Widescreens in classroom?

[dsk]

Hello Guys,

 

Was wondering if anyone has started moving to widescreens in your classrooms. Im finding the prices of 17" ans 19" screens quite silly to the point where you can get the widscreen versions for almost half the price.

 

Also, how many of you go for the hard glass options?

[nickbro]

We have widescreen monitors in our ICT Suites, but in the class rooms the pc connected to the projector is still the 4:3 variant

[Achandler]

We have had widescreens for ages, there has been times where 23" widescreens were cheaper then 17" standards... crazy

[localzuk]

We use widescreen laptops, but have 4:3 smartboards. In my new school, they have started a program of replacing old smartboards and projectors, and the new gear going in is always widescreen now.

[twin--turbo]

about 3 years for widescreen.

 

we used to buy hard fronted for a short while, but after working out the cost difference and the rates of loss it did not stack up cost wise.

 

Rob

[Earthling]

Had widescreens here since 2006, when we installed the first of our present IT rooms. All our laptops are widescreen.

 

We've got some Sunray 270's and 2's that aren't widescreen. I've been pushing to have them replaced with 3's and 3i's, however, I am but a lone voice in this wilderness of early 21st Century computing...XP workstations, 2003 servers, XP laptops etc., and I'm fast losing the will to work it all.

 

[Steve21]

Widescreens on every pc pretty much (Except a few of our very old ones getting replaced next year).

 

Steve

[dsk]

Awesome guys, thank you!

 

I should have asked in my first question, what size resolution of widescreens are you going for? Any brands in particular you are favouring?

[FN-GM]

We have widescreens in some rooms. Some rooms we dont have enough desk space to fit them.

[jamesfed]

Have only just started replacing our 4:3s with widescreens - in all honisty the monitors we've got have been going for 7+ years with no issues and are only putting replacements in to make sure we have some stock for any that blow up.

 

All the same a recent fresh install for a primary we did (with old CRT screens) was all 21.5" BenQ LED wide screens and they look great

[Steve21]

We have widescreens in some rooms. Some rooms we dont have enough desk space to fit them.

 

Curious how Our 19 inch monitors are pretty much exactly same size as keyboard (But we give a lot more space in first place), or do you use mini keyboards etc?

 

Steve

[Earthling]

@dsk We started off with Haans-G 19", running 1440x900, but the last couple of rooms we've re-furbished have been Dells, with accompanying 22" widescreens. Not sure what res they're running on, I suspect the same 1440x900.

 

I could go and check for you, but it's Results Day and I'm keeping the lowest of low profiles.

Edited August 23, 2012 by Earthling

[Oaktech]

We are essentially 19" or 18.5" widescreens in all offices and the mac suite, but 4:3 in various guises elsewhere - essentially this is legacy not deliberate. However untill we go for 16:9 whiteboards the PCs connected to them will remain 4:3 as the staff will only get confused as to why it looks different.

 

Oh, and we don't go for hard glass as the little darlings knock them on the floor and smash the glass. We have some legacy Xerox hard glass and we are trying to phase them out.

Edited August 23, 2012 by Oaktech

[K.C.Leblanc]

Curious how Our 19 inch monitors are pretty much exactly same size as keyboard (But we give a lot more space in first place), or do you use mini keyboards etc?

 

Steve

 

He's probably referring to a widescreen whiteboard.

[sonofsanta]

First widescreens went in a couple of years ago when we replaced a lot of computers, I was sitting in an IT room testing something on the first day back and smiling to myself as girls kept coming in saying "oh my god WOW that's bigger than my TV at home". Which was nice.

 

Well, tell a lie, we had a handful of 19" Hanns-G monitors at 1440x900, but I've been putting 1920x1080 21.5"/22" LGs in since, mostly. This years batch (only 31 to account for slight expansion) are Hanns-G at the same size & res. All soft glass because, thank the gods old & new, this is a nice school and I've never known a monitor get damaged. Brilliant.

 

I would prefer 1680x1050 but it's bloody hard work to come by these days :/

 

All our smartbaords are 4:3 though, so where a classroom has widescreen monitors the teacher machine has a Radeon 5450 or similar in and runs two monitors, a widescreen and a 17" that clones to the projector. Works remarkably well, actually, and most teachers are absolutely fine with it once they've been shown how it works.

Edited August 23, 2012 by sonofsanta

[twin--turbo]

Some of our old Glass monitors were just that, and although they stopped the preasure damage the got broken when knocked over. And that left shardes of glass the size of daggers lyign arround classrooms.

 

Rob

[Guest Guest]

90% of ours are now 21'' 1080p widescreen (probably 100% by the end of the year). As soon as widescreen projectors hit a decent price point I will be putting them in. ATM we find the best compatibility/compromise between native projector and monitor resolution and make do.

[localzuk]

First widescreens went in a couple of years ago when we replaced a lot of computers, I was sitting in an IT room testing something on the first day back and smiling to myself as girls kept coming in saying "oh my god WOW that's bigger than my TV at home". Which was nice.

 

Well, tell a lie, we had a handful of 19" Hanns-G monitors at 1440x900, but I've been putting 1920x1080 21.5"/22" LGs in since, mostly. This years batch (only 31 to account for slight expansion) are Hanns-G at the same size & res. All soft glass because, thank the gods old & new, this is a nice school and I've never known a monitor get damaged. Brilliant.

 

I would prefer 1680x1050 but it's bloody hard work to come by these days :/

 

All our smartbaords are 4:3 though, so where a classroom has widescreen monitors the teacher machine has a Radeon 5450 or similar in and runs two monitors, a widescreen and a 17" that clones to the projector. Works remarkably well, actually, and most teachers are absolutely fine with it once they've been shown how it works.

 

Wish we didn't get damaged TFTs. We went through about 15 in the last 6 months.

[speckytecky]

Not Hansprees then! We had a load of them and annoyingly too many have gone u/s not so long out of warranty. Strange defect the power light flashes a series of blue and yellow, got a feeling it was an internal fuse issue but they seem almost impossible to open up.

 

Have only just started replacing our 4:3s with widescreens - in all honisty the monitors we've got have been going for 7+ years with no issues and are only putting replacements in to make sure we have some stock for any that blow up.

 

All the same a recent fresh install for a primary we did (with old CRT screens) was all 21.5" BenQ LED wide screens and they look great

[SYNACK]

22" Widescreens here, no sence in buying anything less due to cost differences.

 

Be careful about vertical resolution though, we get at least 1020 vertical res, lots of the cheap -shocking- 19" ones have a stupidly low vertical res of 720 or so which just does not give you enough room to do much and is stupid when you think about how much power is in modern PCs, the screen is the visible workspace and small screens encourage small thinking.

 

All of our Office staff have dual 1920x1080 22" LCDs and use all the screen realestate without taxing the hardware. Bigger screens and they multitask more with the computer and less with their brains.

[FragglePete]

Same as everyone here really, Widescreens replacing standard 4:3 monitors, except for teacher machines as these are hooked up to projectors that are 4:3. We're keeping the stock of old but decent 4:3 monitors for these teacher machines. 4:3 monitors are now a lot more expensive than widescreen.

 

Our current batch of Ilyama ProLite 22" monitors cost something like £89 a piece! Bonkers.

 

Pete

[SYNACK]

We generally run the projectors as a second monitor rather than a dupe so the 4:3 does not matter and it is way better for usability too as long as the teachers can see the whiteboard too. One control screen and one display, helps with data protection two when they insist on bring up SMS stuff while attached to a projector as it is on their screen rather than the wall.

[Oaktech]

We generally run the projectors as a second monitor rather than a dupe so the 4:3 does not matter and it is way better for usability too as long as the teachers can see the whiteboard too. One control screen and one display, helps with data protection two when they insist on bring up SMS stuff while attached to a projector as it is on their screen rather than the wall.

 

This is a huge problem for us, and we seems to have a high proportion of non-tech-savvy staff. We have trialled dual head graphics cards and staff can't get their heads around it, which is a shame as we can buy dual head graphics cards for less than the VGA splitters!

 

We have had instances of staff accounts being compromised when staff have brought up password boxes and been overlooked entering credentials. We are instituting a training program to try and comabt this, but as it is an optional cpd workshop the worst offenders won't come as they don't want to know.

[SYNACK]

This is a huge problem for us, and we seems to have a high proportion of non-tech-savvy staff. We have trialled dual head graphics cards and staff can't get their heads around it, which is a shame as we can buy dual head graphics cards for less than the VGA splitters!

 

We have had instances of staff accounts being compromised when staff have brought up password boxes and been overlooked entering credentials. We are instituting a training program to try and comabt this, but as it is an optional cpd workshop the worst offenders won't come as they don't want to know.

 

Yea, ours are mostly connected to staff laptops and under W7 when they hook them up they get given a little picture list of dupe or split. Luckily most have been trained into it when they made the switch to Vista and got 'this new funny screen' when they plugged in a projector. Its easier with static computers and you can 'train' then with a dual moniter setup Widescreen and a 4:3 with a Y to the projector. Do one common room like this and they can get the feel of it.

[pmdc199]

Our your computers upto full Hd or are people running lower resolutions on 21 and 23 inch monitors.