivers seem to get updated every 5 minutes - which is a pain as the installs are done manually.

 

We do have trouble with them, but not loads. All of our projectors are ceiling mounted and the whiteboards are mounted to the walls.

 

Biggest issues we get are pens breaking and drivers causing conflictions with other drivers. We had to re-image a machine a few months ago because the ActivDriver screwed up a load of devices big style, couldn't revert back or anything! Nightmare.

 

I have seen the Smartboards and they're good...but never used them enough to justify voting them.

 

Try whiteboardpens.co.uk they do pens from £9.00.