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Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
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Ten years ago, I was a High School teacher and when my school got SmartBoards for every classroom, I was frankly rather skeptical. In fact, I don't think I used the SmartBoard at all in the first year. By the second year I was using it 10% of the time and as the years went on, I used it more and more. After 8 years I did almost everything on it and even had the traditional passive whiteboard removed from the room. It is really an incredible technology that allows you create educational activities in advance (even at home), do amazing interactive things spontaneously in class and then be able to capture everything you did and give it to the students.
I am now at the brand new Connecticut Science Center and, of course, I wanted to get this technology for our classrooms. "SmartBoard" is the brand name for particular brand of Interactive Whiteboard and there are lots of other companies that make this type of product now. Frankly, the Interactive Whiteboard made by the SmartBoard company is very expensive compared to the products of some other companies, so I was looking for similar capabilities at a better price.
Two technical issues I wanted to avoid were that the SmartBoard worked with a touch sensitive membrane and was susceptible to damage and the projector mounted on the ceiling in front of the board and thus shined in your eyes.
We finally settled on the Hiatachi CPA100 DuoFX77 system. This had a projector mounted directly above the 77" diagonal board that would not shine in your eyes and the board used IR and UltraSonic sensors to detect the position of your finger as you were writing, thus the board surface was strictly inert and was damage proof.
We bought 3 of these systems and installed them.
1. The installation video and the mounting template seem to differ somewhat in the distance between the board and the projector. It did not seem to be a problem, but you are given slightly different instructions.
2. Because of the extreme angle of projection (from directly above the board) the projector uses a curved mirror to distort the image so it then appears perfectly correct on the screen. However on 2 of our 3 projectors the mirror seems to be misaligned and so the image in the screen is distorted. We are waiting for an MRA from Hitachi so we can return these units.
3. All 3 of the boards seem to warp with changes in humidity and/or temperature and thus stop working. We were told that we need to attach a special sliding bracket which will allow the board to move as it changes shape. We are still waiting for those brackets.
Frankly, I had picked Hitachi because I thought I would get a better quality product than from some smaller company I had never heard of, but maybe I was wrong (or just very unlucky). Hopefully we will get all these problems fixed and we will have 3 great systems, but right now, I am very unhappy.
-Jake Mendelssohn
Connecticut Science Center
Hartford, CT
-----Original Message-----
From: Informal Science Education Network [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Cole, Susan Lynn
Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2009 5:32 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: smart board technology
ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
*****************************************************************************
We have grant money for major equipment purchases for the Children's
Library Discovery
Center:http://www.queenslibrary.org/index.aspx?page_nm=DiscoveryCenter
now under construction. We are interested in "smart board" technology.
I have seen these in action, but only had the opportunity to play
briefly with one a few years ago. A bit of web research turns up a
dizzying array of products. Does anyone out there have experience with
these? We would appreciate hearing recommendations, cautions or any
useful advice from those of you with more expertise.
Cheers,
Lynn Cole
Interactive Exhibits Supervisor
Queens Borough Public Library
89-11 Merrick Blvd.
Jamaica, NY 11432
Ph: 718-990-0858
Email: [log in to unmask]
www.queenslibrary.org
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