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I'm going nuts.. Did I dream that Teams had a whiteboard mode for the webcam that understood what a whiteboard was and would magically erase the person that was using it?

Hi Just wondering what the terms are for Smart Notebook 10 and staff licensing exactly? I am sure they allow staff to get it at home but do I just give them the key we use? Cheers

weird one here, According to a teacher they have been showing the class educational videos on an interactive whiteboard for almost two years but in the last two weeks the video only shows up on the laptop screen and not on the interactive whiteboard where there is just a blank space. The teacher first had this problem with realplayer and so switched to windows media player which worked for several days before having the same problem. Have tried resolution changes, setting the board as primary display and fiddling round with different players but suspect possible p.i.c.n.i.c meanwhile the teacher is blaming me any ideas?

Hi, I have a maths teacher who uses his Promethean Activboard all the time, but finds he often needs to recalibrate during the day, particularly after a reboot. Although the accuracy will drift off during normal use as well. Also, even after calibration the mouse pointer matches up with the pen-tip when he uses the left-side of the board, but is about a centimetre off at the right-hand-side of the board. I have never debugged one of these boards before so any advice or ideas would be welcome. He's using Win XP. -- Simon

Near the SmartBoard in my classroom there's a severe notice warning against using whiteboard markers on the board. But on an old SmartBoard doc I found on the web, it says it's fine. There's the normal advice about removing permanent ink - the scourge of traditional whiteboards. Is there anything about more recent SmartBoards that justifies banning the use of the board as a regular whiteboard, using regular whiteboard markers? I don't like signs that frighten teachers away from using technology. When they're already fairly technology averse, it's the last thing they need. Unless, of course, there are valid reasons for that prohibition. Cheers.

Hello, Does anyone use the Lynx Interactive Whiteboard software from Sahara (Lynx PDI Educational Software)? We are looking at using this as it works with multiple interactive products rather that being tied into a set board provider. I'd be interested in your thoughts good or bad.

anyone got this yet? The option doesn't appear in my teams.

I'm looking for recommendations for hardware-agnostic interactive whiteboard software. Our current situation: Most of our classrooms currently have Hitachi whiteboards installed, running their Starboard software (I know they've now sold it off). As classroom projectors reach end of life, we're likely to replace with touchscreens. We don't want to get tied down to a particular brand; this is a very long term project and we don't want to find ourselves up a dead end. What we absolutely can't do is buy Brand X screens with their own software one year and then Brand Y with their own different software the following year and end up with different classrooms having totally different user experiences. What we'd like to be able to do is roll out one standard piece of software across all existing and future classrooms that will work on older interactive touchscreens as well as new touchscreens. We had a very unsuccessful trial of Oktopus on our first batch of touchscreens - the teachers hated it. We replaced that with Hero which they're getting on a little better with. Those using Starboard in the older classrooms get on OK with that but there isn't currently a site licence option available for that. I'd love to be able to say "Here's a list of the features that the teachers want in their interactive software" but that's not something I've ever been able to get out of them. Unhelpful I know! Smart and Promethean are not in the running because of their licensing arrangements. It seems like there's a huge gap in the market for a standardised piece of software available on a site licensed basis but I've yet to find anything suitable. Can you recommend anything?

We have recently taken 5 Interactive Promethean whiteboard down, we are looking to get rid of open to offers Collection in person. I think that the model is Active Board ABV387S300 Specifications This is what the boards look like and this photo is only for reference. Thanks Nathan

So I always heard from teachers and such at the school I once went to about having to be careful with those interactive white board pens, because they're very expensive and such (seriously, how much do people pay for these things? I see Promethean pens for £12 a piece on one site). Well, in reality, you'd be shocked to see what's inside them, part of a little project I'm doing involving a standard pen from the guys you all know and...love(?) includes completely taking apart one of the things, so I thought I'd share my findings with you guys, someone's bound to find it interesting. I managed to get hold of a dead pen to experiment with, whether it's still dead when I'm finished with it is left to be discovered, might actually work when I'm done, that'd be pretty nice. Step 1: Removing that excess plastic tail: http://twitpic.com/show/thumb/2eeyek.jpg Maybe that's where most of the money is, in the excess plastic that only serves as a bit of comfort and to make the pen look a lot bigger than the innards? And you find this... http://twitpic.com/show/thumb/2eewpt.jpg Not much to it, I must say... Step B: A bit of plastic mutilation later and you find this bit under the other side of the ring, that red button is the barrel, as an FYI. Lots of lovely pink wire coil there, no doubt it's coated in pink stuff to scare people away, or perhaps to make it not move one inch unless you unravel it (and boy do you regret it...) http://twitpic.com/show/thumb/2eex4s.jpg Under the tape there seemed to be some sort of brown thing, it looked suspiciously like chocolate from my point of view, unfortunately the camera wasn't very good, so it's rather blurry. It wouldn't surprise me if it was chocolate though. http://twitpic.com/show/thumb/2eex8f.jpg The unravelling... http://twitpic.com/show/thumb/2eexch.jpg At this point, I'm starting to regret what I'd done. Moreso here. http://twitpic.com/show/thumb/2eexfm.jpg The remains of the shell: http://twitpic.com/show/thumb/2eexwc.jpg What was left (had to remove the barrel button to get it out of the shell, not that I need that button) http://twitpic.com/show/thumb/2eeyek.jpg And of course, the mess. http://twitpic.com/show/thumb/2eejuj.jpg I'll keep you guys posted as I work on this, I decided to take a break from untangling that horrible length of wire without breaking anything (either wire or the contact with the board, I'm not that proficient in soldering...). Hopefully I can get this into a glove, with the coil in the index finger of the glove (without cooking the finger, of course). But yeah, your highly expensive IWB Pens are essentially a coil of wire in a plastic shell, always nice to know isn't it?

Hello, Great site. I am looking for software for an interactive whiteboard. Will be connecting to just one laptop. Apart from Promethean Inspire, is there any other software you can get to work on an interactive whiteboard? I am looking for software for a board to be used in Music classes. Is there any subject specific software for these boards? Thanks.

Hi We are looking into possibly moving to SMART based boards from Promethean due to problems with the drivers and general board reliability issues (posted in the forums previously) and I was wondering what schools were doing as a standard configuration for rooms. E.G. which board model? With rails (for moving the board higher or lower)? Extra speakers? etc... We like the idea of the corporate boards as they have the integrated non-pc mode which seems like a brilliant thing to have for us. I am just not sure what options are available for the board. We really need to have them rail mounted but it appears on the educational boards have this ability. Is it possible to rail mount it? What limitation/issues have you found with the corporate edition? What limitations/issues have you had with smart in general? How have you found the software? If anyone has both SMART and promethean, feedback would be good as well. Also where you do buy your from? locally or direct? and if so who does the installation? Cheers

Hi All, I don't know if anyone can help but I am quite desperate for this. I could really do with some firmware for one of the first original RM Interactive Whiteboards. I presume that these were made by Promethean and just re branded. Can't really find anything on the net so wondered if anyone had anything in a archive anywhere etc? Many Thanks Tom

Hi Folks, Having issues with Windows 7 and SMART Notebook 10.8 - the correct device drivers are installed via GPO with item level targeting. Issue is that now some of the units are picking up USB power (via the USB speaker hub) but not picking up the SMART product drivers (light flashes green). Intermittently users get a solid green light and are able to work ok. Users that have worked fine for several lessons are now reporting that the boards are unresponsive. Any ideas or similar issues?

Hey everyone, i am having trouble with our laptops not wanting to boot with the usb cable for the board plugged in. The laptops will not boot past post and they lock up. Once you unplug the boards and retry to boot everything boots just fine. Then plugging the board back in and everything works for the board. This however is a pain for our teachers to every morning do this. Some forget to do this and then the computer is frozen and they dont know what to do. Here is a list of thing i have tried and the model of computers we are using. Lenovo e550 Windows 7 ActiveTouch whiteboard I have installed the latest drivers for the USB and flashed to the most current bios for the laptop. I have turned off USB boot and set the boot options for usb to disabled for good messure I am at a lose of what is going on. We are also having another problem with the dual screen. We have the laptop screen then split a extended view with a vga splitter to another monitor and projector. However we can not control via touch with the extended view. I was told via Promethean support they do not support dual screens? Due to a problem with a long press being the same as a right click in windows world? The gentleman told me that it would be a quick fix with a patch but they currently do not plan on changing it? So basically Extended desktop control does not work? Any help would be appreciated! Thank you for your time. CJ

Can anyone recommend a Dry Wipe Whiteboard that is suitable for projection as well. Seen a few on the web, just wanted to check if anyone had some first hand experience. Many Thanks Tony N

Hi All, I have a new science block being built soon and we are looking at the configurations of the new labs. Obviously IWB's feature in all rooms, but after being round some schools and from my own previous experience, does anyone know of a manufacturer/reseller/disti that can do the whiteboard control boxes (VGA, USB, audio output etc) into the dado trunking, like a data point or a wall socket. We're trying to go for the streamlined look here, so if anyone has any good suggestions or *pictures* for different types of IWB boxes it would be greatly appreciated!!! Thanks in advance.

I've been developing some software over the last couple of years that was initially inspired by the limited choice of 'MIS-linked' whiteboard software that was available in lockdown. The software that I ended up using provided some of the features that I wanted but I couldn't tell whether my students were focused (or playing games), I couldn't easily interact with their whiteboards and I wanted them to be able to use my whiteboard as the basis of their notes but also to be able to allow them to annotate / extend my notes alongside their own work in real-time without being laggy. I personally think these features are still appropriate even now that we're out of lockdown - I still don't like facing a roomful of the back of laptops and it also seems very 20th century that I'm still using dry markers on whiteboards and mini-whiteboards in class today - rubbing out my words of wisdom every few minutes. The software has grown a bit since this first idea and includes a few other tools such as a meetings, duties, calendar and so on. I should point out that while this isn't a commercial product at the moment, I've set it up so that it could be at some point if there's enough interest. The issue at my own school is hardware - we have a policy of BYOD but the software doesn't make much sense without a device that has a stylus. The software runs on all modern browsers without anything special installed so iPads, Androids, laptops etc are fine but a stylus is definitely required for the VLE. I'd like to know whether there are one or two innovative / techy schools who might want a look with a view to trialling the software to polish it up. I'm going to run a quick demo in the Easter holidays and I wondered whether there was anyone who might be interested? I already have some ex-colleagues who now work at other schools coming along.