interactive whiteboards

[passport]

I own a private school of english in Greece and I intend to equip all my classrooms with interactive whiteboards. I havent't madeup my mind yet, though, which brand name to buy : smartboard 600i, hitachi, or promethean? Can somebody help me out?

[EduTech]

Personally i would go with either SmartBoard or Promethean.

 

In our school we do have mainly SmartBoards though

 

James.

[Midget]

Smartboards can be used with anything, fingers etc

 

hitachi and promethean require the use of their pen and theyre more acurate for it, but you'll have to make sure not to lose the pens because they're expensive to replace (~£100ea)

[wc51pb]

I am not sure where Midget buys pens from but you should not be paying more than 10-12 euros for a replacement Promethean pen. I cannot comment on Hitachi.

[Vegas]

Go for the Smartboards, absolutely bomb proof, 50 here and one fault in 7 years!

[K.C.Leblanc]

We've got over 50 Smartboard here and they don't give any trouble and the staff find them easy to use. The only disadvantage with the smart is their surface is relatively soft, so if you forsee furniture being bounced off them it might be worth looking at something else.

[Midget]

I am not sure where Midget buys pens from but you should not be paying more than 10-12 euros for a replacement Promethean pen. I cannot comment on Hitachi.

 

that was for a hitachi pen 2-3years ago

[Iain.Faulkner]

We're also a school who uses SmartBoards, never had a problem and significantly cheaper than Promethean. Can't comment on Hitachi though.

[laserblazer]

We have around 30 Smartboards and would recommend them. Short throw projectors are aslo a good idea but I'd suggest the Hitachi rather than Smart's own which I believe has very expensive replacement bulbs.

[teddybear]

I used to swear by the promethean boards, but any new schools that are built in our area are going exclusively with smartboards.

 

Getting support and help once they'd been installed wrong was a nightmare. Bulb life is on some of ours 600 hours, which if they are used all day only last around 6 months (and they cost a fortune to replace)

 

The smarboards that we have, 99.9% of the time just work. I've only had one issue but that was software (and my fault) so I'd say smartboards all the way.

 

Oh, just remembered we did have one issue that was eventually sorted. We had a smartboard installed in one of our nurseries that is an outside wooden insulated building. The guys that were installing it warned the school that there could be problems because of the metal insulation used within the actual walls itself.

 

The smart boards have a metal sheet in the boards, this is how it works but because the whole wall behind it had metal too it didn't work properly. The smart board guys did fix it even though the warned us they did a great job and got it working.

 

So, it's not really a bad thing against the smartboard, just the walls...

[alan-d]

I'd suggest Smartboards with a short throw projector which sits just above the board. Initial cost may be a little higher but in the long term cheaper to run (600i bulbs are expensive!) and should allow more flexibility in the future should you wish to upgrade.

[Dos_Box]

I own a private school of english in Greece and I intend to equip all my classrooms with interactive whiteboards. I havent't madeup my mind yet, though, which brand name to buy : smartboard 600i, hitachi, or promethean? Can somebody help me out?

 

Please note we have deleted the post from Greece replying to this threa as it appears that the reply came from the same ISP as the orginal poster. This is of course very suspicious behaviour, and we frown deeply on non-authorised commercial use of the forums.

 

Dos_Box.

[laserblazer]

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts

[JA_Gonzalez]

we have 20 smartboards (teacher´s love it) and 5 polivision 600.. There´s a new cheaper smartboard named VULCANO ,here in Mexico there´s a special prize right now 3x2 for $1,500 dlls.. we only had one problem with one mothercard of polivision

[maniac]

Smartboards can be used with anything, fingers etc

 

hitachi and promethean require the use of their pen and theyre more acurate for it, but you'll have to make sure not to lose the pens because they're expensive to replace (~£100ea)

 

Promethean pens are different to the hitatchi ones. The Hitachi ones run on AAA batteries and are a nitemare and very expensive to replace. The promethean ones are passive and don't have a battery and are thus very cheap to replace - we pay around £10 a pen and order 10 at a time.

 

The Promethean boards are very hardwaring because they have a hard surface which is difficult to damage - that's the main reason we opted for them, but I understand the smartboards can be more intuative to use although I've only used a smartboard once it did work well.

 

It very much depends on the situation as to what board you want to opt for, they're all pretty good at what they do.

 

Mike.

[NewOrder]

Has anybody looked at the interactive software that means only a projector, no board only a wand and pen!

[JA_Gonzalez]

we have 20 smartboards (teacher´s love it) and 5 polivision 600.. There´s a new cheaper smartboard named VULCANO ,here in Mexico there´s a special prize right now 3x2 for $1,500 dlls.. we only had one problem with one mothercard of polivision

 

the correct prize is $3,000 for 3 vulcanos (SMART) boards.

 

TRAINING is the key for technology investment

[markzilla]

generally people did not opt for Hitachi Starboards in the past because they felt that they may not have had the support readily available, and have opted for Promethean. If you're familiar with Promethean, they have a monstrous site full of free resources. But Hitachi have upped their game recently and have created a resource ready support website for teachers. You can check that out here:

Interactive Whiteboards - Hitachi Starboard Community Website

 

I think all three major IWB manufacturers have their strengths, it all boils down to the preference of yourself or the educational institution you're working for, really.

[vikpaw]

Is this completely free? and what is your affiliation to the site and the company? please declare. thanks.

[Dos_Box]

This is a site owned and run by Hitatchi as well as offering and selling products and as such constitutes as using the forum for commercial purposes. Please respond to the queries Vik has raised or else we shall have to pull your posts.

[dhicks]

I think all three major IWB manufacturers have their strengths

 

I think the sudden explosion in the number of tablet computers available makes equipping a new school with IWBs rather pointless - just buy all your teachers a tablet, make sure you have a decent wireless network, then use the tablet to control each classroom's front-of-classroom display. For resources, I'd stick with third-party content capable of being used accross multiple hardware, avoiding anything that can only be used on one particular brand of hardware (Powerpoint is still about the nearest we have to a universal IWB format).

 

--

David Hicks

[markzilla]

haha... forum police. I like it. Just spreading the word, not selling the product - I have joined and it is free. The site is actually there for hitachi users, like promethean... from what i've read, there need to be more resource websites made available for IWBs. but hey, feel free if you want to pull it.

 

and Dos_Box... how are they "selling" products? I believe that constitutes 20% of the site's general purpose, don't you think? I think the company has run it as an initiative... by no means am I trying to make them sound saintly. Check the tech support page, mate!

 

anyway, it's there for anyone who needs it. that's all.

[psydii]

Hitachi/GTCO pens can be got much cheaper than stated above, you've just got to convince one of your regular suppliers to give them to you at cost.

[bodminman]

We've started to use Eno boards and they're great. Software independent so we have teashers using whatever IWB they're comfortable with.

[Jay_Jay]

We stopped buying promethean boards and now use Ebeams which have been great, the pens are very hard wearing but can cost £60.00 to replace, which I would charge to the department.