78" Whiteboard viewing distance

[Griffo]

A staff member has expressed a concern that the front row of desks in a classroom are too close to the whiteboard - a 78" Promethean and the front row is about 6 foot away, and I would agree with him. I think it's more of a case of pupils "drifting" the desks about the room during the day than the classroom actually being set up like that.

 

But does anyone know of any published guidelines or recommendations on the minimum distance for a board of this size??

[maniac]

I'm not sure that there's any official guidelines. As a general rule, if the students are having to move their heads a lot or look steeply upwards in order to see the whole board, then it's probably too close. Also depending on the type of projectors you have, if there's any danger of them being in the projectors beam when standing up at those desks, definitely too close.

 

We have one or two smaller rooms where the desks are in my opinion a little too close to the board, but we advise the teachers to use the desks in at the very front of the room only if there's no other room.

 

Mike.

Edited March 2, 2011 by maniac
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[Griffo]

Thanks.

 

I didn't think there would be any official guide lines

 

if there's any danger of them being in the projectors beam when standing up at those desks, definitely too close.

 

But that is the sort of rule of thumb I was looking for!!

 

Going by most of our classrooms there are not really any desks further forward than the projector anyway, just the odd one or two.

[DarrenC]

A guide for the image quality is to sit 4-5 screen widths away from the screen. I know this is not practical in classrooms, but I would say as far back as possible in most rooms is preferred.

 

I dont think there's a guideline for sitting too close however.

[philwaterhouse]

There are no guidelines but a HSE told me that they prefer to see the first seated person no closer than the diagonal of the image. If the screen you are using is a 78" diagonal then you should ideally have the first seats further away than that.

 

Hope this helps.